[RPM123]

Found this article interesting and food for thought.

http://www.ultraaudio.com/index.php/features-menu/opinion-menu/725-the-myth-of-continual-improvement

[dB Cooper]

Great find. The author sums up many of the issues with 'high end' audio (a term I dislike).

Is today's audio equipment, generally, better than the audio equipment of the early 70s (when I got into the hobby)? Sure. However…

The past two or three years, Audio Note has brought a cello player (Vincent Belánger) to Capital Audio Fest. I have heard him play a live-vs-recorded demo of his cello music, using the exact same cello used on the recording.

Despite the improvements made in both electronics and transducers over the last 40 years, which I believe do enhance the fidelity and enjoyment of the musical playback experience, it still really isn't very hard to tell the difference between live and recorded (with all due respect to Ella).

The audience for well recorded music, played back well in the home, is not small. It's the audience for $58,000 audio systems (the mean price for the systems at the show that I had pricing info for) that is small. If you think about it, you probably don't know too many people who don't like some kind of music. I also haven't met too many people who didn't respond to a noticeable improvement and playback quality. I know just hearing Santana Abraxas on the first good system I was exposed to as a teenager changed my life. I knew then what good audio sounded like and I save every dime I could get my hands on for a year in order to put together a system of my own.

That system in 1971 cost me $330. I did a calculation once and that came to a little over 3K in today's money. Many of today's audiophiles spend that on cabling, and look down on a $3200 system as 'mid-fi'. Yet it gave me almost a decade of musical enjoyment before I decided I wanted to build another amplifier and upgrade my speakers.

Today's audio manufacturers are too busy trying to get people to spend a thousand dollars for a power cord to develop a system for a kid who saves his lawn mowing money for a year. It's too bad. It's the voodoo, the conspicuous consumption, and the tweaks the public has turned its back on, not the music.

[Bob2]

develop a system for a kid who saves his lawn mowing money for a year.

That's a hell of a great idea!

[Tyson]

Echoes some of my thoughts after RMAF 2012 (and is one of the reasons I stopped doing show coverage):

You should come to RMAF, you get to hear so much stuff in such a short period of time and you get a very good idea of the boundaries of hifi.  What I mean by that is this - there is a certain level of performance that has not (maybe cannot) be surpassed, and it's not all that far from what many might consider "mid-fi" gear.

Or, to put it another way, you will come to learn very quickly that with regard to the orgasmic praise heaped upon stupid expensive gear by professional audio reviewers is largely a result of them being full of shit.

[goskers]

I learned long ago from a pretty smart person that audiophiles focus way too much on components and not on the overall system.  We all love to discuss the cone material of a woofer but fail to consider what this truly has to do with the outcome of the loudspeaker.  We care more about getting one more decimal point of copper purity in a cable versus measuring our room.  Until we, as a collective group, understand that there is science to help us chart a path to more consistent success then the chaos will continue. 

The loudspeaker and the room are the most erroneous products in our systems.  The rest of the system; source, preamp, amp and cables (considering solid state) are more accurate by an order of magnitude.  What?  Show me a commercial component that has a 10db suckout in its passband.  Show me a cable of normal issue that incites a 3db increase in one decade of audible range.  This is why the argument of why a systems based approach is valid.  Until you have a speaker which can do certain things very well then you are attacking the wrong spot.  Until you have a room that is good enough then you are putting money in the wrong place.  What is good enough?  Get a cheap mic and REW and start measuring.   

I sound like a tired, bitter old man in saying things like this because I am.  I have been an 'audiophile' since I was in college.  I am now 38 years old and feel that the industry as a whole is tooting the same horn.  I don't care to go to many audio shows now because there seems to be the same old stuff with different brands and people behind them.  The magazines provide you with a bunch of fancy words in hopes of getting you to feel enough excitement to buy.  How one changes the overall course of this ship I can't tell you.  What I do know is that some giants in the industry have failed to do so.  Alas, my dagger is no match versus their sword.

Rant off.

[rbbert]

...The audience for well recorded music, played back well in the home, is not small...

Unfortunately, this appears to be untrue.  The market is small and by all evidence shrinking, despite what we might want to believe.

[Tyson]

Unfortunately, this appears to be untrue.  The market is small and by all evidence shrinking, despite what we might want to believe.

Not true.  Headphones are a strong growth market for audio.  It's no wonder - it's reasonably priced gear that younger people can afford.  At least they are helping to drive DAC improvements along with headphone specific stuff.

[rbbert]

Headphones may be a growth market, but like LP's it's largely because it was such a small market (not counting earbuds) only a few years ago.  Even with that, look at the overhwelming market leader for over the ear 'phones; not an advertisement for good sound.  Likewise, the sound quality in general of pop/rock music has been c___ for years now, with little indication of any improvement to come; in fact, oppressive and annoying dynamic compression has become increasingly common in jazz, classical, etc, in recent years.

[Tyson]

Headphones may be a growth market, but like LP's it's largely because it was such a small market (not counting earbuds) only a few years ago.  Even with that, look at the overhwelming market leader for over the ear 'phones; not an advertisement for good sound.  Likewise, the sound quality in general of pop/rock music has been c___ for years now, with little indication of any improvement to come; in fact, oppressive and annoying dynamic compression has become increasingly common in jazz, classical, etc, in recent years.

Just pointing out that the high end headphone section at RMAF has grown massively over the past 6 years, while the rest of the show has shrunk.

Re: recording quality and compression - true but I don't see how it's relevant.

