Does the sound of hifi reflect the music of it's time?

Or put another way: has hifi changed over the last 40 years in response to the changing ways the music is made?

Leaving aside the fact that the distribution formats have changed, there has been a steady shift (in popular music most noticeably) from largely acoustic to heavily processed. Starting, I'd guess, with electric guitars and on to synthesisers, samplers and so on the machinery that makes the sounds has actually changed quite radically. Even relatively recent forms - electronica and so on - sound very different today to the way they did in the 80s.

So, does the way a designer approaches a new speaker or amp reflect what's actually being listened to, as opposed to a more hypothetical 'absolute' notion of good hifi?

 

I thought this was a good question, surprisingly not a single response. Let's see if we can bump start it.

 

I think the sounds of the time are more market driven nowadays. People are directly mixing tunes to sound better on ipod, can't disparage them for going for the core market. Case in point:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7004174.stm

I think speakers are more compromised now than they were back in the days of superior paper cones and the like. More in line with the missus's taste in decor really.

HIFI like many industries is technology driven. Technology gives the supposed marketing edge...sometimes for the sake of it!! However more and more people are going back to revisit the best of the last 30 years and thinking...hang on!!

I'll stop now cause I'm not sure if I've answered any of the questions...just ranting.

 

i believe it is the other way around.

music evolves to the technology of the audio industry - usually in the pro instrument market which filters down to the hifi industry.

 

hi, no I think hifi reflects fashion and trend rather than music.

A pair of 70's Tannoy GRF's would have a better stab at modern dance music for example than many of todays small speaker narrow baffle efforts...

that is to say, if you feel that 'bass' in dance music is an important part of the equation, and IMO it is.

 

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I read somewhere that speakers are considered the most contentious item of 'furniture' (note the classification) amongst couples. I'm obviously very lucky (200L cabs for the Tannoys have already been mooted and approved). However the serious point is that a good amp / source can look as good or bad as a bad one, but speakers are uniquely difficult in this respect: Once you decide how small they have to be, compromise is inevitable. Once you start compromising, those compromises will tend to reflect the expectations of consumers - if you want to sell boxes (that latest album, had better sound good or 'no sale'). I have more to say about this but I've drunk soime wine and I'm on a Buffy marathon.

 

...or even Lancasters. Big, clean and clear. Earlier this eveing in fact.

 

I think that depends on the designer.

 

having spoken to a few designers / pro tweakers i'd say they have their own favorite genres and use those to test their designs.
whenever i've been to bakeoffs or shows and there have been the guys who design and build the kit in attendance they've nearly always seemed to have very definite views on what constitutes good music . usually this falls into classical, jazz, 70's rock, 80's pop or more chilled types of electronica.
this is also reflected at shows where if you ask to play more upbeat stuff or harder electronica you either get a minute at most of listening time before it's pulled off and some nice safe dire straits, debussey, miles or if your lucky some simon and garfunkel (yeah baby) gets shoved on the system.
this kind of thing has meant that i'm less likely to visit shows now as the beardy, weak lemon drinking, stereotype with a bag full of obscure vinyl has become the industrys self fulfiling prophecy.
i'm now about a gnats cock away from flogging all my gear getting a nice b&o system to impress the ladies with and saying **** it to the whole thing. but i know i'd be back. so i'll stick with what i've got for now.
anyway back on topic - i don;t think the hi-fi industry moves with the times at all - but lags behind by 20-30 years or takes the softest of soft options.

 

I think for yer average set up domestic situations play a large part in some design form factors.
Smaller living rooms mean less space available for amps/speakers etc and must play a part.
Tannoy for example don't bother to advertise their Prestige range here and I think only have 1 dealer in the uk who stocks 'em-now if they didn't bother designing smaller ones they'd soon go out of business.With size reductions comes sound tweaks such as punchy reflex loading to get the most 'bass' out of small boxes which must then influence music production much as the mp3 player have.
Interestingly read somewhere that all those Fairlight samples on 80's records were only 8 bit.
AFAIK tho' the popular 80's Yammy DX7 sounded pretty much the same over my Golds in the 80's as they do now on my current 215's

 

Julian,

you just need some Funktion One Revolutions. That'll get the birds flapping.

 

i think there is increasing pressure to make components sound "safe" to allow them to work over a wide variety of material. You go back 20-30 years and there wasnt the extreme diversity of music you have today, and with some very odd styles out there, ranging from simple acoustical work, to massive heavy electronic dance, there is a need to have kit that can appeal to all people.

I suppose many companies trip up trying to create a jack of all trades, and master of none kinda kit. Even now you find kit that is definately far better with one genre than with others.

I listen to at least a few things from pretty much all styles of music, and i have massively eclectic tastes, as a result my kit reflects that. Ive tried to build a system that is as adept with classical as it is with the white stripes.

 

From a commercial standpoint the larger manufacturers are duty bound to design for their target market I guess and that would appear to go for producers as well when they come to put their mix together.
On the one hand manufacturers are blamed for eg bass getting tighter/drier/punchier etc but on the other the sound from a miked drum kit has got to be vastly different to a sampled/manufactured/tweaked drum sound. I don't listen to a great deal of dance but it just struck me recently that current output seems to rely (sweeping generalisation) on the 'punchy reflex loading' mentioned above and whatever else goes into current mainstream speaker design whereas the more 'low tech' 80s hip hop and 70s funk had far more breadth in sound.
The bbc article linked at the top of the page has some interesting stuff to say about the engineers at Motown for example.

 

Don't think Bach had HiFi.

 

No, but didn't Bach often publish several versions of pieces some of which were intended for performance in the home? So depending what instruments you had available you would hear a different version of the piece?

There is a recording of Brahms' German Requiem that's recent and is from the original publishers piano reduction - still with full choir - but for 'home' performances.

Not the same thing; but I don't think it's stretching the point too far to look at the links between what composers were doing and how that music was experienced in the home. I don't think patrons in the past were immune to 'upgrading' their instruments/musicians to keep up with the latest trends!

(Maybe if Tones has a train journey coming up he could do a hi-fi mag style review of the all new pianoforte?)

 

Mmmm, 80's HipHop favoured drum sound was the Roland TR808-not a real drum sound at all-we used to strap an Auratone to a real snare to at least get near a decent snare sound out of one ,while the Funkateers of the 70's would use 'real' drummers/kits and mic'em like a rock band.
Part of that Motown sound is due to heavy valve compression applied to all percussion-they were the original hot masterers-bane of cd reproduction today, except analogue/valve compression sounds nice.
Mark Ronson tried (unsuccessfully to my ears) to reproduce it on the Amy Winehouse cd but whatever he had was lost in the cd mastering which was a shame-cumulative compression-a bummer.