[DaveC113]

I don't know that I'd call those folks music haters. Good music is good music even if it's being played on a Bose iPod docking station. Good music can transcend even a Bose iPod docking station. Hell, I spent countless enjoyable hours as a youth listening to music on a small seven transistor pocket radio.

Personally, I tend to think that people like your friend, those who can be satisfied with something like a Bose iPod docking station are the true music lovers of the world. They take in the grand view. The forest if you will. They're not upset just because a handful of trees may be missing or out of place. The music still comes through. It still touches them in a deeply emotional way.

To hear many "audiophiles" go on and on about things such as "soundstage," "microdynamics," etc. one is left wondering just how much a part of their world music actually is and whether or not the music mainly just serves as a means for them to connect with what they're really in love with, the equipment.

I mean, when some people are worrying about things like wire purity down to the sixth decimal place, it really makes me wonder.

se

Well, "hater" was used jokingly, but it is true that he almost never uses the Bose docking station anymore. I tried to explain that he never listens to music because it sounds like crap, but he can't make the connection.

I do undestand what you're saying though...

Also, theres nothing wrong with being a gear-whore if thats what you like, but I think even the biggest gear-whore has to enjoy listening to music too.

[JLM]

Western culture is increasingly addicted to convenience and over stimulation.  As a result "high-end" has become less relevant.

By convenience I mean quick, easy, small, and non-impacting.  My daughter downloads and why not?  Just pay for the songs you want at $1 each instead of the whole album at $15.  Why should she mess with a CD when she can fit thousands of songs on a tiny Nano and gillions on a hard disk?  And the sound quality of a Nano it light years ahead of Walkman cassette or CD player.  A 55 year old friend who knows I'm into audio and would love to help him pick out stuff just bought a bigger TV and a smaller (Bose) sound system to go with it.  He wanted to get rid of the bulk of HT related stuff in his living room.  He says it sounds great.   

Stimulation can be seen everywhere.  Can't drive, read, shower, and even wake up without some kind of background sound.  Every major room in our house (except kitchen and dining room) has a TV or stereo in it.  One of the results is acclimation to higher background sound levels.  A recent study indicates that hospitals are getter 5 dB louder every decade.  Precious little "real music" (unamplified) is commonly heard today.  Coffee shop performers have to plug in to be heard, live theater performances amplify instead of using the room acoustics and hoping everyone stays quiet.  It's so un-cool to not be busy or not be multi-tasking.  If you found someone sitting at home doing nothing with no electronics on around them, you'd take them for evaluation.  (Starts to sound like 1984 doesn't it?)

The purpose of any music playback system is to recreate the original performance.  If the original performance was amplified to start with how do I know what its supposed to sound like?  What makes my iPod any worse than PA speakers?  And with all the "engineering" done in the studio can anyone define what its "supposed" to sound like anyway? 

Folks have always wanted new gadgets, but since the CD audio hasn't provided one.  R & D in commercial endevours is driven (as always) by potential profits.  Today's cool gadgets are computers, cell phones, and HT.  Sharper Image offers audio eye candy that probably attract more sales than all the "high-end" put together.

Conversely tubes and vinyl are seen by the general public as vintage only and not taken seriously as "high-end".  They would save them for display at the local historical museum or holiday parade. 

In order to "get away from it all" people are moving towards "active lifestyles" (sports, outdoor activities, RV's) instead of hobbies (woodworking, knitting, gardening).  Again audio isn't relevant here either.

[macrojack]

The thing that amazes me is the perpetual increase in the number of high end manufacturers. The producer/consumer ratio must be approaching one to one.

We audiophiles are dinosaurs at this point in time. I don't think we will fade away entirely any more than pipe smokers have, but we will certainly see severe attrition in the next 10 - 15 years and there is surely going to be a manufacturer bloodbath soon. They will mostly go quietly but they will definitely go.

As was pointed out above, the middle of the market is disappearing. Everything will soon be cheap junk or ultra expensive.

