The technology that allows any room with an electricity supply to be bathed in sound at the flick of switch and turn of a dial, is perhaps one of the most significant advancements in the history of music and culture. The revolution that began with the phonograph and more recently given us surround sound, is still going strong.
Nowadays acoustic technology is so advanced that aside from the décor you would have a hard time telling a sitting room from a symphony hall in terms of the sound quality modern stereos can generate. For music afficioniados this has inadvertently opened up a can of worms because many of the most revered performances were given before the advent of digital technology. And as anyone who has listened to an analogue recording knows, the frustrating common denomenator amongst non-digital sound recordings is an annoying hiss, like the sound of air streaming out of a flat tyre.
