The future of Hi-Fi - Singularity?

[Vladimir]

How will our hobby look like in 30 years? Will it exist still if Ray Kurzweil's Singularity happens? Will KEF produce nanobots and neuroimplants that play music perfectly inside our brain?

a future period during which the pace of technological advance will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed... The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual.

Ponder, ponder...

 

[ID.]

All in our heads you say?

at least it takes the room out of the equation and I can get sufficient bass response to replicate the sound and experience of massive taiko drums playing in open space like I have just been to see at a local festival. Such bass, so transient response.

 

[The_Lhc]

All in our heads you say?

at least it takes the room out of the equation and I can get sufficient bass response to replicate the sound and experience of massive taiko drums playing in open space like I have just been to see at a local festival. Such bass, so transient response. 

But you won't feel it in your chest though, it'll be missing that visceral quality.

 

[The_Lhc]

How will our hobby look like in 30 years? Will it exist still if Ray Kurzweil's Singularity happens? Will KEF produce nanobots and neuroimplants that play music perfectly inside our brain??

a future period during which the pace of technological advance will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed... The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual.

Ponder, ponder...

With neural implants bypassing the mechanical parts of the ears at least you can listen as loud as you like without damaging your hearing.

 

[jjbomber]

How will our hobby look like in 30 years?

On the finance pages a few weeks ago, it was reported that of the 30 biggest technology companies in the World 30 years ago, only one is still in existance. So our hobby will look like something that hasn't been invented yet.

 

[Vladimir]

All in our heads you say?

at least it takes the room out of the equation and I can get sufficient bass response to replicate the sound and experience of massive taiko drums playing in open space like I have just been to see at a local festival. Such bass, so transient response.

But you won't feel it in your chest though, it'll be missing that visceral quality.

All external sensoric information can be simulated inside the brain. More viceral than any reality.

 

[nopiano]

The brands may not change much, but the ownership might! How about Leak, made in Brazil; or Linn from India?!

As for singularity, I was imagining everyone with a Muso or Phantom, given the trend to single box devices

 

[Vladimir]

The brands may not change much, but the ownership might! How about Leak, made in Brazil; or Linn from India?!

As for singularity, I was imagining everyone with a Muso or Phantom, given the trend to single box devices

I know more people with 5.1 than with table top music centers like the Mu-So.

 

[drummerman]

Everything else will have changed but vinyl will still be played and cyrus still use the shoe boxes. Abrahamsen amplifiers are now the size of a house and have their own sub powerstations. The price will of course still be the same. Boggit/iQ will personally install and bless every one.

 

[Electro]

Everything else will have changed but vinyl will still be played and cyrus still use the shoe boxes. Abrahamsen amplifiers are now the size of a house and have their own sub powerstations. The price will of course still be the same. Boggit/iQ will personally install and bless every one.

*good* *lol*

 

[Al ears]

....and CD's will still be around.

 

[Vladimir]

 

[drummerman]

You are the only one that understands me

 

[Covenanter]

I suspect it will again be something to do with storage capacity. When I first went to work for a major UK bank in 1974 the mainframe computers they had (Burroughs) had 100MB of hard disk, each the size of a washing machine (and 50KB of main memory) and they cost ££££££. Now my NAS has 3TB, is the size of a large book and cost less than £200.

I envisage buying a device which has every piece of recorded music on it which is updated daily with new releases. To use it you buy licences which allow you access to individual recordings.

Chris

 

[Vladimir]

When I first went to work for a major UK bank in 1974 the mainframe computers they had (Burroughs) had 100MB of hard disk, each the size of a washing machine (and 50KB of main memory) and they cost ££££££.

Something like this big boy.

 

[CnoEvil]

At the rate Vinyl is going, we will have gone full circle!

 

[The_Lhc]

I envisage buying a device which has every piece of recorded music on it which is updated daily with new releases. To use it you buy licences which allow you access to individual recordings.

What would be the point of that? By the time storage gets that small mobile data connections will be on 6 or 7g, an always available, always on, ultra-high speed (500Mb/s or greater) connection that will render local storage absolutely irrelevant. The phone as we know it will be a thing of the past, a tiny, wearable device with wirelessly linked earphones and virtual display, gesture and voice control, it won't need storage as everything will be online (bit like a Chromebook but not crap).

 

[davedotco]

Something like this.....

 

[The_Lhc]

You missed "tiny" then?

 

[Thompsonuxb]

Lol....it never ceases to amaze me how some boffinistic blowhards gain credibility.

The Star Trek, the original series mind, not the next generation references are about right for what the future holds.

Gene Roddenberry was genuinely a visionary.

Thing is none of the artificial 'enhancements' to date have benefited mankind.

Artificial organs internal and external will give another 10yrs or so.

Plastic surgery, viagra, silicon implants all short term fixes the deteriorate or just #@?! you up eventually.

Considering the last 50years not much has changed.

WiFi, Bluetooth really just q better use of radio.

Television - really no improvement bad weather or a tree can mess up your viewing.

This guy Kurzwell reads like a wannabe Steven Hawkins who's not much cop either....
I won't even say imo.

Singularity....prrrrft!

 

[Frank Harvey]

I envisage buying a device which has every piece of recorded music on it which is updated daily with new releases. To use it you buy licences which allow you access to individual recordings.

Maybe one day, but there are a lot of people out there who still want physical media and will still buy CDs and records. The only reason I personally would commit to such a service is if you only pay once to access any single piece of data, the quality is a big improvement over vinyl/SACD/DVD-A, and it is guaranteed to be available for at least the rest of my lifetime. As none of those points can be guaranteed, I will continue to buy physical media.

 

[Frank Harvey]

What would be the point of that? By the time storage gets that small mobile data connections will be on 6 or 7g, an always available, always on, ultra-high speed (500Mb/s or greater) connection that will render local storage absolutely irrelevant. The phone as we know it will be a thing of the past, a tiny, wearable device with wirelessly linked earphones and virtual display, gesture and voice control, it won't need storage as everything will be online (bit like a Chromebook but not crap).

But will it though?

We all imagine the future, and dream of what will be, but there will come a time when technology will hit a virtual brick wall. Many debate the benefit of higher bit rates. And if we can't even improve upon the humble loudspeaker, how much better can sound quality get?

 

[Vladimir]

We all imagine the future, and dream of what will be, but there will come a time when technology will hit a virtual brick wall. Many debate the benefit of higher bit rates. And if we can't even improve upon the humble loudspeaker, how much better can sound quality get?

Why such a skeptic about technology?

"Moore's law" is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years.

 

[LDTM]

Read something recently about Moore`s law hitting a snag and tapering off. The ability to increase computer processing power is a function of building smaller and smaller transistors. Trouble is, once you get down to the level of transistors only a handful of atoms across (can`t remember the actual number) uncertainty begins to take over and it is difficult to measure where the electron is.

Some people are looking at stacks of processors as a temporary solution but the fundamental problem persists. Quantum computing looks promising but is still in its infancy.

As a result, whilst Moores law has been a powerful observation tool, its applicability to future scenarios appears to have been lessened.

 

[Vladimir]

Will Artilects* be able to reliably tell differences between cables in unsighted tests?

* 21st century technologies will enable the building of artilects (artificial intellects, artificial intelligences, massively intelligent machines) with 1040 components, using reversible, heatless, 3D, molecular scale, self assembling, one bit per atom, nano-teched, quantum computers, which may dwarf human intelligence levels by a factor of trillions of trillions and more.

The Artilect War: Cosmists Vs. Terrans by Hugo De Garis