There's not a lot of demand primarily I'd think let alone any significant new tech/features. Perhaps simply too many models from each brand in years previous. Getting a higher quality build would be nice but not holding my breath. I think another significant component is the newest generation....what use do they have for such?
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Did manufacturers give up on AVRs?
- Thread starter polmuaddib
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A real life example is my 28 year old son - did not want my complete Dubai HT even as a gift. TV was too big for the wify and too much hassle with the audio system - even if installation and ongoing tech support was included in the gift package. Go figure
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Chr1
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Hate to say this, but for most people their wives/significant others can really curtail such things. My other hobby is motorcycles. I have lost count of the friends who had to buy a car instead, when he/she came along.
Have to say that for me it's pretty much always non-negotiable. The bikes, hifi and HT gear all stay.
Life is too short for such blasphemous compromises. YMMV.
Have to say that for me it's pretty much always non-negotiable. The bikes, hifi and HT gear all stay.
Life is too short for such blasphemous compromises. YMMV.
From my own observations, Ive noticed the following:
- No more competition as most brands fall under the same umbrella.
- Housing getting smaller, if you're lucky enough to even own or rent.
- Soundbars, bluetooth speakers, AirPods or just a phone on loudspeaker are the norm.
- Lots of entertainment gets created to be watched on a phone. Let alone that they think of proper audio. Thus less benefits for those to have a proper system.
- People are getting less tech savvy. Especially younger people expect an out of the box setup experience.
- What's more to develop within AVR's, there's enough channels, enough power, enough HDMI ports and other I/O's
- Secondary markets are blooming, buying and selling used has become safer and easier.
- Physical shops are barely to be seen. How are people expected to be interested in HiFi/HT if they don't even what's out there.
It's a downwards spiral for hometheater/stereo, I don't see a period of resurgence any time soon.
- No more competition as most brands fall under the same umbrella.
- Housing getting smaller, if you're lucky enough to even own or rent.
- Soundbars, bluetooth speakers, AirPods or just a phone on loudspeaker are the norm.
- Lots of entertainment gets created to be watched on a phone. Let alone that they think of proper audio. Thus less benefits for those to have a proper system.
- People are getting less tech savvy. Especially younger people expect an out of the box setup experience.
- What's more to develop within AVR's, there's enough channels, enough power, enough HDMI ports and other I/O's
- Secondary markets are blooming, buying and selling used has become safer and easier.
- Physical shops are barely to be seen. How are people expected to be interested in HiFi/HT if they don't even what's out there.
It's a downwards spiral for hometheater/stereo, I don't see a period of resurgence any time soon.
Chr1
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Have to say that I disagree to a certain extent. Watching with soundbars or on phones is definitely more popular now, and to some extent that's dumbed down viewing movies etc. However, being able to stream online or from storage in both high res and multichannel, has never been easier or cheaper.
Personally I just feel sorry for all the folks watching on small screens through sh** audio devices. Their loss. But it doesn't mean that the rest of us need to dumb down to that level.
The tech may have plateau'd somewhat, but long live AVRs, I say.
Personally I just feel sorry for all the folks watching on small screens through sh** audio devices. Their loss. But it doesn't mean that the rest of us need to dumb down to that level.
The tech may have plateau'd somewhat, but long live AVRs, I say.
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I'm betting on Wiim to perfect their Dolby 5.1 implementation (I use an Apple TV as my main source and I can set it to Dolby Digital 5.1) and I'm also betting on them doing something with Atmos. Otherwise I'm going to for a Denon 6800h and stop SINAD chasing and enjoy movies in my home theatre.
That picture is the most unhinged thing I've ever seen.
Hasn't multichannel audio been readily available since DVD become popular in the early zero's? And with the launch of CD we had audible stereo perfection. To my consideration with the loss of physical media, degradation of the quality has set in. IMHO Netflix Atmos is not real Atmos. And CD's sound just as good if not better than the highest quality stream on Tidal (or whatever streaming service).
We hit peak video and multichannel audio with Ultra HD BD in 2016. But nobody is buying those anymore, try buying a high end AVR with matching player. You can't, what's the point of having a 16 channel high-end AVR if soon there's no way in using it to its full extent?
