On 2013-07-25 19:32:58 +0000, Audio_Empire said:
In article ,
wrote:
In the article there is a link to the kessler youtube mentioned below.
Apanel of audio folk discuss the current poor health of the audio biz and
customer decline. But in the article there is a small glimmer of light.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/ga...eeks.html?_r=0
Ken Kessler, a veteran audio journalist, summed up the industry's
problems last year at an audiophile conference in Denver. Speaking to a
roomful of mostly middle-aged men, he said: "In the '60s and '70s, if
you opened up Esquire or Playboy and they showed a bachelor pad, there
was a killer sound system in it. Now, there's an iPod dock."
Audio, as a hobby, is in decline because young people's tastes have
changed and therefore no new blood is coming into the hobby. Youngsters,
today don't actually care about listening to music any more. Nor do they
care about the quality of reproduction in the music that they DO hear.
Music has become, to a large extent, a commodity among the young. The
idea of sitting down and actually listening to music for the SOUND of
music has become passé. Sure, they want their iPod instruments filled
with as many songs as will fit and they pirate them, trade them and let
them play into their earbuds as a running, background obbligato to their
lives. Music plays as they jog, work out in the gym, even SWIM! Music
plays in their ears as they do homework, on the job, and I'm sure they'd
listen in class at school if the teachers would let them! It's like
they're hearing music more and enjoying it less. And I'm not
exaggerating either. A friend of mine has a 16-year old son. He's
physically attached to his iPhone. It would likely require a medical
operation to remove the earbuds from his ears. He listens constantly
around the house, only he's not *really* listening, he's doing other
things. The music is just "there". When asked why he and his peers do
that, his answer is "... if we have the music on, we don't have to
think."
His dad has a pretty good audio system. The kid can use it if he wishes.
Needless to say, he never touches the thing - has no interest in it and
can't understand what his dad sees in sitting down and actually
immersing himself in the sound of good music being well reproduced.
Not audiophile material, he.
--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---
I hardly think audio as a hobby is in decline. Young people listen to
digital music, but there is a huge range of quality there. Some groups
like Nine Inch Nails release their music in 24/96 which is, by any
*scientific* measure, superior to vinyl.
Apple's earbud headsets are pretty decent in quality for what they are.
The older ones were better than the new ones, but when the idea of
portable music players is brought up, hardly anybody is interested in
re-amplifying their iPod's music output into a little tube amp setup
and pumping it into a broadcast engineering-style set of headphones,
the bulk of which exceeds the iPod itself. If you take issue with
this, please tell me how many stages of re-amplification are needed,
considering the iPod's amp puts out enough juice to power even large
headphones!
The other thing that one has to bear in mind, is that the younger crowd
doesn't have any interest in prestige-level audio equipment that is
exceeded in quality by the humble Yamaha HS50M / HS80M + HS10M pairing
- likely the very equipment that the recording was studio mastered on.
No $10K+ amplifier / receiver needed there. Need a tube to mangle that
music and add harmonics that were never there in the recording? Add a
cheap Behringer tube exciter.
With the death of quality music on the broadcast bands, receivers are
on their way out as well. Sure, there are still lots of receivers
made, but they are likely not hooked to an antenna, being more of a big
box that heats the room and has a DAC.
The audiophile market is so infested with snake oil salesmen that it's
little wonder that this always-tiny segment of the market is rapidly
falling by the wayside. Once a year or so I buy an issue of
Stereophile in order to re-acquaint myself with the laughable
vocabulary and incredibly priced equipment, just for a laugh.
What's the purpose of an audio system? Is it to faithfully reproduce
audio recordings? We can do that now for under a thousand bucks,
everything included. Is your system engineered to add depth, reduce
glare, and increase the relative proportions of hot / salty overtones?
Can you really even appreciate the Bybee Quantum Purification you paid
so dearly for without a solid, cork-supported rosewood listening room?
I don't think so.