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Is the Romance of High Fidelity Audio Today Dead?

watchnerd

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"The hobby of high-fidelity is fascinating. You have to understand, this is a singularly individual hobby, like no other. Audiophiles who came ‘of audio age’ in the Golden Era of the 1960’s-1980’s had a relationship with the equipment and aura of audio that simply doesn’t exist today. Certainly not to the same degree, anyway. Today’s equipment—whether it’s a multi-channel theater setup or a 2-channel music purist system—is so uniformly excellent that a lot of the mystique and “skill” of picking out one’s personal system is just not there anymore. That skill is not needed. Speakers, amplifiers, music-delivery devices, they’re all so good these days. The era of blind-luck, hit-or-miss design has long since passed."

And more at:

https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/romance-high-fidelity
 

StefaanE

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Feinstein’s blurb made me think of the following Douglas Adams quote:
Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
 

Mnyb

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"The hobby of high-fidelity is fascinating. You have to understand, this is a singularly individual hobby, like no other. Audiophiles who came ‘of audio age’ in the Golden Eraof the 1960’s-1980’s had a relationship with the equipment and aura of audio that simply doesn’t exist today. Certainly not to the same degree, anyway. Today’s equipment—whether it’s a multi-channel theater setup or a 2-channel music purist system—is so uniformly excellent that a lot of the mystique and “skill” of picking out one’s personal system is just not there anymore. That skill is not needed. Speakers, amplifiers, music-delivery devices, they’re all so good these days. The era of blind-luck, hit-or-miss design has long since passed."

And more at:

https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/romance-high-fidelity

Hmm but it’s still so much desinformation out there so it’s still hard to do properly, most audiophiles still overspend on source components and buy to small and to expensive speakers and use no kind of room correction.
But this is also why it’s all dwindling to irrelevance. Any noob looking in to audiophiledom from the outside must be thoroughly confused . So I disagree somewhat :) but its correct in that if you know what to look for its easy to find a performance DAC for example , that i agree with.
 

sigbergaudio

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I would think it is a good advancement that you don't have to buy four amplifiers before you find one that works with your speakers. :) That being said there's still loads of high-end manufactureres out there where you buy into the "magic" and looks and build quality rather than absolute sonic performance. And you can still buy tube amps and what-not if that's your fancy. And there are heaps of both large and small manufacturers still selling components, so what he's saying isn't really true, is it? I'm pretty sure not EVERY teenager were into stereo in the 80s either. Even back then I'm guessing most kids had the famed "rack system" (which incidentally have more or less vanished) that were all in one, or a boomblaster for that matter. I grew up in the 80s, and I had a separate Philips CD-player and a Tandberg amplifier, and gigant speakers that my uncle had built. I remember maybe one other kid with the same hobby, the rest had a boomblaster or a walkman.

And as the measurements here on ASR shows, it's not true that any multi channel theater setup is "uniformly excellent". In fact most AVRs measures way worse than most 2 channel equipment. On the other hand the added advantage of advanced room correction abilities may mean it still sounds better.


In summary I think his take is very inaccurate. Thriving forums like this one (and many others) show the hobby is still very much alive. Perhaps there are less independent hifi stores. On the flip side, you now have access to every botique manufacturer ON THE PLANET through the internet. So in reality the components available for you to explore and buy is way better than in the 80s when you were limited to whatever your local hifi store had in stock. If you want to go into a store and touch and listen, at least here in Norway we still have both big chains dedicated to the mainstream brands as well as several independent stores where you can buy crazy expensive stuff and replacement tubes or whatever is your fancy.
 

