Getting young people into decent music reproduction

maybe we should be setting ourselves more of a challenge?

I had a friend round ( a lady in her late 30's same as age me), and her daughter, age 17) came along.

One look at my TAD 15" drive units in the 100litre bass cabs with horns on top, hulking to the side of the room like a big pair of daleks - and the mother said ''I'd NEVER have those in my house'' .. the daughter thought they were really cool though and wanted to hear music through them.

I think young people love music as much as they always have..

Over to people like us to spread the message that it's fun, easy, cheap, and rewarding to get fantastic sounds at home.

Bring them to ZG for conversion !!

 

may be it will have to be a combination of ideas,
A simple thought, but probably hard to practice would be for the ''brands'' to stop advertising to the converted, and group resources to advertise the idea of quality sound reproductiono. Boxes rather than cables and snake oil.

The dealers should maybe (generalisation) take there heads out of the sand and not be dismissive of the young. My younger son decided it was time to take the leap. Having been ignored in the local sevenblokes, and a local independent, he stuck his face in another, told the salesman he could just about about afford ?2.5 k for a cd player, amp and speakers. The silly bastard sits him in front of a system fronted by a ?3k cd player. Lets him listen to it for 20 minutes then says, do you think you may need to re think your budget. No, says my son, I either need to rethink the entire idea or rethink the shop.

A lot of ''dealers'' seem to lost track of the fact that they are a shop, not a guru of some type, and they have to compete with a ever increasing amount of ways to part with your spare cash.

To the dealers ?2.5k may very well be small change, to its a hell of lot more than the average denon rack system thing, and that simple fact seems to be lost on a lot of them.
________
red head girl Webcam

 

Hi,

I do feel that the Hifi industry has missed chances to promote itself. It has fallen down in the eyes (and ears) of the public.

Kids these days have many things to spend their parents money on. These items have mushroomed over the last 30+ years. Also alot of these items have become cheaper, more powerful and better to use.

Items such has computers, Laptopsa, i-pods, i-pads, mobile phones, mp3 players, televisions, dvd/blu ray players, satellite tv, game consoles etc. Also the fashion industry has grabbed them.

The hifi industry has been slow and poor to look at the young as future customers.

To be truthful, you don't need a hifi system to enjoy music. I got many hours of enjoyment, when I was kid, listening to radio Luxembourg under the bed covers. A lot of people I know who are into music don't really bother with hifi.

A number think hifi is too much hassle. The I-pods etc and headphones are the preferred way to listen to music by many young folk.

SCIDB

 

If the truth be know there is only one product left for the traditional HiFi manufacturer: an active loudspeaker suited to domestic circumstances - made to look right and sound right in the average lounge or bedroom,

I wish more companies would grasp this - rest of the equipment is now better made at a better price by ether the computer or pro-music industries.

 

There's a fundamental error here, one that cuts across all of audio.

Young people are not buying active speakers from pro-audio brands. Most of them aren't buying second-hand hi-fi at dirt cheap prices, either. They are using the earbuds that come with their iPhones, and maybe an iPod dock with speakers.

People mistakenly think this is a price issue. There is still a lot of low-price audio out there, a lot of which is sold through the likes of Richer Sounds. If you index-link the prices, they are considerably lower than they were a decade or two ago, so it's still relatively cheap to get on the first rung of the audio ladder. It's getting them on that first rung is the problem.

It's got nothing to do with a lack of interest in music, or the blandness of chart material - those who are into their music today are every bit as inspired and enthused by music as previous generations were. They simply don't consider playing music through loudspeakers to be an intrinsic part of their entertainment. For them, the personal and introspective nature of music means it's an in-head experience. The process of listening through loudspeakers is now reserved for gigs and clubs; it's a shared experience.

That is a fundamental shift in the way people enjoy recorded music, and it reduces hi-fi to a series of headphone-related footnotes. I'm not sure if there's a way back from that, at this time.

 

Hi,

I agree with this. The hifi industry has to try and get young people industry into hifi. It's not going to be easy.

SCIDB

 

I dont agree with this.

I agree that teenagers act like this at home.

In five years time, when they're sitting in the front room of their first 1 bed flat listening to music, is it still going to be through headphones?

I don't think so.


It probably is going to be through some shitty Ipod dock however.

 

Hi Chris,

One of the biggest bugbears in my job (teaching) is telling kids to take their earphones off and put away their i-pod, mobile phones, mp-3 players. They are constantly using them. They send each other the latest vtunes via bluetooth etc.

They have their earphones in during break and going to & from school. At home, they may listen to music via the computer/laptop. Youtube is popular. This is done by headphones or computer speakers.

In five years time most of these kids will be still at home!

SCIDB

 

trying to remember how old I was when I left home... 22? 23? you maybe right.

Make it 10 years then

 

In 10 years a lot of them will be deaf, if they continuously play their "music" at the sort of volume heard on the Tube.

 

How teenagers act at home sets the patterns for how they act when they leave the nest. And, unless they go to university now, they leave the nest so damn late now, that passion for music has started to wane in many.

But, you are right that many will listen through iPod docks and laptop speakers. Audio can't really reach them, but see how much excitement there is over at Head-Fi. That's hi-fi buffs a generation younger than the rank and file, really excited by hot rodding headphones and headphone amps.

