Is This The End Or A New Beginning?????????

may i just say how sad i am after all this years in the hi-fi industry and the enthusiasem we all had , not only thrugh retail but so much looking foward to "THE HI-FI SHOW" i for one think that as my self the show was very poor and yet there were some great young enthusiastic up and coming designers who brought a breath of fresh air to the industry "AUDIOSMILE" what you do think? do you all remenber or any thoghts,
nando

 

It was pretty quiet at the show but there have been even quieter ones in the past - it's hardly a surprise given the economic climate. The quality of the show wasn't that bad as a whole; a bit bland would be my biggest criticism. In the past, I've been to some appalling shows where bland would have been a most welcome breath of fresh air.

 

Thanks for the comment Nando. It was good to meet you at the show. For those wondering, Nando is as... 'lively' in person as he is on the forum!

I think one of the biggest issues with the show is the ticket price. How can you ask £12 a person? Each exhibitor is already paying nearly £2k to be there. IT needs to be £5 a person and then maybe more people, young people perhaps, would attend. There also needs to be less plinky music. I had quite a few people in the AudioSmile room when I put on Ice Cube's latest album

 

hi,simon, i agree totally with your coment, super speakers, also it was great to meet you, what can we do to revive the enthusiasem, ? towards this wonderfull entertaiment world of owers? love those speakers, hope you do well ,
nando

 

Here's a 'good idea'....Living Stereo !

 

Someone should have asked those Chinese air hostesses to bring their mates over and put them on the doors as welcomers, they were the highlight of the show for me.

Beginning of the end for me, the whole image is wrong, the location is wrong, the pricing is way off wrong, it's just so dull and drab, you could walk around it 30 minutes.

There are a few young/er companies out there such as Audiosmile etc, but they/we need a new image a younger fresher image and until that happens its downhill.

 

How do you get the 'new' generation interested in quality sound? They already like music, so its just a matter of getting them to care about quality.

I think it might be impossible given the poor recordings of nearly all new popular music But I don't like to be negative. There must be a way! Maybe we need to stop resisting multi-channel sound and start integrating music and movie replay better.

 

I don't think its just the new generation that are "not" interested in quality sound. It is a pretty niche market for the population in general. I mean the average person ( say on the Clapham omnibus) would not even have heard of brands like Arcam, Cyrus, Naim, Musical Fidelity i.e Sevenoaks brands, let alone more esoteric stuff

Part of the reason it is a niche market is price. To get quality sounds costs a bit more then to get average sounds. So people are happy to go with average as the increase in quality is not to them worth the increase in cost.

Where things seem to have got a wider appeal is in multi-channel AV driven largely by the A in AV, the emergence of digital TV.

 

I blame the big retailers, since they choose what brands to expose to the general public, selling someone a home cinema is something Joe Schmo can relate to, since they are never exposed to boutique hifi brands in the high street, but like the sound at the pictures, and its more family oriented than hifi. The big price concious names like Samsung, Sony and LG are all people ever see. Most people that have come to my house can't believe that you can buy my sort of stuff, let alone that valves are still modern.
People are content with cheese on toast everyday, since that is all thats on the menu.

Again with the music, most people are content with the herd instinct and the superficial, they don't think to dig a little deeper, music is just another commodity like clothes or perfume. Sad really. But again I think being prepared to explore new sounds is a function of the quality of kit you use, a voyage of sound, using a cruise ship rather than a dinghy!... Back to the Trafford Centre again ...

 

I would personally drop the quality aspect or not make it the main selling point, I think we should get the guys in the doors first, as make the price lower, have more entertainment, live band, young girls giving out brouchers and a smile on her face as you enter a room, my impression of the hifi show is old men carrying plastic bags around, hifi needs a better image, get the image sorted first and the quality will follow.

 

Why blame big retailers? They are interested in volume and not all of them sell crap. The margins on flat-panel televisions are terrible and what else do they have to sell that's even remotely interesting these days???

Don't blame Best Buy and Crappy City for the problem.

The audio industry couldn't market itself out of a paper bag, let alone convince people under 35 to spend money on an expensive hi-fi.

Engineers knows zero about marketing. They should focus on what they are good at.

The iPod was the single best thing to ever happen to the hi-fi world because it forced it to think about what consumers want, not what introverted audio designers think people should use.

It's a lifestyle issue.

Case in point...Wadia 170 iTransport.