And someone can take me out in his Ferrari and demonstrate to me how wonderful and exciting and well-engineered it is and I will agree, and I will be impressed and envious, but I will also never consider a car that costs $275,000 as being within realistic reach. I won't give it another thought other than to brag to others about the cool experience I had. Your $10K or $15K or $40K sound system will be the just like the Ferrari to most people. They don't see a correlation between the purchase price and the value it will add to their lives, even if they can afford it. The fantasy that people just need to hear it and they will be hooked just doesn't work. High end audio is an addiction to which most people are blissfully immune.

[Daygloworange]

To hear many "audiophiles" go on and on about things such as "soundstage," "microdynamics," etc. one is left wondering just how much a part of their world music actually is and whether or not the music mainly just serves as a means for them to connect with what they're really in love with, the equipment.

se

Not necessarily. As a musician develops and evolves, he becomes increasingly aware of his tools (his instrument(s)), and his tone, his technique, his rhythm. They can become very obsessive about it. A lot of time, that is what separates the good players from the great players. When a musician is a true philanthropist, their focus becomes all encompassing. His tone as well as performance needs to be commensurate to the beauty of the music he's performing. They also become increasingly critical of the ensemble they're playing in etc...

No matter how much of a music lover you are, and had the option of listening to a better sounding rendition of the same performance, of course you would choose the more sonically pleasing one.

I think that it's just more a question of where someone's focus might be at that particular time, rather than where their level of love for the music vs equipment lies.

Cheers

[TheChairGuy]

The two channel variety of high fidelity is mostly dead....and has been for a while. It's a victim of the 'more is better rationale' that exists today  and a by-product of a more transient (ie., highly portable) market for music.

[macrojack]

Should we be making funeral arrangements? Conducting a wake? Mourning?

There's a me too younger element who will keep some semblance going but too many of us older guys are dying, going broke, or losing interest. Attrition is the order of the day, indeed the decade.

Like it or not, the fate of your beloved high end is in the hands of Red Wine and Zu and Omega and Modwright, etc. Better support them because the big guys aren't going to do anything sentimental.

[konut]

Not dead, just in a coma. Its always smelled funny.

[nathanm]

Hi-Fi is totally dead.  There are no more people left in the world who like listening to fancy audio equipment.  AudioCircle itself is merely very cleverly programmed artificial intelligence software.

[Turnandcough]

Good music, like good food, doesn't have to be complicated and expensive to be enjoyable.

You can book reservations in a fancy restaurant and then go through the fancy clothes, parking lot attendant, maître D, sommelier, snobby Eurotrash waiter, seven course/three hour meal, wait for the exorbitant check ritual.

OR

You can fire up the BBQ and have a party.

     

[hmen]

It just smells funny....wait, that's not 'High Fidelity' it's some lingering smoke wafting out of my attic....

That lingering smoke happens to be an essential part of hifi

[Daygloworange]

Hi-Fi is totally dead.  There are no more people left in the world who like listening to fancy audio equipment.  AudioCircle itself is merely very cleverly programmed artificial intelligence software.

 

Nathan, you're a crack up!

Seriously though. I've always known that Audiophiles existed, but that they were few and far between. I don't think that they are a dying breed though. Honestly. One dies, another one comes along...

It's no big deal. 

Cheers

[nathanm]

I had read about audiophiles existing in magazines and books, but until I actually met one I realized truth was stranger than ficition.  You can't make these characters up!

That reminds me, ya'll should check out the movie "Ghost World" as it contains a scene with characters who are not EXACTLY audiophiles (does record collector count?) but pretty darn close.  Perhaps that's why Hi-Fi is dead, because there isn't enough positive reinforcement from Hollywood.  Not enough movies with audiophile role models for our children!  Hmmm.

[Steve Eddy]

AudioCircle itself is merely very cleverly programmed artificial intelligence software.

Well that explains it! I'd been wondering what Dr. Sbaitso had been up to these days. 

se

[linkweewee]

Yesterday's 'High Fidelity' -the LP-will never die.

[Daygloworange]

Yesterday's 'High Fidelity' -the LP-will never die.

That quote for some reason reminds me of when Austin Powers is re-animated and as he's getting acclimated to life many years later tries to put a CD on a turntable and the needle goes phfhhht!! across the CD. 

