Hello, all, newbie here!
I've been at this hobby since 7th grade staring with my Grandfather's Dyna and Mac system.
I'm now working on setting up and tweaking my current gear into the house I bought 3 years ago. Philips tuner, BAT CD and Preamp, Thorens TD160C with stock arm and Precision Fidelity strain gauge pick up system, Sunfire 10" powered sub, Sunfire 2 600W@8 ohm stereo amp, SoundLab Aura ESL's and several Stax earspeaker pieces including an SR14 integrated.
Comments on this topic.
A couple of factors seem to contribute to the seeming 'decline' of audiophilia. First, convenience/cost. The industry started to move from separate components with discrete circuitry to integrated components with integrated circuity. This led to several things: prioritized convenience (fewer pieces) reduced costs (fewer parts, lighter and cheaper cases, power supplies, etc. which generated higher profits) as well as a reduced audio output quality (more noise, less dynamics, reduced real frequency response). As a result, less good new gear was available for existing audiophiles, and newer/youn ger aficionados' first exposure to this hobby was to sonically 'lesser' gear.'
Additionally, there was the advent of digital technology, b oth CD and PC. Our first CD discs and players were convenient and clean (and impressive) but didn't approach analogue for the sonic experience. PC's made it easy to create music without being a musician, hence not having an appreciation of tone quality, color, imaging and soundstage, blend, etc. Expectations were greatly lowered and are only now returning to some degree with the resurgence in vinyl, tape and other 'old school' analogue mediums.
I'm sure I will enjoy reading the comments of others on this topic.