Ilkless

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I don't think it has to die, it just needs to gain some self-awareness as a hobby founded on fetishising and acquiring gear. The example I always like using the watch hobby. No one is in it to get the most accurate timekeeping; it's micro-mechanical art. I'm seriously looking at a cheap-ish used Rowland Model 525 local to me, mostly for the haptics, build, looks and okay-enough distortion (Pascal, but going to be limited by the Lundahl input transformers like the big brother measured here), power output, long-term support and other non-auditory pride of ownership factors. It's a chunky display piece that performs presumably okay-enough to be unobjectionable. I'm not going to pretend that these non-auditory factors correlate strongly with audio performance, particularly under sighted listening.
 

sergeauckland

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"The hobby of high-fidelity is fascinating. You have to understand, this is a singularly individual hobby, like no other. Audiophiles who came ‘of audio age’ in the Golden Eraof the 1960’s-1980’s had a relationship with the equipment and aura of audio that simply doesn’t exist today. Certainly not to the same degree, anyway. Today’s equipment—whether it’s a multi-channel theater setup or a 2-channel music purist system—is so uniformly excellent that a lot of the mystique and “skill” of picking out one’s personal system is just not there anymore. That skill is not needed. Speakers, amplifiers, music-delivery devices, they’re all so good these days. The era of blind-luck, hit-or-miss design has long since passed."

And more at:

https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/romance-high-fidelity
I came into this hobby whilst at school, and from the technical side, i.e. I was always into measurements, and how they could be made better. What something sounded like didn't really (and still doesn't) matter, how it performed technically did.

Consequently, at the time (mid-late 1960s) HiFi generally was still very flawed, and so there were many technical discussions in magazines like Wireless World as to the best techniques, and that got me experimenting, trying things out, building and modifying in an attempt to improve things.

Loudspeakers were also a constant challenge, from an old car-radio loudspeaker in a cardboard box (yes really!) through large bass-reflex to sealed box, amplifiers from valves to first germanium transistors and very quickly back to valves, then silicon transistors. The thrill of FM stereo, and building my first stereo tuner, all milestone moments.

By the mid 1980s, it was all pretty much over, especially after CD, as 'pure, perfect sound, forever' became the norm, and everything after that was 'meh'. Apart from louder, cheaper and certainly more reliable, I can't see any progress in HiFi performance in the past 35 years.

I can't see anyone now under 50 or possibly even under 60 having any concept of a time when HiFi was difficult to achieve, involved a lot of knowledge and research, and quite possibly a lot of DIY or if not, then expense. Anyone of that sort of age will be used to buying a box and it just works. Streaming has, I think, finally killed off the concept of sitting and listening to music as an activity, and giving any value to music, it's free isn't it? Just ask Alexa to play it? What do you mean, go out and buy a CD? In a shop? (what's a shop?)

But then HiFi isn't alone. When was the last time anyone reset the tappets in their car? When was the last time anyone adjusted the jets in their carbs, or the ignition timing? Now, we just buy a car (a computer on wheels) and drive it. Only vintage car geeks tune their engines, just as only HiFi geeks adjust their turntables. As to mechanical watch geeks...

The world has moved on.

S.
 

Lorenzo74

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Today exceptional Dac and amp might cost few hundreds €/$.
with 500-600 €/$ you can get very good bookshelf speaker that make happy most of us.
streaming make LP, CD obsolete.
you can choose a minidsp SHD power plus Elac DR2 and a sub and achieve a Room tuned sound impossible to match by any legacy CD-DAC_PreAmp-Amp-passive towers 50k€...
You go to ASR and you realize the old high end audiophile biz is gone...
best
 

BDWoody

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"The hobby of high-fidelity is fascinating. You have to understand, this is a singularly individual hobby, like no other. Audiophiles who came ‘of audio age’ in the Golden Eraof the 1960’s-1980’s had a relationship with the equipment and aura of audio that simply doesn’t exist today. Certainly not to the same degree, anyway. Today’s equipment—whether it’s a multi-channel theater setup or a 2-channel music purist system—is so uniformly excellent that a lot of the mystique and “skill” of picking out one’s personal system is just not there anymore. That skill is not needed. Speakers, amplifiers, music-delivery devices, they’re all so good these days. The era of blind-luck, hit-or-miss design has long since passed."

