Hi,
What do you see as the next real change we'll see over the coming decade?
We may see a Renaissance of good cheap gear, once the revolting commercial music labels have collapsed and indies take over again, as there will be people who will record decently, while people on a budget will want to hear it and will perhaps again purchase sound quality over appearance. So there will be a point to make something good and affordable, but perhaps I'm just dreaming.
The High End industry meanwhile is busy shovelling it's own grave by trying to sell at ever higher prices to an ever shrinking size market. It will be even more expensive in then years than it is now and even smaller in size.
The EU and Britain will make selling (possibly even using) Class A and generally tube amplifiers a criminal offence.
Can amplifiers, dacs and phono stages etc really get any better?
Yes, absolutely, however in general they have been doing the opposite up till now, I would say that quality in affordable(ish) gear peaked in the 80's and even at the very high end little has appeared that really outdoes the best from those days.
Give me top of the range Kenwood turntable with a Denon DL-103R Pickup, Luxman Amplification (say C-02 Pre & M-05 Power), a Marantz CD-12 combo (or Philips LHH-1000) for CD and a pair of the big Diatone 3-Ways (with a 15" bass) or a pair of JBL Studio Monitors from the 44XX Series or 15" Tannoys, all fully serviced and as-new and I shall not be unhappy at all...
Will it be loudspeaker developments and if so what?
I CAN conceive a speaker system that receives digital audio wireless, uses DSP to compensate speaker (driver) and room problems (including LF distortion and dispersion) and has simple, single button setup. We already have the CPU horsepower available, Moore's law makes sure it will soon be quite cheap too.
This could be driven directly from a Storage/Control PC that also drives my 3D TV (or projector) wireless and can be remote controlled simply (without the need for a tablet, but the ability to use one).
However the general public is more interested in having an hang on the wall soundbar that sounds okayish, projects some form of surround(is) sound and is cheap, High Enders seem to want the latest 150K Speaker and Amp.
Revolutionary and in principle dramatically cheap to make speaker technologies already exist, yet they have been completely ignored buy both the mainstream market and audiophiles.
Mr Rice and Mr. Kellogg would be quite chuffed I'm sure.
Or will it be confined to the way we store and access music?
Depends. TO me using a computer as music source is ancient history, taken as given since at least the mid 2K's. I can see storage moving my own HDD into a "cloud", but then you would have to haggle with the RIAA to prove that these CD-rips are really from CD's you paid for and all that.
The only revolutionary option I see is when we can tap directly into the brain for auditory and visual (and other) stimuli. It could possibly happen this decade, maybe next. When that happens humankind will change forever of course, because we may also be able to "upload" ourselves into computer systems, or maybe non of this will ever be possible.
Meanwhile I'm having outside bet on a localised nuclear conflict (my money is on India and Pakistan, with a sidebet in Iran/Israel) putting us all into a place where HiFi will be without consequence.
Ciao T