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Really?
Wendy (Walter) Carlos at one point had four (early version) Klipsch Cornwalls
oh the cacophony
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Far earlier than DVD. Since 1971, give or take. Even if one discounts quad, Dolby ProLogic (not really that different than matrix quad) was all the rage in some circles by the late 1980s. Heck, even my father had a ProLogic receiver!
Fidji
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Folks that are having 16 or more channels setup DO buy UHD’s [although I need to say, that there I am picky on which movies I buy on disc [in most of the cases it is my 3rd purchase of the same movie after DVD and BR], usually only if there is Atmos sound added. Upscaling works very well so no real need to go just because of 4k picture in most of the cases. If you want to stream in high quality there is always Kaleidascape available as an option. And lot of series have good sound on Netflix&Co, alsoo BEQ is of great help for movies.
I would point out that Wendy Carlos was a professional musician so that this could be considered part of his vocation, i.e. professional equipment.Really?
Wendy (Walter) Carlos at one point had four (early version) Klipsch Cornwallsin the corners, flying, in their home/studio in NYC -- that is unhinged.
View attachment 463397
oh the cacophony
masterhw
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it’s not just about the fact that these specifications were available previously, but the ease of accessibility and corresponding market share. Even with the median consumer using a sub $1000 flatscreen and a soundbar, 2025 home audiences are enjoying playback with a level of fidelity far beyond the median consumer of one or two decades past. Cheap large 4K HDR displays, decent soundbars often with a (small) subwoofer option, sure it’s below the level of us enthusiasts but it’s quite good compared to anything the median consumer had before. And these audiences are largely sold on 4K HDR Atmos streams. I understand this has been available to consumers for a decade, but the market data reflects that almost no one bought UHD Bluray.
The optimist in me believes that if it were made sufficiently easy, the median consumer would be happy to continue their march up the fidelity stairway and enter the world of multichannel & DSP/room correction. But perhaps the world of multichannel and room correction right now is the ‘UHD Bluray,’ powerful yet complex and expensive, and what needs to be in order to catch on is the simplified but broadly accessible ‘streaming version.’
Enthusiasts have already nearly achieved AV nirvana, there is almost nowhere else to go from here. The hard work left is in integrating/packaging it for the mainstream, who don’t really know what an AVR is or why their TV + AppleTV/GoogleTV can’t perform most of those functions already.
I guess it’s a free world so don’t have to look at it at all.
Would be interesting to see the photo of your setup to understand what would be on the opposite side?
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True but... four Cornwalls ("Cornwall 1", more to the point).
The problem isn't four -- it's Cornwalls.
Trust me. I did my time with two Cornwall 1s.
It's unhinged.
EDIT:
Another empirical datapoint.
Not a professional.
Not multichannel.
Not unhinged.
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Nothing at all wrong with really good monophonic (monaural).
Who needs more when only one ear still works.
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Oh, I should point out that even Kubrick later went two channel...
The YT video link (spoiler tag below) is provided strictly as a reference for the screenshot above! It is strictly NSFW. You have been warned.
Multichannel audio has been available (readily is subject to debate) since the 1970's, when SD4 and CD4 formats of encoded quad came out on vinyl records....
Some of the same barriers to adoption (complexity, too many speakers, etc...) existed then as they exist now, and ultimately doomed quad audio.
Theatre surround used many of the same technologies applied to film... which ultimately found themselves encoded onto the stereo soundtracks on videodisks and VHS tapes.... leading to a small hobby group of nerds who would decode the stereo into "Dolby Surround" ... the growth of that group led to "Home Theatre" (boosted massively by the release of DVD with AC3 multichannel encoding).
If we want to look at what may cause the failure of the entire category - look at what happened to Quad SD4 and CD4 in the 70's.
If you want to feel hopeful about the future, look at how in the late 1980's the nerds managed to take Dolby Surround and make it a mass market category....
Perhaps it was always fated to return to the nerds.... ("Return of the Nerds" a new B Horror movie)
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