I've owned some very good digital gear over the years, but I really like the concept behind the iTransport and being able to use an iPod. Does it sound AS good as the best digital I've heard and liked (top of the line Wadia, CEC/Audiomat/Naim)? No, but I can still use it with a solid DAC and it sounds excellent.

Let's put it this way (aside from my turntable or any valve amps I've owned)...no other product garnered a stronger response from any guests more than the iTransport.

"You mean I can plug my iPod into that and run it into my receiver and it will sound better?"

I'm 38 and have been deeply interested in music and high fidelity since I was a little kid. I know 3 people in my entire town (and there is serious money here) who have invested a lot of money into a 2-channel system. I know 3 people on my block who spent more than $20K on a HT.

People are visual. Nobody gives a crap about the sound. They want a pretty picture. It's a sad state of affairs, but it's reality. My wife didn't flinch for one second when I suggested getting a large plasma. When I suggested selling my turntable and getting a new one, she almost killed me with a pair of steak knives.

Between the two of us, we probably have 2,000 CDs and 2,500 LPs.

We own 1000 movies.

Guess which gets more use.

 

Strange that you in England cannot bring up a show like the High-End in Munich or the one in Milan.

 

Im thinking of a show I went to about 10 years ago. It wasnt hifi, it was guitars, basses, and amps mainly.

Apart from the usual makers - Marshall, Peavey, Gibson, Fender etc -

you had :

1) LIVE bands playing - 4 shows, a couple of hours apart - so you could take in a show.

2) celebrities on the stands, demonstrating products.

3) More competitions, more interesting demonstrations and comparisons.


The whole thing was a lot more young and sexy, hifi shows in comparison are like gimpy S&M hotel room sessions.

It's a shame, because playing music through a system should present a better event than looking at guitars on a static wall.

Lets take Naim as an example - why don't they have some of their label-artists perform on the day ?

 

I think I may have mentioned this in a thread a while ago but it's worth repeating, IMHO

'Modern' high end gear is simply not 'built for purpose' for the average user. Whether the industry likes it or not it is time to move on. cd's are past their sell-by-date - almost everyone I work with downloads their music and plays it on a solid-state player, whether that is el cheapo mp3 player or iPod Touch. It's quick, easy, cheap and sounds fine to them - they're happy! The thing I most get asked about - (because they know I'm one of those hi-fi buffs!) - is which gizmo for plugging your iPod into sounds the best!

I can appreciate the case for a high-end vinyl system but it will remain niche, if only because the music you can buy for it will remain a tiny percentage of what is released. In the digital domain we should, by now, be comparing and drooling over solid state disc drive based, all format, 'no computer required' digital players. Download, transfer and play. Job done. The fact that we are not doing this means we cannot appeal to the masses who do exactly this on a daily basis!

We need an 'iPod' for audiophiles and until we get it we will continue to move further away from the mainstream of music listeners. High-end audio reproduction will always be niche but the niche has moved, the industry has not.

 

I've paid more than £12 for such pleasures.

Mistress.

 

There is another view.
Actually, the sound produced by an iPod is pretty reasonable, as is the sound from the better micro systems available for a few hundred pounds.

Audiophile land is full of poison, lies and stupidity - why seek to inflict this onto a young generation of listeners when they are perfectly happy?

Let's face it - real audio has never been particularly mainstream, even if you go back to the days of the inexpensive Japanese produced components of the 70s you find most homes had cheap 'music centres' with which people were happy.

I'd argue that the sound most people get now via their iPod, micro system or in car system is probably better than the tat passed of as hi-fi a few decades ago.

On the design and manufacture front, that's always tended to be the preserve of middle aged+ men. Look around today and with the convergence of computers and hi-fi you'll find plenty of bright young things beavering away on the next generation of audio products.

So not all doom and gloom.

 

Hi Chris,

They have a few times in the past at various shows.

SCIDB

 

Quote

YES DON'T CHARGE TO GET IN TO THE SHOW FOR START,
regards nando

 

I think it would be possible to convince people to use lossless compression and better speakers with their iPod if the recordings made it worth it. Sadly 8 out of 10 CDs you might randomly pick at Virgin are compressed up the wazoo. I don't see that changing soon, so until then good hi-fi will remain very very niche.

 

The reality is that although people now have more disposable income they also have more choice on what to spend that income on. I could not believe that a few years ago, more money was spent on ring tones than CDs. Music now has to compete with games, mobiles and other gadgets and serious Hi Fi or even good "Music Centres" are becoming a niche market. I really cannot see it changing.