Should HiFi be much less expensive nowadays, because of technology and obsolescence?

[FrantzM]

As for my contribution to this thread,

The "should" part is a complicated subject. The current state is that HiFi reproduction in the Home can cheaper nowadays than yesterday: We know more, we have more processing power and manufacturing capabilities.

A) The bulk of studies about how we hear has for the most part been done earlier. It is being disseminated thanks to the Internet. ASR is doing its part but other fora too.
B) Processing Power. Anyone with a $300 Laptop can measure to a good extent (see A), you need to know what you are doing ubt there are tutorial, blogs, expereinces and forum posts to guide the ignoramus wanting to leave that moniker behind (me among many).
c) Manufacturing Prowess... $9 DAC surpassing $15,000 says it all. Ths could be a bit related to A and B as that the processing power allows the implementation of findings in A and better , cheaper manufacturing processes,,,

As for the "Should" at first yes but when you have a market willing to pay the kind of prices we see all ... $15,000 Total Crap DAC surpassed by a $8 dongle for exemple of the plethora of >$100 K amplifers with 3% or more THD ... Speakers with FR akin to a boom box ( Zui) and entire websites telling you how good those monstrosities are, then you know that it is a subjective matter like those $1000 Balenciaga sneakerss ... They inhabit a different world and abide to different rules ... perhaps

 

[Wombat]

Im coming round to the idea of not needing (or wanting) the newest iterations of phones and maybe holding onto one until it no longer serves my requirements. Pixel 3 is about perfect - great camera- perfect hand size, good screen, keeps getting regular security updates. No longer care about minor tech improvements, voice/ face recognition etc. No need for a Pixel 4.

BUT- at around 18 month old the battery is starting to suffer. Multiple top ups per day- driving home on <20% isnt an option for safety and music playing purposes. I think that is the biggest challenge for the phone manufacturers to overcome- battery/ efficiency. Get me 10 hours of constant use guaranteed 12 months and on after purchase and I reckon I could keep for 3-5 years.

My 9 y.o. Samsung Galaxy S2 is still functioning well on its original battery - mostly voice calls. My last two car batteries(4.2 litre engine), mostly local trips, lasted 8 years each. If I knew why I would have a patent on it.

A problem with modern batteries is they tend to die without warning.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Im coming round to the idea of not needing (or wanting) the newest iterations of phones and maybe holding onto one until it no longer serves my requirements. Pixel 3 is about perfect - great camera- perfect hand size, good screen, keeps getting regular security updates. No longer care about minor tech improvements, voice/ face recognition etc. No need for a Pixel 4.

BUT- at around 18 month old the battery is starting to suffer. Multiple top ups per day- driving home on <20% isnt an option for safety and music playing purposes. I think that is the biggest challenge for the phone manufacturers to overcome- battery/ efficiency. Get me 10 hours of constant use guaranteed 12 months and on after purchase and I reckon I could keep for 3-5 years.

I change my phone about every 3 years. My current one will be 3 later this year but the battery still lasts about 3 days of my normal use (unless I wear my Garmin smart watch that hammers it) so I may keep it longer this time.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Or a smart tv - what one isn't in the last 10 years? My son saw me experimenting with different streamers (built-in, tablet, phone) and looking at a chromecast audio on EBay. He laughed at the whole enterprise and asked, why dont you take the lousy tv (a 2 year old 24") from the closet? It's got apps and cast and you can plug it directly in to the optical. And then everyone can see what's playing.

Our Samsung is pitifully slow though and the menu painfully inconvenient.
It can recognise gestures but we can never remember what they are...

 

[Colonel7]

Our Samsung is pitifully slow though and the menu painfully inconvenient.
It can recognise gestures but we can never remember what they are...

Right. I just use the cast functions. I'll never buy a samsung again after two died at 3 years old. Seems everything is disposable except a Panasonic Viera I got in 2007. That is built like a tank and has actual quality sound without a soundbar or speakers. Alas, it's the kids gaming tv now which means it's the most used item in the house.

 

[Jimbob54]

Right. I just use the cast functions. I'll never buy a samsung again after two died at 3 years old. Seems everything is disposable except a Panasonic Viera I got in 2007. That is built like a tank and has actual quality sound without a soundbar or speakers. Alas, it's the kids gaming tv now which means it's the most used item in the house.

Mid range Sony still going strong after 11 odd years of daily use. I suspect there is a degree of luck with TV longevity. I've always said to myself I'll be happy with 5 years service

 

[tomtoo]

As long this things work it's not obsolosence.
It's just your expectations have grown.

 

[watchnerd]

@watchnerd , something about these reminds me of Ya Moma..

Hey man, it was your momma, there would be 1 more hole open for biz.

 

[Thomas savage]

Hey man, it was your momma, there would be 1 more hole open for biz.

( This comment has be removed by ASR community standards watchdog )

 

[tuga]

Before the internet we didn't waste time browsing and chatting and getting all restless about the latest model of this or the revised version of that.
We probaly spent more time listening to music and wasted less money on gear too. Compulsive-consumerism is vacuous and environmentally unfriendly.

 

[JeffS7444]

I think that's what's really changed over the past 25 years is that today's home audio has moved from the living room to the desktop, and often involves listening via headphones rather than speakers. Hence you have a variety of compact DACs and amps to choose from at modest prices, while a very decent set of headphones can be had for about 150 USD. But if you want more of an old-school setup involving full-sized preamp, power amp, digital player and so on, those sorts of things have become specialty products, and prices often reflect it.

As for obsolescence, one way you can very quickly determine whether you are buying a product subject to rapid obsolescence is to determine to what extent a product can (or can't!) be used without apps or somehow tying the product to the manufacturer's servers.

