[macrojack]

Darrenyeats - I agree completely that there will always be those who recycle and cherish the products of yore. What you seem to be missing is the fact that the industry cannot survive on same. In order for high fidelity to continue to thrive and grow, it will need a continuous market which it is losing. It is not necessary to employ contrived statistics to make this apparent. Today's youth are looking in a different direction and without them there is no future.
We are dinosaurs. Most of our numbers are over 40 and many are beyond 60. Our time is short, our priorities are changing, and our interest is waning. Rage against the dying of the light if you must but be aware that the final flicker is inevitable.

Soon enough you will be choosing between a Rolls Royce and a rickshaw. If the former is beyond your reach, you will settle for the latter.

[AdamM]

In my hometown before i left, i helped consult one of the high-end audio stores on an 'emerging market'

This was a very boutique hifi store in Vancouver that dealt with high to insanely high-end gear.  Turns out, their sales over the last two years had gone down a fair bit. These guys were looking to diversify.  Their business model was changing from under them.

They knew me from a few purchases here and there, and they also knew my background in videogames.  Vancouver is the worlds biggest videogame developing city.

What did they do?  They renovated 2 listening rooms to cater to these emerging markets which were basically videogame audio.  They got an Xbox 360 and a Playstation and built a audio/video room around those consoles.  It was impressive indeed.

In 2004, videogames eclipsed movies for TOTAL GROSS SALES.  Yes, that's right, Halo - the videogame - has GROSSED more than Titanic, the movie.  Many hollywood guys are leaving and getting into interactive.  The guy in the desk next to me won an academy award in movies, and now he's in videogames.

These hifi guys were right there too, adapting their hardware to the new markets.  It sounded great.

Hifi dead?  No.  It's just changing.


/Adam

[macrojack]

AdamM - That's the first convincing argument I've read but it reinforces a claim I made earlier that the trend has moved away from music and into sound effects. And I can definitely see where a store like that would prosper in many U.S. markets. You must be having the time of your life.

[BrianM]

Soon enough you will be choosing between a Rolls Royce and a rickshaw. If the former is beyond your reach, you will settle for the latter.

If you're right, Jack, maybe look on the bright side: that all this stuff currently around will be available used and likely serviceable by somebody or other.  It's not all going into landfills.

I'm kind of interested in *which* players are no longer going to be around in 10 years. But I guess we can't have that discussion completely freely on this forum?

[macrojack]

BrianM - If it's old gear you want, there is already an excess available and the prices on most of it are dropping precipitously.
Many current audiophiles have been slowed in the buying of new equipment by the difficulty involved in getting rid of the older stuff at a worthwhile price.
If you go to a few audio shows and look at the age of the people there, you will get a feel for what I am saying.
Another thing to consider is how many of the younger generation are buying new stuff. The purchase of used gear does not inspire the development of new products.

[BrianM]

BrianM - If it's old gear you want, there is already an excess available and the prices on most of it are dropping precipitously.

I'm aware. And today's new gear will be around for a long time (at least there's that).

Many current audiophiles have been slowed in the buying of new equipment by the difficulty involved in getting rid of the older stuff at a worthwhile price.
If you go to a few audio shows and look at the age of the people there, you will get a feel for what I am saying.
Another thing to consider is how many of the younger generation are buying new stuff. The purchase of used gear does not inspire the development of new products.

Well, I'm basically content with the state of the art as it is.  Obviously further developments are always welcome, but at least we've got a glut of great equipment that will be lying around for quite some time yet. It's not like old computers, which get tossed out (or sent to Africa). And why should the younger generation buy new stuff when there's so much great used stuff? One thing you can say about audiophiles, they burn through way more gear than is rationally necessary.  Their perpetual discontent fuels much of the industry.  If people could be happy with the good sound they have and not always be seeking something different, there'd be half the sales there are now.

[Scott F.]

I hope you are able to understand that when I say it is over, I am making a projection. I don't mean it has stopped breathing but it has stopped generating new cells. The end is near.

