What next for audio?

[RobHolt]

Difference is, when you were a child, when people reached the age when they would get married and settle down, they'd buy hi-fi. Even when that became buying micro systems, they still bought them.

That has all stopped. There is no mass-market anymore. Even the budget micro hi-fi systems sold in Currys don't sell these days. If they are a glorified iPod dock, perhaps. But otherwise, the numbers are tiny.

Improvements to the high-end, discussions about vintage audio or single-ended amplifiers... you might as well be discussing gas lighting to most people under 40.

This hobby doesn't just die with us. It dies before us. Before the end of the decade.

So we go back to our sheds, pick up our soldering irons and take whats left of the hobby back to the roots?

Reconcile ourselves to the fact that we lost the battle, things have moved on and accept our (tiny) place in the grand scheme of things?

One big potential problem we haven't yet covered is what might happen to mastering quality as the market continues to change. Leaving the classical output to one side, things are already pretty dire with everything mastered to sound good on portable/small speaker kit.
Us old gits could end up with a situation where modern music releases are unplayable on our super revealing, full range systems.

...and i thought your post was depressing!

 

[lindsayt]

Active speakers should have become the norm decades ago! Audiophools seem dead set against them in general though.

Hi-fi speakers that could be easily actively bi-amped were the norm decades ago.

Bozak made active crossovers for their speakers in the 1960's.

My 1972 Electro Voice speakers are wired for very easy conversion to active bi-amplification.

Vintage Klipsch, JBL and Altec speakers had very easily accesible crossovers.


And then at some point the trend was started to put crossovers inside glued cabinets so that you had to remove the bass cones to get at them.

 

[Haselsh1]

The market will continue to diverge between absolute quality and absolute convenience.

I think that this will always be the case. There are always going to be those people who concentrate on convenience over quality just in the way there are the vinyl crew who only consider quality. As long as vinyl is available and at the moment no one can truly kill it, I shall carry on buying it and concentrating on true quality over convenience, however convenience for me is CD not some ridiculous laptop.

 

[YNMOAN]

That reasoning makes no sense, what does ease of use have to do with sound quality?

Are you purposely being obtuse? My point isn't that difficult to decipher - others seem to have managed it .

If you honestly think your CD player sounds better than your record player, I would suggest that either your stylus has worn out or your ears need syringing.

So we go back to our sheds, pick up our soldering irons and take whats left of the hobby back to the roots?

Why would we bother doing that - according to you it all sounds the same anyway!

 

[Labarum]

If you honestly think your CD player sounds better than your record player, I would suggest that either your stylus has worn out or your ears need syringing.

I'm not presently in a position to compare. I chucked my record player and LPs out 25 years ago, and don't play CDs any more - they are all on my hard drive.

I guess my ears must need syringing.

 

[Fnuckle]

You guys sound like a couple of octogenarians arguing over whether Tommy Dorsey or Woody Herman was the better bandleader.

LP is an historical anachronism. CD is fast being consigned to the dump bin of history. LP will hang on for as long as pressing plants that should have been put out to pasture 30 years ago are still viable. CD won't survive long after the computer industry abandons it for selling software on the cloud; no laser mechs, no mechs, no players.

Feel free to think LP is better than CD or that CD is better than LP. It's of absolutely no relevance whatsoever to today or tomorrow's music buyers.

 

[YNMOAN]

Oh, I include mp3 and 'all that' in with CD - it's all just a passing fad as far as I am concerned.

 

[Fnuckle]

Oh, I include mp3 and 'all that' in with CD - it's all just a passing fad as far as I am concerned.

And how is the weather back in 1961?

 

[Labarum]

Shall we cool it?

Opinions have been aired, but no need for a storm.

 

[Tenson]

I think something that would make a real difference is a new speaker tech that is cheap to manufacture, but provides excellent sound quality. Well I don't need that since I sell speakers but it would be good to stop good sound quality dying!

Actually I wonder if making a decent quality dome tweeter really takes much more than making a cheapo one? They still have the same parts. Perhaps it's just the research to make it good isn't done for a mass market systems. If Vifa for example gave the details of their little neo-dome to Phillips, they could probably make it as cheaply as their normal poor quality ones. Same for woofers I imagine if you choose a simple but quality design... Seas aluminium cones for example.

I've looked inside high quality planar tweeters and cheap ones and they look built with exactly the same methods, only one must use the correct materials and research while the other doesn't.

 

[Labarum]

I agree. Once in the digital domain the source is extremely cheap. An ordinary iPod is a better source than expensive sources from just a few years ago.

Youngsters listen on ear buds which are half way decent. What they miss is hearing that clarity projected into a room.

For that we do indeed need a "new speaker tech that is cheap to manufacture".

I suggested earlier that is should be active and live on the home network.

 

[Joe Petrik]

Basil,

Nonsense, I've been slowly replacing my classical Lp's with their CD counter parts over the last few years and I've yet to find one where the LP has greater dynamic range.

Classical is the exception. There, recording and mastering are still being done properly for the most part.

