The “decline” in high-end audio sales: A new outlook

[the sound of Tao]

High End Audio has nothing to do with the transmission of music appreciation to the youth. Absolutely nothing. We can find it nice and beautiful that our children appreciate an LP but the reality is that for each of us or them who will truly care about an LP there a millions who appreciate music and listen to it through their headphones on mp3... Music won't suffer from the demise of High End Audio as it is today. We are not driving the recording industry even less the Music Industry.

I do find however interesting the comment by eberoth ... In most US audio shows the participants are 50 + , very much .. Perhaps European manufacturers are addressing this younger demographics better. A real ray of hope ...

Frantz, I'm with you a 100% that the high end isn't the last bastion of music, that music began at the start of civilisation and will be there at the end no matter what the medium is. But there is also value to some of us in passing on the experience of recorded music heritage as well to those that come. The seeds of every future ultimately lie in its past.

Also not just the means of transmission but the content as well. My mum took me to my first opera when I was young, coincidentally Madame Butterfly. I am in debt to her for this (as well as a whole heap of other things). If someone in my family had Magnepans when I was growing up I'd have gotten to where I am much earlier as well. For the generations that come, fast food and fast music may be their inherited diets. But passing on other values is for some of us, at least a part of the journey.

 

[Yuri Korzunov]

In my opinion, main problem modern audio apparatus, what there try look for improvements, where all right already: PCM vs. DSD, PCM vs. MQA, FLAC vs. WAV, CD track vs. HDD file, internal sound card vs. external DAC.

There all things reached very good values. These values may be improved. But it is not give us big step forward.

Despite it real sound so far from original live sound. Because spatial information while does not transmitted properly.

Me seems, new technology what really made sound-quality breakthrough will audio holography (restoring of original sound wave field in listening room), that simple (for end-users: music producers and listeners) as stereo.

 

[FrantzM]

Frantz, I'm with you a 100% that the high end isn't the last bastion of music, that music began at the start of civilisation and will be there at the end no matter what the medium is. But there is also value to some of us in passing on the experience of recorded music heritage as well to those that come. The seeds of every future ultimately lie in its past.

Also not just the means of transmission but the content as well. My mum took me to my first opera when I was young, coincidentally Madame Butterfly. I am in debt to her for this (as well as a whole heap of other things). If someone in my family had Magnepans when I was growing up I'd have gotten to where I am much earlier as well. For the generations that come, fast food and fast music may be their inherited diets. But passing on other values is for some of us, at least a part of the journey.

S of T

High End Audio values have changed significantly. Just to make sure we are clear on a few things. I read on this WBF that some eminent people of the High End community, a recording Engineer and electronics designer prefered the sound of a R2R to the live feed!!! and it seems that quite a few agreed with him. microstrip can better help me recall who wrote that. Once you get to that notion of preferences you are no longer transmitting the content but an edited version of it... And these days more than ever High End Audio is about preferences not faithful reproduction.

I was raised in a family where music was played every day, 98.8567% ) ) Western Classical music. I made sure to rebel against it, some, listening to a lot of Jazz and Progressive Rock. I must say that I began listening to more recorded music than live at an early age. I was taken however around 10 to live concerts and it was a shock to me to see how far Live was to the recorded... Later in life around my twenties I went back to Western Classical , understanding its beauty, its complexity and its elegance. Mostly in Live settings while in NYC. Then the Internet came and I was exposed to different Classical Music, especially Indian and Balinese and they are as good and often to my mind more captivating than Western Classical Music... it wasn't through High End Audio that I got to be exposed to those musics and their beauty. It was through lowly 128 kbps mp3 on Internet Radio.. Granted the experience is heightened by better recordings but again it is not through High End Audio .. it is through Spotify and these days for me, Tidal.

The notion of "fast music" is demeaning. There is nothing "fast" about the production and the creative process in today's music. Artists just don't drop in recording studios and come out with music. They work and hard and the creative process is the same it has been for Western or Oriental Classical music. They suffer to provide us with Music. THey work a lot. We may not like their music and even find it offensive .. So did many to Wagner ways or Mahler's or Stravinsky's or Stockhausen's or Jazz which is mostly considered now an elite musical genre ... the Irony...

Fast food doesn't elevate our health... That we can quickly find whatever we like and listen to it anywhere doesn't diminish the value of the music.. All the contrary IMO.

 

[the sound of Tao]

No worries frantz, I don't do demeaning. This is an assumption.

 

[FrantzM]

No worries frantz, I don't do demeaning.

Fine then..
It remains that today's music is not "fast" .. Mozart's wasn't and he could compose in his sleep .. so could Prince

 

[the sound of Tao]

Don't understand what you are going on about f.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Fine then..
It remains that today's music is not "fast" .. Mozart's wasn't and he could compose in his sleep .. so could Prince

Can you explain f

 

[Gregadd]

I think mine was a more passive generation when it came to entertainment. Now people are happy with karaoke and American ldol. Anyone can do it.
The level of distortion in today's audio products is disturbing. I saw an audiophile gathering where there was a demo to see how much distortion they could tolerate.
Add to that the never ending format wars where we seem to keep starting over.

 

[JackD201]

S of T

High End Audio values have changed significantly. Just to make sure we are clear on a few things. I read on this WBF that some eminent people of the High End community, a recording Engineer and electronics designer prefered the sound of a R2R to the live feed!!! and it seems that quite a few agreed with him.

Actually that shouldn't be surprising at all my friend and it has nothing to do with R2R. You could replace R2R in that sentence with any decent format and the outcome could be the same.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Fine then..
It remains that today's music is not "fast" .. Mozart's wasn't and he could compose in his sleep .. so could Prince

Frantz,
Earlier I wasn't saying that the making of music today is fast (like fast food) but rather the pattern today of our consumption of it is.

The sheer variety and accessibility of all the music available now can lead us in some ways to take it for granted. Certainly the way people have gone from having a typically sized recording collection in vinyl and tape into having terabytes of it more recently and now with streaming music is to all purposes infinitely available. The future viability of the musician and the value of music itself in all this could become less sure.

I originally was just saying how good it was that someone passed on to another in his family the experience of simply taking the time out and playing a whole double album on vinyl.