How do we get more people excited about HiFi?

[Petrushka]

As a starter, keep them away from ASR! far, far away . . .
ASR tells people:
- $100 DACs are as good as or better than those ultra spec , ultra expensive stuff (Hell even $10 DACs)
- So many things are below the threshold of audibility, so don't worry about them
- Save your money, don't spend on cables, isolation pads, blah blah
.
.
ASR sucks the life out of Audiophiles, and they are the ones that keep spending money on this hobby, which is a lot more about the gear, than results and enjoyment of music.
So as a dealer, Keep knocking ASR, don't let your potential customers anywhere near it.

People do not buy Mercedes because it transports them better. They buy because it is luxurious.

What seems to be dead is low end brick and mortar. You can buy stuff on Amazon, and it will be satisfactory.

 

[Leporello]

We want the youngsters to be interested in Hi-Fi in order to justify our own obsession. For many of us it has been painful to realize that good quality sound is for most people not nearly as important as it is to us. Normal people understand that the tiny differences we worry about are not worth worrying about.

 

[Audiofire]

People do not buy Mercedes because it transports them better. They buy because it is luxurious.

Replace Mercedes with Ferrari and we have a deal

 

[Petrushka]

Replace Mercedes with Ferrari and we have a deal

A sports car in New England is like a cheetah in a hamster wheel.

 

[rank]

Concerning the high-end where I have direct experience, customers didn't care about the supposed sound quality that the 3 of us would have been incapable of demonstrating to them. So fortunately.
One of the customers had a small Ferrari, but it was cheaper at the time.

 

[Galliardist]

If general acceptance of good audio increases, it will be though improvements in soundbars and home theater.

One of the things about hifi is that it has often been a thing of the man of the house. And the story of this century for music is that it has become more of a private and personal activity. Fewer people go to concerts outside of a few big event tours, iPods to phones and headphones, listening in the car, and that possessive "my music" thing.

The immediate future of music in the home will be VR. It's a niche thing at the moment, but it will explode in a few short years, and it;'s likely to blow away so much of the personal tech that we have today. I include hifi as we know it today in that. Combined with AI that knows your preferences, we've hardly started on isolating, personal technology.

The coming death of traditional hifi is the least of our worries. Let it go, if it will.

 

[eddantes]

Because "hi-fi", as we geezers know it, isn't simply listening - it is an immersive experience - an event.

Let me start with an analogous event: waiting for the bus. What? Be patient... "Waiting for the bus"- pre quitiing smoking VS "Waiting for the bus" - post quitting smoking.

Pre:

• get to the stop, look down the street for the bus
• fish out the cig and lighter
• light the cig, letting out an expressive plume and watch it dissipate into the air
• contemplate the complexity of the world as you enjoy the smoke (and try to look cool doing it
• bus comes - stamp out the cig disappointingly, while you transition into a bus rider

Post:

• get to the stop, look look down the street for the bus
• wait - stare into the middle distance as you contemplate the banality of life
• bus comes - thank god

Now consider listening to music

Pre-streaming:

• go to your listening spot and peruse your library (a carefully curated collection; that came at a great cost of time, effort, and money)
• you take in the cover art and read the tracklist
• crack open the album and take in more art or photography and perhaps read some lyrics which may inspire some nostalgia or a mood that fits the moment
• fish out the album and start the playback sequence, turning on the amp, the preamp; setting the source and the volume you place the record on the spindle you give it a quick wipe with the brush and gently lower the needle on the lead-in track
• grab the album again and maybe scan the lyrics and the playlist as the first notes hit your ears and you settle in for a performance - not just a track - but the side (or later with CDs - the album)

Post straming:

• glance at your phone (it's probably in your hand already) and touch the app or the widget on the home screen
• hit play on your favourite playlist as your streamer wakes up your playback gear and music of the current track hits your ears
• contemplate swiching playlists or hitting the search function if the mood doesn't quite match the occasion, but by this time the track is over and you reconsider
• do something else

Look - I realize I am being simplistic and these scenario's are contrived - BUT - one cannot deny that the instant gratification and transitory nature of today's music streaming simply does not call for the same "occasion" and simply never sets up for the same "event" as before. If we are to make HiFi a "thing" again - we need to change the way we consume music. Listening needs to become an "event" again; and for that it needs a "ceremony"; a set of artifacts and behaviours that elevate the moment with activity and mindfulness.

