tester wrote:...but that 1% of people is more important than the rest of 99%
"More important" in what sense? A higher fidelity audio system is not going to cure the world's political problems or provide healthcare to the millions who cannot access it.
I am not saying that higher fidelity should not be available to those who have a real requirement for it - for example, for purposes of research into possible medical uses of sound, of course should be encouraged. But the limiting factor for most consumers of music is usually environmental or economic rather than anything intrinsic to the currently available technology.
But my (possibly incorrect!) reading of the context here, is that the large corporate bodies of the music industry merely wish to foist yet another format upon consumers who lack the training to understand that their everyday experience of music will not be improved to any great extent. As with CD, the investment will be in technology rather than the encouragement of musical innovation.
As for the video argument - no I don't buy it at all.
It has not improved the content, only the "gift wrap". The advances in resolution and CGI have not enhanced the emotional range or coverage of controversial subjects in any way at all that I can see - from my UK perspective, I would say precisely the opposite. For example, documentaries now explore their subjects in a far less thorough fashion - preferring to endlessly repeat a handful of sensationalist cliches while the budget is spent on uninformative CGI instead of real journalism.
It is precisely because the content has become so overwhelmingly vacuous that I no longer possess a TV.
And Star Trek - no IMHO it has not improved. The original series was truly innovative - a Russian and Chinese sharing a spacecraft with Americans at the height of the Cold War - a black woman in a position of responsibility on the bridge, at a time when race was the most contentious domestic issue in the USA. The scenery and costumes may have been tacky, but that was very brave film-making for its era, so soon after McCarthy's purges of Hollywood. Now it's themes and motifs are indistinguishable from any other "space opera" - hell, they even still portray space craft as emitting audible sound as they swoop through the vacuum - and far too loudly if my recent experiences of the cinema are any kind of indication!
Similarly the depiction of the macabre aspects of warfare can be more viscerally portrayed - but what widely distributed film has tried to show the experience of the people in eastern Europe who suffered at the hand both of the Nazis and Stalinism? Very few - all this technological "progress" has not changed the USA/UK centred point of view that ignores the fact that 90% of the fighting and suffering in Europe occurred on the Eastern front.
At the end of the day, either we choose to suspend disbelief and immerse ourselves in the story, or we don't - just as we would conjure an image in our mind's eye when reading a good book. If we wish to engage our imaginations, then the artifice of the "special effects" or visible pixellation becomes irrelevant - our minds have ample power to fill in the details.
First time I saw "Bambi" as a little kid, it made me cry; over a hand painted strip of celluloid - the emotional engagement is in the content much, much more than in the presentation.
For me, the true power of new technology is in the way that it opens channels for collaboration, and puts creativity in the hands of anyone with a PC at their disposal - creating possibilities for cross-fertilisation and innovation. It surely produces much dross too - but it allows the artist not "conventional" enough to access the corporate media an outlet for expression that is accessible to anyone curious enough to seek it out.
New content and new ideas - not just a clearer pair of rose-tinted spectacles.
(and there are some truly ugly people on TV sometimes - i really have no desire to see them in greater detail!
)
Rant ends.
Plus - sound perception goes beyond ears. You don't notice the difference without having a reference, but if you have the reference - usually you never look back.
Good answer!!