Getting young people into decent music reproduction

I was chatting to a couple of young guys on a plane, they were26/27 had a decent job ,living in a nice part of London, we were talking about ipods and music ,I asked them what they listened to at home, they said they had the best ipod dock in the store , they seemed genuinely shocked when I suggested that they could get a much better sound at home, it was though if it wasn't in the Apple Store it just didn't exist.
Especially now when a pair of active speakers and a Macbook can give you such a good sound for the money, how do we spread the word?
Keith.

 

I fear the HiFi industry is it's own worst enemy.

We have people faffing about with turntables, agonising about which is the best amp (even thermionic valve amps!) and indulging in the fantasy that loudspeaker and even mains cables can make a difference;and all the time refusing to embrace new technology.

In the meantime the young have embraced digital sources for music and are very happy with computers of all sorts.

The first group needs consider how clean a digital source can be; and the second group needs to understand how important the final transducer - the loudspeaker is.

One company has tried to advance this cause, and has had some success; but has introduced it own set of antagonisms to the project. That is a pity.

We need a range of domestically orientated active speakers with DACs ready to receive input from Windows, Linux and Apple computers. We need these to be well marketed at sensible prices, and we need HiFi dealers and other retailers committed to selling the idea to the young.

It is a great shame that the iPod user (who knows such clarity from the use of upgraded in ear phones) has so little opportunity to hear what is possible when high quality speakers project that clarity into a room.

My son straddles both groups. At 24 he is a computer literate professional engineer. He grew up with decent HiFi in the house. He has brought friends home who have listened in utter amazement to my "sound projectors". After a few seconds of jaw dropping silence they have said "But it's there."

I weep for the industry, but I weep more for the young who are being short-changed; who think they can have clarity in ear, but in room can have no better than an iPod dock boogy box or a pair of poor computer speakers.

 

Ashley has really been his own worst enemy but the principal is good, in Munich I was looking at some PSI pro audio monitors and they sounded great, I met the designer of Klangwerk Loudspeakers who make really attractive active loudspeakers ( and uses the PSI amps ) and the new TD Eclipse range looked and sounded good, all of the above would fit seamlessly into a smart modern home, with just a Mac/dac as source.
Keith.

 

Keith I totally understand your concern. My daughter loves her music but listens to it on crap PC speakers. Although she has music playing all the time she finds it wierd that I chose to sit and listen to music, absorb it, analyse it, engross myself in it. Even the young professionals I work with dont aspire to anything beyond a Bose system (yes even the Mac users). Its like they know there is better out there but its not up there in the list of lifes priorities and not something they particlarly aspire too. If anything many of them would rather spend thier money on a big TV and play poor quality downloaded .avi files on it so when it comes to music mp3s and ipod appear to all some people need.

There is no reason why music shouldn't be enjoyed in either form, its just a shame that quality still evades the masses.

 

I think that many young people are already into high quality music reproduction.

The iPod and associated explosion in MP3 players has actually raised quality standards for the vast majority of young users.

Go back a few decades and they'd be using dreadfully compromised budged audio components at home, and even more dreadful portable tape players for music on the move. Old bottom of the range analogue kit was usually pretty dreadful.

Today, the quality of sound is largely governed by the software and I'd suggest that the fundamental capability of an iPod with a reasonable pair of buds is far superior to the old junk many of us started with.

 

Kieth

Ignoring the fact that maybe most people don't place so much emphasis on the perceived realism of the music they listen to; I think that it is a question of opportunity.

I'm sure most people are interested in replicating the quality they get from their MP3 player + 40-quid earbuds in a domestic setting. However I would contend that most people never encounter any easily available alternative to the 'best in store' idocs.

Whilst the more obsessive of us know what is out there, most people don't and they have little opportunity to learn.

The lack of HiFi stores with visible shop fronts is one problem as is the market penetration / availability of quality active loudspeakers. In the volume driven world of consumer electronics, even the likes of PSI may struggle to sustain the stock levels required by the big online retailers or high st chains that most people shop in.

Other potential areas of exposure are your Lads / Lasses mags, newspapers and t'interweb, all of which like to maximise their advert revenue by going for the known-brand features '10 est ipod docks = B&W, Creative, Apple, Bose'.

I haven't seen a single HiFi shop in the UK with a big window display saying 'Make your IPOD sound 100 times better', surely that's a no-brainer?

 

Hi Guys and hi Keith

I am fortuanate enough to be young and know what the market has to offer in terms of digital music reproduction (along with a tip from Keith on a hiface between my mac and dac for spotify) I have always built my system since the age of digital streaming around such items a slimservers and sonos and before then decent outboard pc cards.

I do not and have not for ages owned a single cd player or TT and my reason for doing so was space and I like things neat and tidy, I just hate it when someone posts a pic of their rig sat in a tattyish room with cd's and lp's everywhere. I want somewhere welcoming and comfortable where I can sit down put my feet up and hold a small screen in front of me and choose whatever I want to listen too from an attached server (qnap) without having to get up and change discs or complain because someone has left one out on top of the cd player!