Alas - I don't think it will happen on a large public scale ever again. Art - music, perfomance, or visual - has been devalued to an extent, where I don't believe we can come back from.

 

[Petrushka]

One of the things about hifi is that it has often been a thing of the man of the house. And the story of this century for music is that it has become more of a private and personal activity. Fewer people go to concerts outside of a few big event tours, iPods to phones and headphones, listening in the car, and that possessive "my music" thing.

The immediate future of music in the home will be VR. It's a niche thing at the moment, but it will explode in a few short years, and it;'s likely to blow away so much of the personal tech that we have today. I include hifi as we know it today in that. Combined with AI that knows your preferences, we've hardly started on isolating, personal technology.

The coming death of traditional hifi is the least of our worries. Let it go, if it will.

I find it difficult to have enthusiasm for movie theaters. My cheap 55 inch tv has a better picture than you get from the back row of a theater. My local small town theater has good sound, but that’s a bit of an oddity. The town is Hollywood friendly and gets cameoed quite a bit. It has a Norman Rockwell vibe. Want a thirty second Main Street shot? No problem. They’ll shut it down for a week.

But soundbars and subwoofers are popular, and they are inching toward hifi. Home theater is the gateway drug.

TV streamers are adding music apps.

 

[Petrushka]

In defense of streaming, I like Old music, as in pre-Bach. I was never able to sample much until Spotify. I haven’t even starte thinking about world music, but it’s on the list.

I’m afraid that for me, good enough is good enough.

 

[Galliardist]

In defense of streaming, I like Old music, as in pre-Bach. I was never able to sample much until Spotify. I haven’t even starte thinking about world music, but it’s on the list.

I’m afraid that for me, good enough is good enough.

Availability of music and of different types of music has always been a key thing for me. I used a record library with several thousand LPs when I first got a decent stereo setup. I stuck with vinyl despite digital sounding better, for many years, because I had a fairly large record collection and no CDs. I eventually moved away from vinyl because we moved into a place where I couldn't keep that collection handy (and I had a turntable that went through three motors in five years, which was frustrating). Now streaming lets me explore again.

 

[JeffS7444]

If younger people are interested, they can seek stuff out for themselves, even reinvent the hobby to suit their own realities.

 

[Mr. Widget]

Something like the Art of Noise event as SFMOMA is more like what we need. Say whatever you want about Turnbull, I went to it, and the exhibition was really successful, cool, and fun, and I think probably turned some people on to Hi-Fi.

Education and Experience...

The folks who went to the Art of Noise exhibit at SFMOMA expected to experience something out of the ordinary. They were not disappointed. Hearing a decent system even with the inherent quirks of Devon Turnbull's in a setting like this made it special and likely intrigued a number of those who experienced it. Some may even take the next step and investigate what it takes to bring that excitement home.

I'm sure most of us on this forum have shared our above average to exceptional audio systems with the uninitiated and surprised them by what is possible... I am also sure very few of those friends and visitors were ever inspired enough to follow in our footsteps.

All that said, vintage hi-fi is cool... a local coffeehouse has these Altecs... unfortunately the sound is pretty bad due to the room's acoustics and placement. Of course these vintage Altecs need quite a lot of care to sound good, but under the right conditions and perhaps with a bit of DSP they certainly can sound good.

At SFMOMA the speakers were set up in a treated room and were carefully set up and while we can nit pic all day long over the details, they sounded fine and many people left there very excited by the experience.

 

[truckers_atlas]

I tend to think it's a failure of imagination among the marketing departments of these companies, who by and large seem to have resigned themselves to die with their Boomer customers. The pricey noise-cancelling headphones that Apple, Bose, and Sony have sold are proof that young people are still very interested in audio. Millennial women are the engine that have made Taylor Swift into a billionaire. Young people have driven the renaissance in vinyl sales. Even with the constraints acknowledged already in the thread - higher cost of living, smaller spaces, general disinterest in home audio - you're telling me you can't capture a fraction of that audience?

 

[Timcognito]

I tend to think it's a failure of imagination among the marketing departments of these companies, who by and large seem to have resigned themselves to die with their Boomer customers. The pricey noise-cancelling headphones that Apple, Bose, and Sony have sold are proof that young people are still very interested in audio. Millennial women are the engine that have made Taylor Swift into a billionaire. Young people have driven the renaissance in vinyl sales. Even with the constraints acknowledged already in the thread - higher cost of living, smaller spaces, general disinterest in home audio - you're telling me you can't capture a fraction of that audience?

