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The social nature of our US society is changing, as evidenced by social networks and less TV watching, as well as less home ownership and marriage commitment. People seem to be in their own little worlds more, not talking politics with anyone and tending to believe much of what they read on the web. They avoid calling you on the phone and actually hold a conversation. They are more likely just to text, particularly if they don't know you, but even if they do. I would suspect that fewer people watch or read the news now than in the last 30 years. They seem to want to put their heads in the sand rather than being involved. They don't seem to give a damn about anyone but those in their little world. The grammatical errors in advertising and other news is on the rise. People held as role models are uneducated low-life. Sports figures routinely cheat. Students in college routinely cheat. The society is becoming more introverted, selfish, lazy and greedy overall IMO. Job applicants, even college grads have no work ethic. Also more stupid.Okay, okay, back to stereo...There was a similar article in Stereophile last issue. People see high-end stereo gear as a waste of money now. Even Bose is overpriced, as well as Pono. The real problem is a lack of culture in our society, or at least a lack of appreciation of culture and the arts. There is plenty of culture available, but people don't VALUE it. That is the problem really. Values are changing, and for the worse. Its a damn shame. The media is not helping either and frankly is mostly to blame. Performances and music media has not gotten suddenly extremely expensive, as has fine art. It is still affordable. And the sound quality that you can buy for $100 is a LOT better than what you could get 20 years ago. The difference is that everything is at your fingertips in your Ipad, so there is little motivation to go further.Steve N.
Keep your political opinions to yourself. No one cares what members think about that. This is a audio site. Keep it that way.
Please clean it up. The post is out of line (and the assumptions are wrong, to boot). If the post is not edited out, it will likely be knocked off line again.
I binned Steve's post (politics) and Freo's post that quoted Steve's post (for politics.) Thanks Freo for speaking up.Thanks to everyone for helping keep it on track!
There are many excellent sounding new recordings, but perhaps not by the huge stars. Try John Fullbright's latest, "Songs" or Roseanne Cash's "The River and the Thread". Seriously, I am constantly finding great sounding music that is of recent vintage. Or maybe I am just easy to please - it could happen.
Another reason to worry about the future of this hobby is the quality of the music produced today. I'm not talking about the artistic quality, but the sonic quality. So much of today's popular music is produced with so much compression it's useless to listen to it on a quality system; I actually find it painful at times.It seemed to me the music I grew up with was worthy of a decent system. The reason to have a high end system is to be able to discern imaging, dynamics, soundstage and the rest of the audiophile attributes that can be recorded. If those attributes aren't present, why bother.I think of a popular female artist from the early 70s' such as Linda Ronstadt. Most of her music was extremely well recorded. Compare her to Adele. I bought Adele's 21 album when it came out and was floored by how terrible it sounded. And I would think an artist like Adele would be recorded well. Her songs sounded fine on my car radio. I can't imagine how poorly other artists sound. My grandsons don't seem to mind on their phones. My point is, if the reason for owning a good audio system is to hear all the nuance in recorded music but there's none there... In the end, it could have nothing to do with the affordability, time constraints or competition with other entertainment mediums.