Audiophiles are a niche, always have been, always will be.  Put another way - music lovers are a small subset of the general population.  Audiophiles are a small subset of music lovers.  Always has it been thus.

[Elizabeth]

Getting back to the op link and it's discussion...
The article seems to be mainly about manufacturers making small improvements in a product and also the fear audiophiles have that the new item makes their previous model obsolete.

It had nothing about how old* products... ANYTHING.
*old meaning not recent and certainly not the recent previous iteration of a product.

Nor anything about the fading away of audiophilia.
nor about the system vs components
Nor about headphones.
Nor about the price of my system back in 1965..
Which BTW was about $1,000

As on topic as I can be, yeah, it is annoying that (for my example) Brystom updated the xB-SST² into the xB3. ALL they changed was one input board and refuse to upgrade old units.
So I am sitting wondering is it worth the almost $6,000 for a trivial upgrade?

I CAN relate.

And I have to say ???? maybe??? LOL

Yeah it annoys me.
The best LINE from the article is: "Tell them instead that they own a classic, and make them feel good about being associated with your brand."
Right on.

[AJinFLA]

The vintage guys are smiling 

[Folsom]

$300 in 1971 Is  $1,812 today. But what are you talking about? A good Luxman was $330-650 back then. So an amp/receiver cost $2-4k in today's money. Today Luxman will run and you twice that or three times that. But the average household income was about  $7.9k, or $48k today. Here's where a huge difference comes in, a house was the same as $150k today... which most of you know the majority of the USA you can't get shit for under $200k, the median is $236k, and it's only that low because of dead towns, realistically it's more like $300k. An average car was $2.7k, which is  $16k today... as you all know new cars float around $30-40k average (almost all starting Toyota and Honda's in the $20k area somehow end up around $30k with options that are always ordered, and trucks cost more than ever). Housing and automobiles have about doubled since then, compared to income. But that said even in 1971 a good system would still run you a good portion of your income, maybe more than 10%, the difference is that it was an option to do that. Oh and food was largely organic still at that time...

There have been some advancements for sure. Other qualities have unknowingly been lost in some ways. Overall it's unrealistic to say the information gathered and refinement by companies that have been around awhile are doing nothing to change audio. But as far as amplifiers go I think there's a lot of very good old ones. Preamps are yes and no, some good designs but all very flawed with available volume devices at the time.

But fact is we still play by all the same physics so most large advances have been in manufacturing of speaker drivers, capacitors, and such. Our ability to make better parts has increased, but they still do the same thing. We are all waiting for tranceding these boundaries... when do we get quatum stereos? Ah, but I'd still contest we haven't necessarily fully explored what we can do with electronics today. I believe I've made some advancements, so there's still room to grow. I think there's s decent bit of room.

[rbbert]

Just pointing out that the high end headphone section at RMAF has grown massively over the past 6 years, while the rest of the show has shrunk.

Re: recording quality and compression - true but I don't see how it's relevant...

It's relevant to the intial assertion to which I was replying, that there is "not a small market" for listening to well-recorded music in the home.  I wish that statement were true, but all the evidence suggests the opposite is true, and your comments seem to bear that out.

[Folsom]

Nor about the price of my system back in 1965..
Which BTW was about $1,000

As on topic as I can be, yeah, it is annoying that (for my example) Brystom updated the xB-SST² into the xB3. ALL they changed was one input board and refuse to upgrade old units.
So I am sitting wondering is it worth the almost $6,000 for a trivial upgrade?

The best LINE from the article is: "Tell them instead that they own a classic, and make them feel good about being associated with your brand."
Right on.

That's about $7.8k today.

Upgrades don't always work great for a business. It's a mild logistical hell that might be a giant favor to customers and do about nothing for them, unless they charge enough that people say no. They don't have enough markup to really handle it.

[poseidonsvoice]

I learned long ago...

Rant off.

I wholeheartedly and unequivocally am in agreement. Couldn't have said it better.

Audio Tarot.

"Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow"
by Journey, 1971.

Best,
Anand.

[JLM]

Agree that significant SQ improvements are extremely rare.  Digital (DAC and amps) are probably the obvious exception but still definitely not revolutionary.

Agree also that loudspeakers and rooms are the two big SQ factors.  Rooms if anything have gotten worse (smaller and/or multi-function compromises).  Loudspeakers technology and driver materials have changed little.

After 40+ years in audio it seems to me that the big changes are convenience, computer applications (amps/control), miniaturization (lifestyle/desktop/headphones), cost reduction (in real/inflation adjusted terms), and tastes (leaner/tighter sound). 

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I don't necessarily buy into the fact that new is better.  But when it comes to DAC technology I do.  It seems that over the past few years DAC's have continually improved, especially in the lower price range with DAC's like the AQ Dragonfly's, Schiit Audio and Emotiva Big Ego to name a few.  But even high end DAC's are getting continually better and they sound much better than their cheaper brethren.

[Tyson]

So, given all that (which I also agree with).... just what they hell are we doing?  Spending lots of time & $$ on a hobby that hasn't substantially improved in 20 years, or more? 

[goskers]

Audio Tarot.

I think it was a wise lady that coined that one

[Early B.]

So, given all that (which I also agree with).... just what they hell are we doing?  Spending lots of time & $$ on a hobby that hasn't substantially improved in 20 years, or more?

We're audiophiles -- we're totally about the gear, not the music. That's why we spend lots of money on this hobby. And I have no idea why you guys keep forgetting that fact. Our high is in the buy.