[Trevor]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
In article , Trevor
wrote:
Kludge wrote:

But then, we have the sliding back into lower fidelity distribution with
the popularity of lossy compression. I am told this is because people
want
more hours of material rather than better sounding material,

I just don't see it at all. Decades ago most people had LoFi radiograms
and
cassette players, they now have MP3 which is *not* the limiting factor on
the equipment often used to play them.

Pick up a copy of Time or Playboy from 1975 or so. You'll find a huge,
huge
number of advertisements for audio gear, pretty expensive gear. You will
not
find those ads today.
A lot of people used to spend a lot of money on home stereo gear, and for
the
most part that doesn't happen any more.

That's mainly due to the fact that you don't need to spend a few months
wages on a turntable or amplifier to get good performance any more
(thankfully). Certainly here in Australia the number of people who buy
expensive speakers is about what it always was. ie a very small percentage
of the population.



In 1975 if you'd gone into the A&R office of a record label, you'd have
found a decent KLH turntable and a pair of AR4 or comparable speakers.
Nothing super expensive, but a whole lot better than the boom box or
iPhone that you'd find today.

I'n interesting claim I find hard to believe is common, you'd certainly find
far better than a boom box over here.


It's true, that there was low fidelity equipment back in the seventies,
but
there was enough "hi-fi" gear out there that people knew what it was and
they recognized that their low fidelity gear was indeed low fidelity.

Sure the majority knew their gear was LoFi, but they were *not* going to
spend the money necessary in those days to buy HiFi.


Decades ago a few of us had really good HiFi in our homes, just as a few
do
today. Even those that did usually also used cassettes in their car
despite
the low quality. These same people now often use MP3 in their car despite
their lower quality than CD, *but* superior quality to the cassettes they
once used. How is anything worse?

I think what makes it worse is that in those times, people had some notion
that what they were using could be better, and today people don't.

Well that much is most probably true.


In fact since reasonably good HiFi is now far cheaper than it ever was,
more
people have fairly decent HiFi in their home for when they choose to
listen
to their CD's. And even their MP3's usually sound better on most peoples
systems than their vinyl or cassettes once did on their cheap radiograms.
The big change AFAIC is far more people are listening to more of their own
music, more of the time, and a lot less radio (portable or car), which was
also LoFi.

This is true, but take a look at the speakers and/or earbuds that they are
using.... and I would claim that the speakers and room are more of a
limiting
factor than even the distribution medium in many cases.

No argument, but I would also claim that the sound from a half way decent
set of ear buds is better than the vast majority ever heard from their
radiograms back in the day. And I just have not seen a vast change in
speaker quality or room performance one way or the other. My opinion is that
if anything the average persons speakers are now a little better in the mid
range, but have less bass, which helps mitigate the room problems to some
degree. So perhaps a slight overall improvement for many.

Trevor.