Cheers

[dado5]

I have not read through all the posts, so forgive me if this point was made before.

As far as music software goes, I don't think there is much to worry about. Bandwidth and storage space will always become cheaper over time and following, so will less compressed audio files.

Optical hard media WILL  be replaced by more efficient portable storage devices and I doubt we'll see a lingering niche market. Digital is digital, so as far as the consumer goes the media that offers the most music for the least money will be the winner. 

The LP will remain the great alternative unless a more efficient analog medium comes along.

I think I'm stating the obvious, but I'll happily do a Julian Simon if  any pessimist out there thinks I'm wrong.

[Daygloworange]

As far as music software goes, I don't think there is much to worry about. Bandwidth and storage space will always become cheaper over time and following, so will less compressed audio files.

Yeah, I totally agree. As Ipod's increase in storage capacity, people will find out how much better the lossless files sound and will begin the evolution towards higher fidelity.

My computer tech guy had a huge library of MP 3's. I had him configure and setup my SB 3 when I got it. He had it with him for a few days. He couldn't believe the difference in the lossless files compared to MP 3. He trashed all his thousands of MP 3's, got a Squeezebox 3, and started all over again in the FLAC format. Then his father got one as well.

True story.

High fidelity will not become extinct. The record industry did not die when Napster came along. People still buy CD's. I have never downloaded a song off the internet.

Cheers

[george_k]

Daygloworange,

Funny experience I had with FLAC last weekend.

I've ripped all my CD's to FLAC to use with my SB3 (it's convenient). That Saturday I was on my way to my local shop to demo an amplifier but rather than bring a bunch of CD's with me I decide to burn one "mix" cd (converted FLAC back to WAV and burned to disc).

To make a long story short (I don't feel like writing prose) I was listened to the live version of Hotel California off my mix cd and thought it sounded great. The rep turns and looks at me about 30sec into the song, shakes his head and walks over to the cd player and puts in a real copy of Eagles Live CD. He then says can you hear the difference in the drum beats? Can you hear the drum decay? After switching cd's back and forth I realized that the drum beats on my cd had no decay.

What I have since realized is that lossless audio is indeed lossless but extracting data off a cd and then putting it back on is indeed a lossy process.

[Clay W]

Is Hi-Fi dead?  No, it's just resting.  If the early CD's and CD players couldn't kill it, iPods won't either.  Vinyl, it seems, is keeping it alive.  I'm an old guy, but most of the people I run into at my local used record shop are gen-x.  No, they can't afford "audiophile" systems, but they're lucky to be enjoying a time when $1000 will buy you some pretty fine sound reproduction and they're jumping on entry level Regas, Music Halls and Projects for the front end and Epos speakers.  Just a retro fad for a minority, you say?  Maybe so, but they do love music, and their young ears can readily tell good sound from bad when they hear it.   Maybe what is really taking place will eliminate those alleged audiophiles who listen only for the sonics and play only those recordings that best show off their wonderful systems.  That wouldn't be so bad, would it?

[Daygloworange]

Daygloworange,

Funny experience I had with FLAC last weekend.

To make a long story short (I don't feel like writing prose) I was listened to the live version of Hotel California off my mix cd and thought it sounded great. The rep turns and looks at me about 30sec into the song, shakes his head and walks over to the cd player and puts in a real copy of Eagles Live CD. He then says can you hear the difference in the drum beats? Can you hear the drum decay? After switching cd's back and forth I realized that the drum beats on my cd had no decay.

What the FLAC??  

 Really?   Hmmmm, interesting experience there George.

I have all my SB 3 library encoded in FLAC on my hard drive, but I can't say I've ever compared to a WAV file, so I don't know if there is an audible difference.

I've heard mostly from SB owners who have tried it both ways, and it seems that most of them don't hear any differences between FLAC files, and WAV files.

But I do know that the stuff I have listened too that is FLAC doesn't seem to lack the ambience on drum tracks, or any other instruments for that matter.

Maybe one day. I'll get around to  A/B'ing between the 2 formats.

Cheers