Hi
In the thread about the piccies on my site was a discussion on whether audio quality had improved in the last 30 or so years.
Issues covered included the consequences to the sound recorded onto a CD because of the ~96dB/oct low pass filter at around 20KHz pruned the harmonics off frequences in the audio band. Despite the hype put out when CD's were introduced, the medium may have lower noise and distortion but sure as eggs is eggs a CD won't sound as nice as a vinyl of the same material.
In terms of numbers, audio performance has improved enormously. Taking Neve consoles, the noise and crosstalk figures on 51 and V series is vastly improved (quasi balanced bussing) on the figures you can get on a (constant impedance, voltage summing) vintage Neve... but which sounds nicer? A rhetoric question!
Money talks with production engineering and the choice of components, especially IC's, might be more governed by the predicted market price of the device than for performance or sound. There's exceptions to every rule...
So why are the 1272 and 1073 circuits ripe for cloning rather than a later and far more high performance IC based circuit?
Could distortion be a lovely thing?
