By George Petersen

TODAY’S HALLOWEEN, SO HERE’S A SCARY STORY… A while ago, I wrote about the need for manufacturers to spend a couple extra bucks on better-quality pots, switches, etc. to ensure more longevity in gear. Now i’m bugged by the idea of designs that create a built-in time bomb–just ticking down to destroy the stuff you have. Now whether this manufacturing obsolescence is plannned (shame on them) or unplanned (why didn’t someone think of this first), the effect on the end user is the same.

Last week, I pulled out a pair of JBL L26 speakers that I hadn’t used for years. These are really nice 10″ two-way bookshelves. After giving the oak cabinets a quick dusting, I pulled the grilles off and went to move a bit of dust on the edge of the woofer cone, and the foam surround crumbled when I touched it. I’ve heard of this “foam rot” condition, but this could never happen to ME—these speakers were never exposed to the sun, and were carefully stored in a home, but the malady is widespread, especially to speakers that are more than 10 years old. The sad part is that speakers don’t HAVE to go south with age—I’ve got two ’40s Jensens, two mid-1950s Altec 515Bs and a ’60s JBL D130—that are all in constant use with no ill effects, despite being 60/50/40+ years old. Yeah, I guess that butyl and foam surrounds are more compliant (at least when new) than their all-paper cone cousins—and there’s a fairly healthy business in third-party foam surround kits and re-foaming/reconing companies, but still…

In another example, I have (at least, had) a wonderful vintage Korg PolySix analog synth, that’s been a great studio addition over the past 20+ years, and when the onboard (soldered-in!) memory battery died, I didn’t lose much sleep over it. It couldn’t remember presets, but you could always twiddle a couple knobs and get what you needed, sometimes faster than walking through the presets anyway. But the REAL problem arrived when the aged batteries leaked, and since the main CPU is right next to the battery (another “great” design idea) the leakage trashed all the PCB traces going to the CPU and maybe that as well, so now it’s DOA.

At this rate, I wonder if there will be any legacy stuff left that you could pass to your kids and grandkids when you eventually get that call to track Jimi, Janis and Elvis. It might not be digital hardware, but it could be your Millennias or Massenburgs. It sure won’t be your plug-in library or your collection of music/DAW software unless your heirs still have a working Atari ST or really need a (NuBus) Pro Tools 3.0 rig. We can barely keep up with changing software mores right now with today’s Intel Macs and Windows Vista around the corner, much less having to worry what’s coming a decade from now. Sooooo….

When not working on Mix stuff, George Petersen records and performs with the SF Bay Area-based rock band ARIEL. Check ‘em out at www.jenpet.com.

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Is there too much planned (or unplanned) obsolesence?

Is the concept of legacy audio products still relevant?

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