 

personally i think that the crap music that is being produced and available on both web and media, i.e. record shops at redicuos prices for cd's that the youth have made as "trendy" trade of having the latest gadgets they can show off to their mates, download the lates hip from websites, i think that a way they can go to apreciate sound quality is via dab and vynil, maybe i am a dinosour,
nando.

 

its an unusual industry.

guitarists and their love of valve amps saved the tube, and meant we can enjoy it to amplify speakers today.

DJ's have to an extent involved a ressurgence of interest in vinyl and made it cool.

these are simplifications but it shows I think the interrelation of hifi with the real world and industry.


Taking myself as an example as a teenager I'd had a valve-based guitar amp, so it wasn't much of a jump to look at valve based hifi amps - although I questioned why anybody would bother at the time.

My own first hifi was from Richer Sounds..


Anybody similar?

 

Richer Sounds when I was 17 I had £3000 compensation and spent about £800 on hifi which at the time and compared to today was absolute pants! Eltax speakers and a Mordaunt Short sub, pioneer amp and a dvd as a cd with all gale speaker cable.

I then a couple years later had an Arcam 5 cd upgraded to a 6 and an Arcam Delta 290 int, with Mordaunt short speakers with Qed silver Anniversary speaker cable which gave me my first real taste of hifi at 20.

Since then I have muddled along with funds and different bits of kit and now I use a Sonos a Dac a passive pre and Class A monoblocks!

I have always had the taste for hifi but back then there were no alternatived to a cd player and an amp (TT not for me) where as today kids have the option of ipods, docks and pc downloaded music etc, I suppose it takes up less room in there bedrooms and is portable and it is also what is promoted to them, maybe as said earlier in this thread if hifi was aimed more towards the way youngsters want to use a source then they would be more inclined to use it when they can afford it!

 

TBH I don't think the problem is just with young people. My own situation is a good example. I'm 41, not young (but not old either ), but my interest in 'serious' Hifi has all but disappeared. About 5-6 years ago I had a system that was worth getting on for €5K and hifi was a hobby that consumed a lot of my time and a lot of my money, hey, I even started this forum!

However, for a number of reasons, I started to get very disillusioned with hifi and everything that goes with it. It started with the realization that the hifi cable industry is little more than a scam but I gradually realised that there really is very little audible difference between amplifiers and CD players, regardless of whether they cost €200 or €20,000. It's my view (and my experience) that the differences between loudspeakers, rooms and even listening positions totally overwhelm any other slight differences that might exist in the rest of the chain to the point of making them insignificant.

When I walk past hifi shops these days and see the four figure price tags on the equipment in the window I can't help but have a little chuckle at the 'mugs' who buy that kind of gear, remembering that I was once one of them. The hifi industry has a lot in common with the expensive watch industry, but at least the people who buy a €5,000 watch know that it doesn't tell the time any better than a €90 Swatch. They buy it for the looks or as a status symbol and at least everyone can see it when they wear it. Unfortunately most people who buy hifi systems costing thousands do so in the real (but misguided) belief that they are getting their money's worth in improved sound quality. You only need to look at the (often much lower) cost of professional studio gear to realise that it's all just a con. Hifi must be one of the only industries in the world where professional kit costs a fraction of what a lot of 'amateur' kit costs.

Apart from the many good reasons already mentioned in this thread, I think that 'young people' can see through the con that is the general hifi industry, and are just not buying it. Even most 'middle aged' people these days have an all-in-one DVD/CD/MP3 system which will give them excellent sound quality, for the very rare occasions when they have the time to sit down and just listen to music, where that quality makes a difference.

I myself have a Harman Kardon HS200 2.1 DVD/CD/MP3 all in one system, which I've had for nearly 4 years and I can tell you it sounds stunning. I know many people will be sceptical or think that perhaps my problem is that I became deaf, but I can promise you, if I put you blindfold in front of this system you'd think you were listening to an expensive 'proper' hifi setup.

My main listening these days is on my iPhone at work with some Sony MDR-EX70 buds (excellent) and at home the HS200 takes digital input from my iMac/iTunes via an Apple TV box. Occasionally I'll actually put on a real physical CD . I still enjoy music just as much as ever, actually probably even more so. It's just so liberating not to have to be thinking about the kit.

As to where the hifi industry needs to go I tend to agre with Labarum's posts about active speakers for the home.

Michael.

PS: Hello again to those who remember me :MILD:

 

Well on that note i'll make the first offer £10 for the forum if uve had enough of it

 

Pro-audio used to be considerably more expensive than domestic audio. Then both markets declined radically. Pro audio went after bedroom studio guys. Audio went after the rich audio buyers. They both went after these respective markets because they were the only growth markets.

Yes, there are people ditching good audio for cheaper integrated stuff. But that cheaper integrated stuff - which should be selling to newcomers - isn't.

I suspect your iPhone and Sony earbuds represents the high-end audio of tomorrow. Everything else is dead or dying.

 

Agreed 100% Michael, and hello

 

Hi Michael!

We met once , don't know if you remember

I was going to type more, but it's just good to see an old familar face. Welcome back home

 

I transferred the ownership of the forum to Mark Telkman a long time ago