 

[tomtoo]

"..and environmentally unfriendly.."

Hifi was always environmentally unfriendly.

Ask my Neighbours.

 

[Colonel7]

I have in effect!
I have an splendid sounding (IMO) pair of modern DSP speakers.
They sound very close to as good as the 25 year old system which cost about 10x as much. Not better though and a relative pita for me to use, in comparison.
I use them for streaming from Qobuz.

Are these impressive in form and function like Phantoms, performance monitors like Genelec/Neumann, or something in between like KEF? Sorry if you've already posted what they are.

 

[Old Listener]

My wife.
Tried one, rarely remembered it, frequently lost it, never remembered it needed charging, threw it away (literally)

My wife is grateful to see that she isn't alone. She feels good that she hasn't thrown her smartphone away.

 

[Robin L]

I was just reflecting on my HiFi and some of the modern exasperations and it occurred to me that HiFi kit could and should be much less relatively expensive than it has ever been and, indeed, needs to be.

One of the things that moving out of a big home with too much stuff to a much smaller apartment with very little stuff is realizing how little enjoyment I got out of all that audio gear. My M.O. for many years was upgradeitus that eventually morphed into thrift shop acquisition. A decade or so ago, people were emptying out their houses of all sorts of audio gear, no doubt downsizing and decluttering. This led to acquiring a 5.1 system with three subs, total cost of everything for less than $400. Now it's boiled down to 2.1, rarely used, 2 DAPs, used more, five sets of headphones plus a bunch of buds I never use, 2 headphone amps, a Roku streaming stick that attaches to the 2.1 system. Better fidelity than much of what I used in the past. But I'm spending a lot more time playing my guitar than listening to the music on my audio gear. The guitar spoils me.

 

[ttimer]

While i agree that the cash you need to lay out to carry a certain level of sound quality home nowadays is much lower than in the 60s-80s, i'm not convinced that the overall cost of ownership has decreased substantially.
Pretty much every single digitial piece of equipment will be outdated/incompatible/too slow/not supported/obsolete/broken within 10-15 years. Usually in less than 5. Compare that to the lifecycle of speakers, amps and turntables from the golden age. I currently have a pair of speakers made in 1975 which still sound good today. My parents system was bought in the early 90s and will last for another decade or three. Their turntable has been going for over 40 years. Assuming you need to buy a new streaming box every 7.5 years, that streamer will need to be 5 times cheaper than the turntable to break even.

Its even worse with highly integrated stuff like the KEF LSX. With old school chains, when one piece breaks or becomes obsolete, you just switch out that piece. If any part of an integrated active-dsp-wireless-bluetooth system breaks, you need to replace the entire thing which becomes expensive pretty fast.

 

[Asylum Seeker]

I was just reflecting on my HiFi and some of the modern exasperations and it occurred to me that HiFi kit could and should be much less relatively expensive than it has ever been and, indeed, needs to be.
The first thought was that compared to when I was working in the business all the measuring equipment is almost negligibly cheap compared to then (1970s) and has spectacularly more power.
Processing and microprocessors also but what really got me thinking was a combination between a thread here about CDs v file based music, and on another yet more discussion about firmware updates breaking existing features and this sort of thing.
The kit I have enjoyed for the last 25 years was fairly expensive but it has lasted 25 years (and hasn't failed yet) without need of updates and I am still enjoying it every day.
I have some DSP speakers which sound great but I hardly ever use.
I have a drone which I don't use any more because almost every time I wanted to there was an update rigmarole which left me losing the will to live, updating but missing what I wanted to use it for.
I am fairly sure I could get better sound from several speakers nowadays, though maybe not much in my listening conditions far field, but the frustration would, if my past experience be anything to go by, very much greater than zero and the obsolescence would mean it is neither likely to last or be serviceable for as long. So it would need to be cheap because it would need to be changed more often, and it could be because most of the electronics are much less expensive than they used to be.

Would I really notice how much better it was by enjoying my music more? Probably not.

Am I just too old?

But it is! It's just that many people are still stuck with the anachronistic idea that it takes thousands of dollars to get good sound. I am amazed at how good a $35 IEM connected to the headphone jack off my smartphone - granted, a $800 flagship - sounds...

 

[Asylum Seeker]

... And then there is also image and bragging rights standing in the way.

 

[BillG]

Pretty much every single digitial piece of equipment will be outdated/incompatible/too slow/not supported/obsolete/broken within 10-15 years.

I've not found this to be true, particularly when it comes to sources, with the exception of official support being pulled:

I've old CD drives, some 10+ years old, that are still perfectly functional.

The most popular encoding schemes (*.mp3, *.m4a, and *.flac) for digital audio files has been settled for quite some time now.

I could power up a smartphone from 2008 and it would play the vast majority of my music library just fine. I could run Windows 95 on a decade's old 486 or Pentium computer, an old version of Winamp, and those same files would play just fine as well. Such machines could even handle server duties just fine, although they might struggle if tasked to perform some heavy DSP.

Sure, batteries become depleted and need to be replaced every few years; Hard drives crash occasionally, although I do have a few still functional ones around that are ~10 years old; Screens die occasionally, but replacements are usually readily available. However, the microprocessors, ICs, and the underlying firmware in digital equipment can last for many decades.

 

[Wombat]

Can anyone tell me where to buy a GENUINE Galaxy S2(9 y.o.) replacement battery? Samsung can't.

I won't use the counterfeit Ebay ones since one in my Pocket WiFi became physically bloated. It likely had an ineffective inbuilt control chip or lacked one.