analog

Grado Labs is located in a small, four story building in the Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn, where Joe Grado started making phono cartridges in 1958. John Grado (Joe Grado's nephew) took over day-to-day operations right after he graduated from college in the late 1970s, but he started working at the factory when he was 12 years old. The little company was producing 10,000 cartridges a week (520,000 a year), so everybody pitched in to get the orders out on time. The CD eventually lowered demand, but they currently turn out 60,000 cartridges a year, and … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Carolyn LaHorgue might seem like the type of teenager who would embrace digital technology. She designed her own Web site, is a Facebook aficionado, and is planning to study media and communications at New York University this fall.

Yet the 17-year-old, who lives just north of San Francisco, totes around an artifact right out of the 19th century: an analog camera that uses actual film. "It represents the individualist lifestyle," LaHorgue says.

LaHorgue is not alone. Teenagers are leading a kind of backward transition, leaving digital devices behind, at least temporarily, for technology their grandparents pioneered.

Classic film cameras, such as Holga, Diana, Minolta, and Nikon, are being chosen over smaller-than-your-fist digital point-and-shoots on the theory that it's cool to struggle with manual aperture settings. Or it's rebellious to scope out the best lighting for a shot.

A popular clothing chain among teenagers, Urban Outfitters, has picked up on the trend and now offers more than 60 product combinations relating to cameras, which are overwhelmingly film-based. … Read more

The analog vs. digital debate has been raging for nearly three decades, and there's still no clear winner, because it's really just a matter of personal preference. I'm fine with that, but there's a lot of sniping in the analog/digital wars, and each side never misses an opportunity to put down the other side as misguided, deaf, just plain stupid, or worse. Each side claims its chosen format is superior and the opposite's is garbage.

I'm an analog guy, but I'd admit that analog's distortions, speed variations, and noise/hiss make … Read more

For the most part, computers do a pretty good job of keeping accurate time, but every now and then they need some help. AnalogX Atomic TimeSync is a simple utility that lets users sync their system time with time information retrieved from the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, a government agency that's part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Although it's a fairly basic program, some of its features are more intuitive than others.

The program's interface is plain, with boxes displaying the local time on your computer, the network time retrieved from the server, and the … Read more

The Eight Track Museum opens on Monday in the Deep Ellum arts district of Dallas. If you're under 40 you may have never seen or heard an 8-track audio tape. The 5.25x4x.8 inch plastic tape cartridge was big and bulky, but it became wildly popular in cars in the 1960s. An 8-track cartridge contains a continuous loop of quarter-inch tape. The ends of the tape are linked by a metal foil splice, and the tape is divided along its length into 8 channels, or tracks (hence the name).

Bucks Burnett, 52, is the force behind the creation … Read more

It looks like it's turning into the year of the next-gen gaming handhelds, now that Sony's rumored PSP2 is expected to be announced on Thursday, right on the heels of the Nintendo 3DS event last week. Though it's not a surprise that sooner or later a new PSP would emerge, the real question is whether it can recapture any of its lost market share.

It's an interesting time for the venerable and somewhat struggling handheld game market. Smartphones and low-priced apps have become a more popular gaming platform for many. What makes a PSP2 any better … Read more

Energy analogies abound with respect to cloud computing and its effect on enterprise IT operations and economics. Nick Carr's seminal work, "The Big Switch," laid out the case for why computing will be subject to many of the same forces as the electricity market was in the early 20th century. While I've pointed out the analogy isn't perfect, I will say there are often interesting parallels that are worth exploring.

One example is the ongoing discussion about the effect of cheaper computing on the reduction (or lack thereof) of future IT expenditures. Simon Wardley, a … Read more

If you like modern gizmos but still hold a place in your heart for the gear of yore, you might go for a new decal that makes your iPhone look like an old Polaroid camera. It sells for $6 at Photojojo, which promises that the sticker's easy to apply and remove, and won't leave any residue. It's also supposed to guard your device from scratches, but don't expect any heavy-duty protection from dings and drops.

The decal, which is specially designed for the back of the iPhone 4, assumes the look of a Rainbow OneStep Polaroid … Read more

I thought it would be fun to contrast and compare the tubes vs. solid-state debate with the analog vs. digital standoff. I'd readily concede that solid-state/transistor components are, watt for watt, cheaper, more reliable, cooler running, smaller and lighter in weight. But if solid-state is so terrific why haven't tubes become extinct in the half century since transistors came onto the scene? Maybe, just maybe, because tubes sound better?

Ultimate AV Magazine recently conducted a poll, "Do You Prefer Tube-Based or Solid-State Audio Gear?," and the results demonstrated a nearly two-to-one preference for transistors over … Read more