I had this exact same conversation on facebook earlier. This is what I wrote.
"Imagine a vinyl record that has 30% more capacity, 30% greater volume, and double the audio fidelity of a typical LP sold today." Ummm, Didn't they say the same tired **** about CD's and look where they are now. Records been around for a long time, and ain't going no where. Oh an 30% louder, What is that about ? That's what caused most of the problems with CD to begin with.
True dat. I smelled something fishy with that article. I forwarded it to Fremer when it hit the news a few weeks back, so I bet he'll have some comment on it once he investigates. (And if they aren't forthcoming with information? Well, then...that rat we smell
is a rat...in faux high-def clothing.)
Anyway, my own take on all this (which I've discussed privately among friends):
1. Their idea of "sculpting" the waveform to "optimize" it reeks of digital manipulation. How is digitizing an analog signal "high definition"? Granted music originally recorded digital is being cut to vinyl all the time (and even was, back in the late 70s). Yet do we need the signal even more manipulated? I think not.
2. Analog is the highest definition there is. Arguably, 45 RPM resolves a little better than 33-1/3, so there is that. (Same as a faster tape speed is capable of better sound.) But regardless, an analog signal is a pure waveform which has not been "decimated" (sampled for digital, or in other words, chopped into thousands of pieces each second).
2A. CX- and dbx-encoded records are not "higher def" records--they are noise-reduced records. And not very good sounding ones at that.
3. 30% more capacity means the grooves are packed tighter together. 30% greater volume means louder, which means the grooves need to be spaced further apart. See a problem yet? One is the inverse of the other; one can't do "more more more" of both. If by louder they mean "brickwalling the snot out of it," then that's even worse. And it doesn't even need a patent. I've seen a standard record cut with 35 minutes on one side--Harry Connick Jr.'s
Lofty's Roach Souffle. It ain't pretty. It is cut at a really low volume. A lot of surface noise creeps in. Kind of a wonky listen.
4. Records aren't broken; don't fix them. The technology has worked since the days of cutting in wax and pressing in shellac. Aside from cutting all-analog and improving pressing plant quality, or perfecting the perfect-tracking tonearm, there isn't much left.
5. This whole "high def" vinyl thing seems like a marketing game. It's been slapped onto video and audio releases already. Hey! Let's do it to vinyl, too! Maybe it'll sell well among the hipsters and the clueless, but all of us who are into vinyl suspect this half-baked idea isn't what it seems.
6. I don't buy the whole "cost savings" thing. New technology is traditionally expensive. Not only that, if they expect some raging mass conversion to their "way" of doing it, who is going to pay to retrofit existing pressing plants? New plants are not magically going to pop up out of the ground because they invented this process either.
I'm looking forward to someone with real insider knowledge of the vinyl industry to find out what this is really all about, so we can stop guessing. I just don't see it being more than some fudging and marketing trickery going on...
