Planned Obsolescence--It’s Same Old Tune

While the manufacturers of digital compact cassette and mini-disc equipment busily promote their new products in your article, “New Sound Formats May Herald End of Venerable Cassette Tape” (Dec. 6), the impact of these developments on consumers of serious music are ignored. I do not limit “serious music” merely to classical music, but also include jazz, blues, Broadway shows, folk and ethnic music, the Beatles, and any other music whose popularity endures for more than two years.

I have an extensive collection of vinyl records, cassettes and CDs. Already I have difficulty obtaining needles for my record player. I do not look forward with joy to developments that will impair my ability to keep my cassette and CD players in repair. Nor will I be happy having to buy newer equipment just to expand my collection of music.

If “psycho-acoustics” delivers only what is heard, then it fails to deliver the total experience of music. Part of the appreciation of good music includes feeling the deep bass. Another part is in the dynamics that raise music from the inaudible to a crescendo and then lower it back to the inaudible.

Also, if psycho-acoustics relies on the hearing abilities of the largest segment of music consumers--the teen-agers and young adults who are fans of popular rock--recorded quality can only decline, because that segment already suffers from permanent hearing loss caused by over-amplified music focused into their ears by headphones.

Except for high-definition compatible digital, which is compatible with existing CDs, these new products represent a form of planned obsolescence for existing equipment. Now that the market for cassette and CD players is saturated, the manufacturers refuse to accept the resulting decline in sales. Instead, they will ask us to abandon music collections accumulated over many years for existing equipment and buy new, incompatible equipment.

Since Sony and Philips are also significant producers of recorded music, and not just the equipment, they may succeed in foisting their new products on us; all they have to do is refuse to issue new recordings in the old formats.

I’m glad I never bought any eight-track cartridges.

DAVID E. ROSS

Agoura, Calif.