And more at:

https://www.audioholics.com/editorials/romance-high-fidelity

I think this is what is pulling people back into analog sources, especially records. There is a lot of fiddling around required to get good results, and you feel like the result depends on your efforts, because it does! When you hear a nice quiet record played on a nice system that you put together with pieces and parts from all over, there is a different kind of satisfaction and it is a different kind of experience.

With digital sources, it is so hard to get it wrong, that assuming you aren't dealing with huge spaces or weird conditions, whatever you buy is likely good enough. Competence has become quite cheap and nearly ubiquitous in the solid state world.

Cheap competence isn't romantic. If the thrill is in the pursuit, there isn't much thrill.
 

StefaanE

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I often pour myself a glass of wine and slip into something comfortable when I want to turn on my big rig...

Romance is alive and well here !
If Indy was about LPs, we would be watching “Romancing the stylus” ;)
 

Jimbob54

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I often pour myself a glass of wine and slip into something comfortable when I want to turn on my big rig...

Romance is alive and well here !

France's 12th best selling Emo band- Savage Romance
 

Mimeyar

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I would say it is more that people have come along with skepticism that has spoiled the hobby for those who believe that everything sounds audibly different and they can mix and match in search of some kind of audio nirvana. That itself is relatively benign as a hobby but when it's so expensive and being communicated to others as true it's no longer benign. It's the difference between private mediums and those who then sell talking to the dead as a commercial service to others. The customers who believe in it then convince others which propagates it further to those who are unaware that it is nonsense. Truth matters when money is involved.

What is worth remembering is that when the tobacco industry found it could no longer refute evidence of the relationship between smoking and cancer it instead chose to run disinformation campaigns to create doubt. They knew that you don't have to refute you just have to create doubt and people will continue smoking.
 
OP
watchnerd

watchnerd

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I think this is what is pulling people back into analog sources, especially records. There is a lot of fiddling around required to get good results, and you feel like the result depends on your efforts, because it does! When you hear a nice quiet record played on a nice system that you put together with pieces and parts from all over, there is a different kind of satisfaction and it is a different kind of experience.

With digital sources, it is so hard to get it wrong, that assuming you aren't dealing with huge spaces or weird conditions, whatever you buy is likely good enough. Competence has become quite cheap and nearly ubiquitous in the solid state world.

Cheap competence isn't romantic. If the thrill is in the pursuit, there isn't much thrill.

Ditto.

Streaming doesn't give me anything to do.

It's almost a Marxian "alienation of the worker"-like phenomenon.

I also agree with his comments in the article about tactile feedback, which is something that keeps drawing me back to retro-type electronics.
 

BDWoody

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Ditto.

Streaming doesn't give me anything to do.

It's almost a Marxian "alienation of the worker"-like phenomenon.

I also agree with his comments in the article about tactile feedback, which is something that keeps drawing me back to retro-type electronics.

I think after the last couple years here, and learning just how bad electronics have to be before you are going to have meaningful audible issues, it makes me a lot more comfortable picking up that decades old well made Preamp (or amp, or whatever).

On the contrary, the feel of the control knobs simply extends the overall 'sensuality' of the experience, and fits with the old turntables in that retro sense perfectly.
 
OP
watchnerd

watchnerd

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I think after the last couple years here, and learning just how bad electronics have to be before you are going to have meaningful audible issues, it makes me a lot more comfortable picking up that decades old well made Preamp (or amp, or whatever).

On the contrary, the feel of the control knobs simply extends the overall 'sensuality' of the experience, and fits with the old turntables in that retro sense perfectly.

Maybe it's time to lobby Amir to test some vintage gear.

That would provide a lot more new info to the world than yet another inexpensive DAC that measures audibly perfect. ;)
 

BDWoody

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Maybe it's time to lobby Amir to test some vintage gear.

That would provide a lot more new info to the world than yet another inexpensive DAC that measures audibly perfect. ;)

Did you ever find that audio analyzer you were looking for? Might not need an AP to effectively measure Vintage stuff.
I should figure out how to use this AQ401 I've had on the list to play with.
 
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