Marketing already has captured them and you just stated that, or maybe I misread, sorry. Good sound is a commodity that is taken for granted by the newer generation, just as the cost of the music. They go to concerts, some have AV systems for over air music and movies and/or they collect LPs. The sound quality they consume trumps most anything from the '70s. Without better recording practices (which is discipline not new tech), and sophisticated room correction there is little to be gained.

 

[Punter]

Music consumption has changed radically from the days of vinyl, tape and CD's. For young people now, the source of music is not a cabinet in the living room flanked by a pair of speakers but the powerful computer in their pocket. Sure, some young people get a thrill out of listening to a vinyl record and the now quite novel method of extracting music from it. However, nostalgia and novelty are thoroughly outclassed by portability and convenience. Traditional HiFi systems come with two spatial problems, one is the equipment itself and the space it occupies, the other is the storage of media (presuming you're not streaming all the content). If I consider my two kids, neither of them would want to have to have a HiFi system that they would have to find space for or potentially have to pack it up and move it should they relocate (my youngest is in her fourth rental property). Most of the current crop of HiFi owners/enthusiasts are from an era when a HiFi was the coolest thing you could have after a car when you were young. However, the world has moved on and the era when you and a couple of friends would sit on the floor listening to your latest record, taking turns to appreciate the cover art and reading the liner notes has passed into history.

 

[JeffS7444]

You can find a younger demographic at CanJam events, and AFAIK, most sales of related products are made online. It's not a niche that traditional shops can readily serve, given that the manufacturers themselves are selling their products online.

Like the Harley Davidson motorcycle people, high-end traditionalist companies are keenly aware of demographic trends, but younger generations don't automatically embrace brands or even product categories beloved by their (grand)parents, even when said products are specifically designed to woo them. Meanwhile, the peak spending years for older generations has developed a long tail unthinkable just a few decades prior.

Regarding LPs, my own observations of a single nearby record store has got me thinking that young people do not dominate here. That it attracts a pretty broad demographic, but the heaviest hitters are older guys with money.

 

[kemmler3D]

Even with the constraints acknowledged already in the thread - higher cost of living, smaller spaces, general disinterest in home audio - you're telling me you can't capture a fraction of that audience?

Realistically, I think Sonos has pretty much already done this. We're sitting here wondering why younger generations aren't into Hi-Fi, meanwhile we're looking at a billion dollar Hi-Fi brand like it doesn't count for some reason.

 

[Petrushka]

Realistically, I think Sonos has pretty much already done this. We're sitting here wondering why younger generations aren't into Hi-Fi, meanwhile we're looking at a billion dollar Hi-Fi brand like it doesn't count for some reason.

Here’s the sad truth. People old enough to have money can’t hear. People young enough to hear don’t have thousands of dollars. There’s maybe two percent that have both.

 

[Audiofire]

Here’s the sad truth. People old enough to have money can’t hear. People young enough to hear don’t have thousands of dollars. There’s maybe two percent that have both.

So if we accept this is the truth, we have to specify what people can't hear. Many adults can't hear above 17 kHz for example. There is almost never important music there (some harmonics and noise).

 

[GXAlan]

BUT - one cannot deny that the instant gratification and transitory nature of today's music streaming simply does not call for the same "occasion" and simply never sets up for the same "event" as before. If we are to make HiFi a "thing" again - we need to change the way we consume music. Listening needs to become an "event" again; and for that it needs a "ceremony"; a set of artifacts and behaviours that elevate the moment with activity and mindfulness.

Alas - I don't think it will happen on a large public scale ever again. Art - music, perfomance, or visual - has been devalued to an extent, where I don't believe we can come back from.

I agree. We already see that with streaming versus theatrical releases. When a new album “drops” and you can just do it via streaming, the sense of anticipation and focus isn’t there.

Realistically, I think Sonos has pretty much already done this. We're sitting here wondering why younger generations aren't into Hi-Fi, meanwhile we're looking at a billion dollar Hi-Fi brand like it doesn't count for some reason.

+1. Sonos has its well publicized “meltdown” from the new app glitches, and they have lost a billion dollars of market capitalization — BUT they are still worth 1.4 Billion.

When Masimo bought Sound United
that was only $1B.

Sonos does 2 ch, surround sound with upfiring Atmos, headphones, HDMI eARC amps, and even dabbles in automotive.