In class this week we ventured into a discussion about digitization. From the onset of the discussion, I was surprised just how little I actually know about our digital world. For starters, what does it mean for something to be digital? Professor Cutting explained that something is digital if you can count the number of symbols (commonly 0s and 1s) it uses to store and process data. This assertion left me perplexed, realizing that I may not even know what the Internet is and how digital devices work.

After class, I decided to do a little more research on how digital and analog technology works. My primary goal of this research was to ensure that I fully understand what I had learned in class, but I became fixated with digital vs analog music. The website TechTarget described digital as “Electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data in terms of positive and nonpositive states” also adding that “data is expressed as a string of 0s and 1s”. I was slightly confused by this because I remembered that professor Cutting told us that data did not have to be in 0s and 1s. With a quick search, Techopedia explained that this specific method is called the Binary system, and other, more complex, systems can be used. This cite also dug deeper into how these binary stands are transmitted. According to them, strands of binary data are known as bits, which are grouped together into what is known as bytes. Bytes represent digital data, which can be transmitted through fiber optic cables or satellites.

As a self-proclaimed music junkie, I have experimented with vinyl record players, and share the popular assertion that old records sound marginally better than digital copies. It was surprising to learn that analog devices (including record players) are actually more accurate than their digital counterparts. If the analog technology is more accurate, why did we switch to digital? The example that answered my question was a vinyl player. At this point, my research focus had shifted solely to music players. BBC’s Science Focus explained that “With vinyl, every single part of the analog wave is captured in those grooves, making it the only true lossless format.” Compare that to their explanation of digital data, “digital [data] cannot read analog sound waves, they are translated into digital signal and back into analog again, meaning some information is lost or approximated in the process.” The physical grooves in a record ensure that the listener will hear essentially the same note that was played in the recording studio. It makes sense that digital recordings and would be of lower quality since the data is being transformed from analog to digital and back to analog.

Back to my original question, why would we switch from the more accurate technology? The simple answer is that even though the quality of digital recordings aren’t quite as good, its good enough for most people to not be able to tell the difference. This minuscule difference in sound quality wasn’t enough to outweigh the convenience, catalogue size, and lower costs of digital recordings. Although they play the most accurate recordings, record players are not perfect devices, and the physical aspect introduces a new aspect – human error. Records could have numerous defects, are notoriously easy to scratch or break, and offer a very limited catalogue of music. Although some sound quality was sacrificed, I think we can all agree that technological advancements to music players resulted in a net positive.

Sources…

Burns, Verity. “Does Vinyl Really Sound Better?” BBC Science Focus Magazine, 16 Oct. 2020, www.sciencefocus.com/science/does-vinyl-really-sound-better.

Rouse, Margaret. “Definition of Digital – from Techopedia.Com.” Techopedia, 11 Oct. 2023, www.techopedia.com/definition/604/digital-definition.

Yasar, Kinza. “What Is Digital?: Definition from TechTarget.” WhatIs, TechTarget, 1 Nov. 2023, www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/digital.