I guess you had to read between the lines a bit to see that I was referring to brickwalled CDs as the modern recordings (and reissues*) that lack dynamic range.

Joe

* Particularly irksome, as the first issue was often done right or better.

 

[VinylLover]

I think that this will always be the case. There are always going to be those people who concentrate on convenience over quality just in the way there are the vinyl crew who only consider quality. As long as vinyl is available and at the moment no one can truly kill it, I shall carry on buying it and concentrating on true quality over convenience, however convenience for me is CD not some ridiculous laptop.

Well said that man I may be a dinosaur but that is my right & as long as I can afford to buy vinyl & it is available I will do so. Of course in the big picture my views are a total anachronism. It saddens me that the "younger generation" don't value sound quality only convenience. However that is their right & to deny that to them would be wrong. I agree the cloud will probably be the future however that by itself doesn't have to mean less quality. Clearly no vinyl but music could still be available in diferent levels of quality just as it is today from the download sites.

 

[Haselsh1]

I agree. Once in the digital domain the source is extremely cheap. An ordinary iPod is a better source than expensive sources from just a few years ago.

Youngsters listen on ear buds which are half way decent. What they miss is hearing that clarity projected into a room.

For that we do indeed need a "new speaker tech that is cheap to manufacture".

I suggested earlier that is should be active and live on the home network.

The finest system I have ever heard was an active one based around my Logic DM101 with Crimson Electric amps and Mission 727 speakers. That would have been back in 1983. I haven't heard one to match it since.

 

[RobHolt]

Why would we bother doing that - according to you it all sounds the same anyway!

Really?

Perhaps you should read my posts more carefully Mark.

 

[RobHolt]

You guys sound like a couple of octogenarians arguing over whether Tommy Dorsey or Woody Herman was the better bandleader.

LP is an historical anachronism. CD is fast being consigned to the dump bin of history. LP will hang on for as long as pressing plants that should have been put out to pasture 30 years ago are still viable. CD won't survive long after the computer industry abandons it for selling software on the cloud; no laser mechs, no mechs, no players.

Feel free to think LP is better than CD or that CD is better than LP. It's of absolutely no relevance whatsoever to today or tomorrow's music buyers.

Dead right.

Also, not embracing digital in any form effectively draws (or drew) a line in the sand wrt new music. Other than a few oddities, some audiophile pressings and dance stuff you are ...erm..... stuffed.

I've gots lots of vinyl, vintage pre recorded open reel tapes, ripped Cds and downloads in many different standards including MP3. By far the biggest driver to audio quality is what happened in the studio and at the mastering stage.

 

[jcbrum]

I agree with much of Tenson's post above. The main factor affecting cost of component parts is economies of scale. Computer motherboards and mobile phones are good examples.

But I have a great deal of difficulty understanding YNMOAN's conclusions.

There is no way on earth that even a fully modded LP12 playing an LP can achieve the very high sound quality of a digital recording in aiff format streaming to a wireless dac (like an ATV2) that only costs £99 new!

I'm not trying to cause an argument, but the thread topic is about 'What next for audio' and many of the new users in hifi can see and hear the improvement in sound quality available from small digital devices, correctly employed, compared to a record player.

It seems to me to be the reason they are being used by people who do like very high sound quality.

I just cannot understand why YNMOAN (and a few others) can't see it.

Surely that's why modern digi kit is selling so well. It's very good indeed, as well as being very convenient.

JC

 

[Dev]

There is no way on earth that even a fully modded LP12 playing an LP can achieve the very high sound quality of a digital recording in aiff format streaming to a wireless dac (like an ATV2) that only costs £99 new!
JC

Vinyl can sound "better" than CD, but it has nothing to do with physical medium IMO. I think it's purely down to the mastering.

As for the future, I agree with Fnuckle. LP, CD and other physical formats are going to die out slowly.

 

[jcbrum]

Possibly so Dev.

Maybe, in that context, 'better' is more appropriately expressed as 'preferable'.

But as you say the real difference is the preference between one recorded event and another differently mastered one.

However, I think it is a truth that if one makes an excellent recording, and then plays it both in it's original digital format, and by turning it into an LP, then the record cannot help but sound significantly 'worse', due to the limitations of the LP creation process, and the insurmountable inadequacies of any record player.

What I'm trying to say is that the popularity of low cost digital replay equipment, is due to the excellent sound quality available, - not merely the convenience, as has been suggested.

If that is true then for the most demanding audiophiles, digital replay has to be the future, since nothing else is anywhere near as good.

After that, it's merely a question of file format.

It's an irrefutable done deal imo.

JC

 

[SCIDB]

Dead right.

Also, not embracing digital in any form effectively draws (or drew) a line in the sand wrt new music. Other than a few oddities, some audiophile pressings and dance stuff you are ...erm..... stuffed.

Hi Rob,

I don't agree with that. If you know where to look, you can get a wide range of new material. The print runs are not be big as before but there is still choice.

SCIDB