Associated with the songs, momentous or not, let's have a look at the technology of the 60s and 70s.
Between 1964 and 1974 I had the privilege of working with Stefan Kudelski, whose company was the leading Nagra audio portable tape recorder in the world. We did vast amounts of research and studies on recorded sound quality by nearly every means. At the beginning of my experience there, commercial audio recording was exclusively on analogue magnetic tape. This was not a strictly linear technology and consequently introduced a certain amount of harmonic distortion. This was of course incorporated into the vinyl discs of the time.
At the time, some excellent amplifiers were produced with minimal distortion, including the Leak and, above all, the Williamson. These both relied on the KT 66 beam tetrode as output valves, although the loudspeakers of the day didn't quite measure up to them. Nevertheless, the audible sound quality from top-end commercial vinyl discs was very good. I still have a goodly number of them, some excellent some less so.
Towards the end of my stint with Kudelski, 12-bit was coming in and, with some jiggery-pokery, produced reproduced sound which was superior to the analogue sound. I have one vinyl disc and a number of early CD discs with the really excellent sound quality, way above that of the traditional 33 LP, dating from the mid-70s. In fact, some of them will give modern sound reproduction a run for its money. Today, of course, decent sound is digitally recorded at 16-bits and mastered down to 12-bits on CDs which, in my opinion, provide superior sound quality than 16-bit recordings, because of really skilful mastering.
The big problem today is probably still at the level of the loudspeaker. In the 1970s, a decent loudspeaker system would weigh anything up to a hundred kilograms with the most excellent transducers. These were fine for professional studios but hardly suitable for home use. I still use speakers which I bought in the 1970s, top of the range, home use types, fairly large by modern standards and weighing 30 to 40 kg each. I have never heard better from modern compact speakers, although I have cloth ears! Today, of course I cannot appreciate their sound because of age-deterioration of my hearing. Notwithstanding, I shall not change them for smaller models.
As an ex-professional in the art of sound reproduction, and as an engineer, I claim that much of the publicity of facts and fiction has always been a load of twaddle. For example, some users still rely on the old KT 66 valves (tubes) and claim that their sound quality is far superior than with semiconductor amplifiers which do not have the nonlinearity in inherent in vacuum tube technology, thanks to massive negative feedback. They forget that amplification is only one of many means to an end. If I were to go into more technical details, for example about amplifiers, this article could be 10 times longer. I am quite prepared to state that at least 90 percent of the publicity around sound equipment for the home is generally hype. This is not to say that you cannot buy a decent sound system at a reasonable price, but the prices often unreasonable for the level of quality that is offered.
I could go on for hours dictating just a little of what I know from experience beyond hi-fi but I am sure that Dominic would have kittens trying to read it all!
