Transmutation

There’s an increasing use of digital techniques to encode analogue signals all around us. Despite what I wrote about Digital Radio, it doesn’t necessarily have to be worse than the analogue FM broadcasts – it all depends on what the broadcaster does. And while there are plenty of Hi-Fi buffs who detest digital per se (“CDs can never sound as good as LPs”), I’m not one of them. I’m quite happy to buy CDs instead of continuing with analogue LPs.

In preparation for our move to the farmhouse in April, I’m currently transcribing my old LPs and tapes into digital form and storing them on computer hard disc and DVDs. This will have the twin benefits of saving us some precious living space and allowing subsequent archive copies to be made without further degradation of quality.

It’s been a fascinating wander down memory lane during the transmutation process. I’m hearing things that I haven’t heard for years. For example, yesterday I heard radio plays from the BBC from the early 1970s – Penthesilea (by Heinrich von Kleist, adapted by Robert Nye), The Hero Rises Up (with Paul Daneman and Fenella Fielding) and Cries from Casement as His Bones Are Brought to Dublin (by David Rudkin). And I came across some tape recordings that I made some 35 years ago of organ pieces played by a university colleague. l made the recordings on my trusty Revox A77 recorder, which, when I fired it up yesterday for the first time in 20 years, performed as well as ever. The Swiss built those machines to last.