How long for perfection?

When we started PS Audio in the early 1970's there was only vinyl and tape, though it's safe to suggest for most Audiophiles, it was all vinyl. Few of us had fancy tape decks. Vinyl was just then coming of age, nearly 100 years after its introduction. It's instructive to remember that what you and I might consider a decent turntable wasn't available until the early 1970s. The Linn Sondek LP12 launched in 1972, right about the same time as AR started shipping decent tables too. And these tables were launched 95 years after Edison's first Gramophone was introduced. The LP12 is a great table for it's day. It is hardly today's state of the art. From 1972 to 1982, huge strides were made in turntable, arm and cartridge performance—improvements that are ongoing even today. And we could even suggest that the pinnacle of vinyl's rule crested in the mid 1980s, 105 years after the idea of scraping a needle through mechanical medium to produce sound was invented. The LP, still in use today, was launched the year I was born, 1948. Do the math. 34 years later, in 1982, the Compact Disc was launched. If it took 68 years to get vinyl reproduction where it is today, why would anyone be surprised it would take half that time to get CD reproduction right? Are we so arrogant as to imagine we're smarter now than we were then? So impatient for perfection it surprises us when it takes more than a couple of years? If you want to learn more about the introduction of the player that finally brings the promise of CD into the present, head here and watch the video. Product pages and info located here as well.