My friend Gary wrote the following to me:
"When Edison introduced his first disc records and phonograph in 1912 - the Edison Diamond Disc - he conducted Edison Tone Tests around the country in which opera singers would sing live alternating with a playback of their Edison records. The reproduction was so good that audiences were unable to tell any difference between the live singer and the Edison Re-Creation of their voice. If it's the best you've ever heard, it's perfect. Until something better comes along."
The reading of those words sparked a memory of what those gramophones sounded like—"live" is hardly the word I would use to describe their sound. And it boggles the mind to think that anyone would confuse that scratchy noise with a live singer.
But then I am reminded of how people were frightened by the first films they saw. Frightened to the point of believing they were not only real, but some form of black magic that had come alive in the theater.
One look at those old flickering black and white movies brings chuckles.
Perhaps when the new thing is radically better or significantly advanced we are so gobsmacked as to leave the world of rational thought behind.
It's all relative.
