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I see two different things. Just because they most often listen at their computers is a lot different than how they prefer it, isn't it?
I most often drive myself to work but I prefer being chauffeured.
I most often drive myself to work but I prefer being chauffeured.
1) I see it as freedom of choice > youtube and Wi-Fi streaming exposes much wider variety of music. BTW You should see my PC speakers, not exactly lo-fi
2) not depressing >get busy use the results from these studies to create better products to fit the new life styles!
3) Hi-Fi from its zenith years has been declining for decades?...stop the blame game
2) not depressing >get busy use the results from these studies to create better products to fit the new life styles!
3) Hi-Fi from its zenith years has been declining for decades?...stop the blame game
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Bingo. Stupid headline. I prefer my living room system, but since I'm in my office 10 hours a day and listen to music when hiking, "most often" is mediocre headphones. That's OK, it's the music I'm after.
Since more than 100% is shown, I guess all of us could have had computer speakers as one of our responses.
So the people that bought KLH speakers 40 years ago buy headphones now, who gives a ****? There's no death of audiophile quality equipment, there's a death of electronic stores selling garbage with different prices for different sizes - as opposed to quality. The only real loss is products that were inbetween, made by audiophile companies but sold to both sides of the fence at the low price. There may be less sales of audiophile gear, but it's not because people changed what they like, it's because they can't afford it. It is and has been a minority.
Why would someone buy a receiver and speakers that sound like monkey dick anyways? In the 70's doing that got you something at least pleasing to hear.
Headphones are on the rise, btw. And the smart items are coming around, people like a stereo of sorts, such as Sonos, but the caveat is it needs to be as convenient as playback from a phone/iPod, wirelessly..
Why would someone buy a receiver and speakers that sound like monkey dick anyways? In the 70's doing that got you something at least pleasing to hear.
Headphones are on the rise, btw. And the smart items are coming around, people like a stereo of sorts, such as Sonos, but the caveat is it needs to be as convenient as playback from a phone/iPod, wirelessly..
The article uses the word "prefer" in the headline, but the data is all about how people actually listen to music most of the time.
When I worked at Motorola I spent 10+ hours a day at a workstation, so that's where I listened to music most of the time. When I had my own walled office I had a small tube amp, a USB DAC and a pair of speakers hooked up to the PC.
Then the productivity police decided that all the walls had to go in favor of the open office concept. I became one of many Dilberts in a 100,000 square foot building full of cubicles. I was suddenly surrounded by the cacophony of a thousand speakerphones, so I got a pair of Sennheisers.
The PC police got all nasty about some of us having more music on our "company owned" PC's than work files, so the Sennheisers wound up plugged into my cellphone.....a Samsung, not a Motorola, they sound better.
Would I PREFER that, no, I had several DIY amps and speaker systems at home. Did I get to listen to that often? NO!
Where do I listen to the most music now? Right here on this workstation. The PC on the left is a dedicated music PC. It is used for listening, creating, recording, mixing and mastering music. There are 3 DAW's to chose from and several software synthesizers, samplers, and music tools. Below the PC are a few hardware synths, and more are still packed away. The analog CV stuff is still under construction.
Truth is that this computer desk will probably be the center piece for my preferred system, but it is nowhere near finished. That $20 "Digital Amplifier" has to go. I see three or four amps switchable depending on my mood, ditto speaker systems, the turntable needs to come out of storage, but first I need to do something about those bare concrete walls. I have been in this house for less than a year.....still haven't found all the stuff that has travelled 1200 miles.
The PC on the right is a generic PC, I use it for everything from PC board layout to forum posts. It however shares the same external USB DAC and audio system as the music PC.
The iConnect AUDIO4 USB DAC can connect to two computers simultaneously, play music from one or both, record up to 4 channels into one or both, and pass music or MIDI between PC's, MACs, or iPads, and external MIDI or USB devices entirely in the digital domain. All routing is programmable.
A PC CAN be a HiFi music system. Most aren't however.
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I play music mostly through my PC into a USB DAC into a 1000WRMS sub and a tweeter box at around 1 watt.
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I'm neither surprised or unhappy in the least that hi end hi if is under such pressure. The stupid prices, laughable reviews and signs that it has become the last resting place of snake oil advertising leads me to hope it gets buried as fast as possible. Those companies selling reasonably priced honest hi if are unfortunately likely to find it equally turbulent.
On the bright side, more people today have access to more music than ever before. More artists have access to the market than ever before. Music for the people, as it should be. Because market forces will demand more differentiation at the low end some of them will raise their game to offer better sound quality at affordable prices, if they don't lose their way.
P.s. Nice desk George!