I think the mindset for this form of listening is set around ipods and overpriced small docks, which are great for the kids bedroom but for anyone who wants a satisfying main living space sound they are confronted on the high street with the good old favs that offer basic docks no bigger than a pack of smokes that they then plug directly into whatever stereo sytem they have at home whether it is mid or high fi the added benefits are just a small bit of times research away!

I would personally rather just pick up my sonos controller and sit on the sofa or turn the 50" on and pick up the mac remote for spotify than have to mess around with that awful itunes and then have to sync up my ipod then dock it and then create playlist or keep getting up to pick a new track.

On the other hand if thats ur thing what are most people left with a £4000 rig say pop in a cd and wow....sounds great, pop ur ipod into some crappy dock and its.....what the....! Digital music reproduction and accompanying software and hardware has moved on so much these days u could spend the same amount on an ipod and a dac or sonos dac or mac etc as a cd player in ur budget and have better sound, greater flexibilty and more options.

I do feel that some people are still afraid of technology cos they think it will be too complicated but if u are interested and wanna learn u'll learn, it human nature.

There should be someone with a banner in there shop window saying 'come in and plug ur Ipod into our system and we can make ur tracks sound like u have never heard before' (along the same lines as scott said)

 

Agreed Rob.

The problem is convincing such iPod owners that is worthwhile to spend serious money on on a "sound projection system" - DAC, amp and speakers, or a one (two) box solution - active stereo speakers with internal DAC for direct connection to a computer, iPod or other device.

Apple is not particularly helpful in this - there is a digital output from the shoe of the iPod, but it is locked and a licence fee from dock makers is required to unlock it.

Very few manufacturers have paid this fee; nevertheless, the analogue output from an iPod' internal DAC can be very acceptable.

If Apple Stores sold high quality active speakers in Gucci White from the likes of Genelec, we would have a start.

 

Perhaps if they were not expected to spend indecent amounts they might consider decent music production.

Lets face it, you are asking them to trade the universal acceptabillity of an ipod and after market buds for the bitching and back biting that can exist in the world of 'decent music reproduction'. They can be forgiven for opting to stay where they are and let the wierdo's slug it out! When they have the time, space and inclination to try something more involving, I am sure they will just as we did.

 

Agreed, but the pro music shops offer kit that can beat HiFi shops at the price

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-Active-Studio-Monitors-Pair/dp/B001RTLX18



The HiFi industry needs to wise up.

 

The vast majority of modern mainstream music will sound worse on a high resolution system.It is has been recorded to be listened to in a car with the loudness switch and sub turned up or on a docking system with speakers two feet apart.
Of course much of the popular music of the past was also poorly recorded.

 

So what brings u to that conclusion then my system sounds sweet, and I am using a sonos or spotify

 

I don't think it matters to most young people anymore than owning a high quality watch would to me. I just have no interest in anything that costs more than a tenner. My daughter, has just passed her grade 8 singing and is planning to do a music related degree. She listens to a broad range of music and at the moment mainly classical whilst she revises for her AS exams. She has been brought up around good quality hi-fi. She really has no interest in the reproduction despite her musical bent. I suspect she may enjoy music more than I do.

It's a minority interest.

 

help them out, its down to you... yes you !!

my nine year old listens to music on a sanui amp through mission speakers.
his source is his xbox 360.

sounds great!

how about your kids?



**edit** that lot cost me about £40... excluding the xbox..

 

I'm glad someone else has noticed that. I have a few friends who are musicians of various sorts and none of them cares one bit about 'hifi'. They are deadly serious about music but completely uninterested in quality reproduction at home.

I always thought it was strange.

 

Perhaps too many audiophiles listen for the wrong things at home?

Liking smooth and silky treble is all well and good, as is clean and nimble bass and pin-point imagery etc, but this is often very much at odds with how music sounds in real life or in the studio.

 

Bring on the sackbutts and crumhornes!

Good for clearing the wax from ears!!

 

back to the point of introducing young guns to hi-fi, my personal view is that dealers ignored the caring of this theme long time ago, never the salesmen or saleswoman gave a hoot about young people who came through their doors to dream of one day to buy that piece of audio that are saving every penny to one day afford, no time was spent on them, hence the fact that they chose a different route,
nando.

 

The indifference goes further than that, Nando.

I was in Sevenoaks HiFi a few months ago. The shop was empty on a Saturday afternoon. I wanted to listen to a pair fo Spendor SA1s. They had other Spendors in the shop, but had no interest in getting a pair for me to listen to, though I guess one of the the other store branches would have had a pair.

Just down the road Richer Sounds the road was packed with folk of all ages.

For those not familiar with the UK, Richer Sounds is a cahin of AV/HiFi shops that sell a good range of equipment at very attractive prices.

And has an internet business

http://www.richersounds.com/

Sevenoaks HiFi is a chain of more traditional shops

http://www.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/