Hey macrojack,

Here is a link to an article I wrote a couple of years ago that I thought you might get a kick out of. Its pretty pessimistic. Once you get past me bouncing off the walls, there are some decent ways to resurrect the high end audio industry.

[dB Cooper]

I think it's interesting that the thread keeps drifting into debates like tubes vs transistors. This debate is as tired as a debate can get- and as irrelevant to at-large awareness of high quality sound. "Audio" shops (= music oriented) have all but vanished, and the scant few that remain are being propped up by HT. Major music shops like Sam Goody, Kemp Mill, and Tower Records- which sell the music that people would listen to- are disappearing, giving way to 128K iTunes downloads. People are walking into the Apple store every day looking for iPods and docking speaker systems to replace their "stereos".

When you expose one of these iPodders to your MFSL pressing of "Dark Side Of The Moon" on your high end system, they might go "Wow", but when they find out the system cost $10,000 (I'll be conservative), or $20,000, or $30,000, how many are gonna say "I gotta have a system like that!" My first Dynaco/Dual/Shure system cost $330 and sounded pretty decent for the time (early 70s), if I say so myself. Today that buys you a HTIB system with plastic speakers and a "650 watt" power rating (but the back panel says "UL Listed 275 watts".) Today's dumbed-down consumer doesn't know the difference.

I hope those that point to the dropping price of storage and bandwidth are right that these factors will help keep high quality source material available- because without the source material, there's no reason for the equipment to exist. But the fact that a 128K file will always be cheaper to deliver than a 900KBPS lossless file- and most people seem perfectly content with the former- makes it hard for me to be optimistic. As wayner sez in his sig, "The weakest link in any system is the prerecorded music."

[macrojack]

As wayner sez in his sig, "The weakest link in any system is the prerecorded music."

Interesting premise. It supposes that the signal starts out bad but is improved upon by the equipment.

I think the opposite is true.

[dB Cooper]

Hey, maybe this is the answer!

[dB Cooper]

As wayner sez in his sig, "The weakest link in any system is the prerecorded music."

Interesting premise. It supposes that the signal starts out bad but is improved upon by the equipment.

I think the opposite is true.

I'm not sure wayner meant it that way, but I agree totally that the best thing an audio system can do to a signal is leave it alone and make me forget that I'm listening to one.

It also seems to be the exact opposite philosophy of the product I just linked to.

[Daygloworange]

Well I guess I still see the upside. The upside being that percentagewise, there are more young people today that have music as an important part of their everyday life. They have huge music collections. 

I think it bodes well that as they mature, and evolve, that a certain percentage of them will become a more discriminating listener, and will evolve into audiophiles to one degree or another.

Therefore, it only seems to reason that due to a higher segment of the teen population being very into music now, and the fact that the earth is more densely populated, that there will be in fact a healthy number of audiophiles in the future.

With the rapid rate of technology, and economies of scale that ensue, I think that every household could potentially have a system capable of very high resolution and fidelity, much like what the levels of television fidelity are like now in the average household.

Back when I was a kid, lots of people had black and white tv's. Now, almost everyone has some kind of flat screen tv, and surround sound to boot.

I still see it from a purely optimistic viewpoint, with the move to server based and integrated systems, the bar will be raised for economical HiFi systems.

But at the end of the day, I really don't care. I'll have my killer system, and if there was no new music from this day forward, I could totally be happy with what has been created to date, in the formats that exist as of now.

And the band played on.....

Cheers 

[BrianM]

I'm with Dayglow.

[macrojack]

So now we know where everybody stands on the issue. All that remains is waiting it out to see what happens. I'm pretty sure that by the time hi-fi is dead enough to convince Doug, I'll be dead too.

[darrenyeats]

The reason why we're all disagreeing over whether "High Fidelity" is dead is because we don't agree on what "High Fidelity" is.

If "High Fidelity" for you is vinyl, tubes, tinkering with this amp and that cable etc. then yes hi-fi is dead or dying.