On the bright side, more people today have access to more music than ever before. More artists have access to the market than ever before. Music for the people, as it should be. Because market forces will demand more differentiation at the low end some of them will raise their game to offer better sound quality at affordable prices, if they don't lose their way.
P.s. Nice desk George!
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Exactly right. the barriers to entry of the past have been lowered, and musicians can (and do) make albums and songs independent of the major labels and brick-and-mortar retail channels.
Thanks. If you look at the stupid prices that are being charged for "studio desks" you realize that snake oil and magic is also being pushed in the home recording studio world. Yes $3000 for a real hardwood workstation is reasonable, but $3000 for laminated particle board is NOT!
I am in the process of building a basement studio and was planning to build my own workstation that would look a lot worse than the one shown. Then I found this one.....
Studio RTA Producer Station Maple | Musician's Friend desk
Guitar Center sells the same desk for the same price (they are really the same company) and both offer free delivery, but neither would deliver to my rural location down a dirt road impassable with a large truck. Guitar Center would deliver free to the nearest store, so I went and picked it up in Pittsburgh. It is a nice desk for $400.
It is "oak" laminated particle board, and it weighs about 200 pounds. Since I have it loaded to about twice it's published weight capacity, I added larger bolts to mount the included wheels, and added some bracing across the rear which also serves as a place to mount the computer monitors. I have no problem dragging the whole thing around on thick carpet.
12% component systems (non home theater) is actually a pretty good figure. I was expecting worse (like 1% or something).
The recording industry has its good share of it. Once the cat was out of the bag regarding their practices ("loudness wars" etc), no one in their right mind would spend any considerable amount of money in order to play that BS.
Ultra Hi-End as an extravagantly expensive visual BS artform will continue, business as usual.
The major (Asian) manufacturers have well achieved correctly performing stereo gear at enthusiast affordable prices.
Accessory improvement/tuning products will still have an important place in the enthusiast market.
The loudness wars are essentially over due to group realisation/pressure.
I'm hearing that studios are going to 88k/176k recording for CD releases....resampling quality issues are deftly avoided......I contend that 48k recording/mastering has been one historic ruin of Redbook CD sound.
Stunningly, just about any musician in just about every street can afford a suitable recording suite, and if good enough can go to worldwide release at the click of a mouse.
The Internet stream/download model is THE game changer for music the world over.
Dan.
One of my "computer" speakers is my main system (when i am working on the laptop). The system on the desktop downstairs in the office ain't bad either.
dave
dave
It's been my experience that people don't care about quality much at all. It's all about perceived value. Hi fi is not a very obvious subject to folk, in fact it's quite esoteric. Most of the people I know have no clue about it or interest in it. They'll download their music from pirate sites and listen to it from the speaker of their phone, never mind headphones. They'll watch pirated movies with water marks in lo def on their big screens. It hurts my head.
Thats been my experience too. The novelty of pirated material wore of for me in a short time. When I see someone watching flea marketed movies on a 1000 plasma tv I think how clueless is that. They arent even getting the benefits they paid all that money for. Some cant even tell the difference from a good quality rip to a BR.
Aside from that a good usb dac and some active crossover boxes can make you not want to leave the computer.
As the old saying goes, consider the source.
The source is *not* the actual original source, but its someone named Paul Resnikoff at some web site named Digital Music News.
Well some may subscribe to the theory that if they read it on the web it must be true, but not I.
Who is Paul Resnikoff? According to LinkedIn he's the founder and perhaps even sole employee of Digital Music News but as many of us know, that *fact* is probably traceable to Paul Resnikoff. Its what he wants us to believe. Similar weight should be given to his claim to have previously had some kind of relationship with Lycos Europe and Sony Entertainment. He hasn't been at Lycos in 13 years. Do they even remember his name? ;-)
Looking at the article, I don't think he is interpreting the data right.
After all, the percentages don't add up to 100%.
I suspect that the 55% number for computer speakers is what amount of the time spent listening to music, they listen to a certain source.
In my travels I find all sorts of people whose computer is linked to some freebie streaming source. Are they actually listening to it? They are probably not even there but doing something else...
I beg to differ. The recording industry had always the tendency to mix and master for the "lowest common denominator" aka the most popular playback systems. That also happen to be the cheapest and least capable ones.
When questioned on the practice the would give a canned answer like "we are committed to offer the best listening experience on the largest selection of devices that the public prefers as the main playback system blah blah blah".
Boomboxes? No problem we'll use Auratones. Bookshelf system? We have NS10's too. Car radio? Here cometh the compressor...
These days they have "mastered for iTunes", I guess it's some fancy speak for using white earbuds as monitors.
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