What is on Your Mind?

Hi all...

I wrote this poem 10 years ago, thought you all might like it...

Analogue or Digital.

I decided to nip this in the bud,
Before it comes to court m'lud,
Digital or analogue I ain't sure,
But this discussion is now a bore.

Who cares if its 14, 16 or 24 bit...
Digital encoding on modern kit,
All that matters is your pleasure,
Not the things we seem to measure.

Let me see now, who is old,
Over 50 and going bald,
Deaf in one ear like a lot of us,
Or maybe suffering from tinnitus.

What about over 40 and going grey,
When your audio bandwidth starts to stray,
Spiralling downwards towards 10 Kilo-Hertz,
Because your ears are blocked with all the wax-works.

Now lets try 30 where line scan rings,
Upsets your hearing on other things,
This whistle drives you totally mad,
And distorts all the quality from your Hi-Fi pad.

How about 20, with cash to spare,
You buy your GHETTO BLASTER without a care...
In the world, to whom you might upset,
With loud ~BOOM BOOM~ music? I would like to bet.

So I've now reached 10 and all kids bop,
To anything that plays modern pop,
Compressed to the limit to make them ~jive~,
They start doing it from the age of 5.

Who cares whether a recorded piano is correct or not,
All that matters is the pleasure you've got,
From listening on your wind up player,
With 10 Inch 78s, what a slayer.

Digital noise or analogue flutter,
To listen for these you must be a nutter,
Phase distortion far or near,
Why worry when you're deaf in one ear.

Beat note and IM products are a thing of the past,
So I'm told by the wide and the vast...
Majority of experts in this field,
When Amp's are ~linear~ and give lots of yield.

So many formats past and present,
To make your listening very pleasant,
CDs, DVDs, and Mini Discs are but a few,
LPs, 78s and Tapes ARE in there too.

People still listen to their ~Glenn Miller~ sound,
On 78 records that sounded nice and round,
Also on their valve wireless sets,
Of 40s vintage or on their Dansettes.

During the 60s playing 45s,
Was more than enough to make our lives,
Happy and content with what we had,
An HMV radio-gram, when I was a lad.

No one cared about harmonic distortion,
All they wanted was the main portion...
Of the music that they could recognise,
Not the scratches in the background that create many ~lies~.

There is the matter of when you're pissed,
You certainly won't want to listen to Liszt,
Good or bad quality you don't care,
Any sound will make you go spare.

As I have never heard ANY digital jitter,
Is it on a re-mastered Gary Glitter...
Album so I can get some inclination,
Of what to STRAIN for in relation.

Accuracy is not the prime mover,
Just like vacuum cleaners are NOT a Hoover,
No one person's hearing's the same,
Most hear quite well, but some ~hear~ lame.

Frequncy bandwidths from 20 down to 8...
Kilo-Hertz from youth until late...
Age when your hearing becomes impaired,
And you know it can never be repaired.

Your stereo separation starts to wane,
And your stereo balance now becomes a pain,
No amuont of adjustment from your digital stack,
Will ever be able to bring that all back.

So even with the best gear that one can buy,
And accuracies of conversion that do not lie,
Measured with the best test equipment to allay our fears,
REMEMBER!, it is always down to the individuals ears.

(C)2005, B.Walker, G0LCU.