They didn't use an acoustic coupler as in the image any more, you are correct ;-)
The noise was also still emitted by the more modern variants during dialing and connection establishment, and as I was reading the meme's text without paying much attention to the symbolic picture, I instantly thought of the standard 56k modem we still had.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Ahh.

The sound was also very different with the later modems. I started on a 9600 baud, and moved to 14400, 28800, and eventually 56k, and they all had different sounds.

[–] Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 days ago

My first one already was a 28k one, shortly after followed by the 56k one my parents then kept using for the next 15 years, so I don't quite share your unique experience here... :-)