If "High Fidelity" for you is listening to music at the best quality available within your means, using the best quality recordings available for whatever music it is you like...then it is not only alive, but kicking. The very "boom boxes" that are criticised here are in fact getting a lot better. Ye olde amp and speakers (which I've already discussed are architecturally hamstrung) aren't getting better at the same rate.

Imagine...

There's someone with an upgraded carburettor, DIY spoiler and custom-lowered suspension at the wheel muttering "nobody's interested in performance cars any more"...not even noticing the lady in the modern, mass-market 250bhp Ford or Volvo shooting past and leaving them in smoke. (I speak as a used-Volvo owner with a German wife accustomed to autobahns ).

Yes "performance cars" *from that point of view* is a dead industry. But more people are travelling around in ordinary vehicles that happen to be getting much quicker, and enjoying the benefits.
Darren

[opaqueice]

I couldn't disagree more with the pessimists here.  Not to be rude, but many of the posts in this thread have an old fogie "kids these days" sound to them.  Things change, the new generation replaces the old, that's true.  But the idea that all music is going to end up as 128 kbs MP3 is just nonsensical. 

Memory and CPU speed has already passed the point where storing a digital format which is as good human hearing requires is trivial.  Codecs like MP3 were invented only because that wasn't true a few years ago.  But a few years from now, Moore's law will take us even further ahead past that point.  A few years more and we may have smart formats that automatically adjust themselves to the room their in, the speaker configuration, etc. 

The prevalence of MP3s today, far from being a bad sign, means that there will be an entire generation that loves music and is willing to spend money on it (and it will be real money once they grow up and get real jobs).  The collapse of the old-style music industry, rather than a disaster, is the greatest opportunity for small-time musicians and innovative artists in decades. 

I don't see a catastrophe - I see a golden age.  But I always was an optimist .

[mcgsxr]

I am with Daygloworange (god, did I have to admit it in public?   )

[doug s.]

i am w/you on this one.  tho i am old, i am not an old fogie.  you're never to old to have a happy childhood.     which is why i started the thread about how old a/c members are.  hi-end will live on as long as there's youngsters into it.

from that morbid "how old are you" thread,

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=45407.0 ,

so far, ~57% of a/c members polled are <45 years old.  those between 25-34 are about equal to those between 45-54 years old.  those over 55 are the second smallest group; those <25 are the smallest group.  all in all, not a bad sign - it appears that the folks into this lunatic fringe pastime are not at all in danger of dying off any time soon.   



doug s.

I couldn't disagree more with the pessimists here.  Not to be rude, but many of the posts in this thread have an old fogie "kids these days" sound to them.  Things change, the new generation replaces the old, that's true.  But the idea that all music is going to end up as 128 kbs MP3 is just nonsensical. 

Memory and CPU speed has already passed the point where storing a digital format which is as good human hearing requires is trivial.  Codecs like MP3 were invented only because that wasn't true a few years ago.  But a few years from now, Moore's law will take us even further ahead past that point.  A few years more and we may have smart formats that automatically adjust themselves to the room their in, the speaker configuration, etc. 

The prevalence of MP3s today, far from being a bad sign, means that there will be an entire generation that loves music and is willing to spend money on it (and it will be real money once they grow up and get real jobs).  The collapse of the old-style music industry, rather than a disaster, is the greatest opportunity for small-time musicians and innovative artists in decades. 

I don't see a catastrophe - I see a golden age.  But I always was an optimist .

[darrenyeats]

it appears that the folks into this lunatic fringe pastime are not at all in danger of dying off any time soon. 

Despite my reference to mass-market cars (I was a little bit over-the-top making my point, I admit, but I love a good debate ) I am a lunatic just like the rest of you.

I guess what I believe is that the next generation might have new ideas and bring new technology to the problem of sound reproduction. We might view new developments as different, strange or not "purist" enough. But as long as people are honestly - and somewhat obsessively - striving to improve sound quality in their own way then doesn't the *true spirit* of hi-fi live on?!!!
Darren

[Daygloworange]

I am with Daygloworange (god, did I have to admit it in public?   )

You say that like it's a bad thing.   

BTW mcgsxr, you forgot your sunglasses here the other day. 

Cheers