Producer T Bone Burnett reveals he’s developed a new high fidelity analogue audio format - the first major breakthrough for analogue formats in 70 years. The creation has now been tested by Bob Dylan, who re-recorded some of his classics in order to test out Burnett’s new technology. These recordings, however, are not yet available to the public.
The new disc format has been dubbed Ionic Originals and was described as a painting by its creator. “It is lacquer painted onto an aluminum disc, with a spiral etched into it by music”, he states in the press release. “This painting, however, has the additional quality of containing that music, which can be heard by putting a stylus into the spiral and spinning it.”
T Bone Burnett hasn’t given out many other details about when or how the consumers will be able to actually play these discs, nor has he mentioned how much they might cost. However, the producer has also stated that Ionic Originals will be released and distributed via his new company, NeoFidelity Inc.
A long time advocate of analogue audio, Burnett has previously supported Code, a high-resolution format suited for DVD players back in 2008. John Mellencamp released “Life, Death, Love and Freedom” in Code in that same year.
When it comes to analogue formats, Burnett says the quality that elevates them above digital recordings is commonly said to be warmth. “Analogue sound has more depth, more harmonic complexity, more resonance, and better imaging”, he states. “Analogue has more feel, more character, more touch. Digital sound is frozen. Analogue sound is alive.”
The details surrounding the Ionic Originals are still a bit fuzzy, so there’s not a lot we can be certain of for now. In any case, we’ll be keeping an eye out to see whether or not this represents the major breakthrough in analogue sound that it seems to be.
