This paper investigates what has happened to the many transistors used in digital audio engineering. Improvements in signal quality have certainly accrued but advances in ease of use, reliability, availability, serviceability, power consumption, delay and cost have far outweighed, from a practical standpoint, advances in audio quality. Many examples are given, a novel signal visualization technique is described and, based upon the history some predictions are made.
(See document for exact affiliation information.)
https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=12935
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