I meant to write: It echoed through what sounded like a thousand of the most finest concert halls that could be imagined.
It probably should say: It echoed through what sounded like a thousand of the finest concert halls that could be imagined.
To the OB guys - I was thinking.
If my basis of comparison was the standard 6-8" woofer and 1" dome tweeter that tends to dominate the market, I would certainly lean towards an OB system. I can see that such systems would be easy to design and construct and would have a sound quality advantage that is head and shoulders above the aformentioned prevailing system design. To me the improved directivity is the key, especially if the back wave is subdued by distance or absorbtion.
But a dipole does have a limit to its directivity control and there are better ways to achieve this critical goal. But, admittedly, those can be very difficult to design and build and get right. Its taken me almost 20 years. Higher directivity is ALWAYS an advantage when the room is small and not capable of improved acoustics. Small two way systems can be a disaster in such rooms.
So yes, I can definately see the advantages. But I would encourage you to seek out a good very high directivity system as I think that you would find these even more impressive.
If my basis of comparison was the standard 6-8" woofer and 1" dome tweeter that tends to dominate the market, I would certainly lean towards an OB system. I can see that such systems would be easy to design and construct and would have a sound quality advantage that is head and shoulders above the aformentioned prevailing system design. To me the improved directivity is the key, especially if the back wave is subdued by distance or absorbtion.
But a dipole does have a limit to its directivity control and there are better ways to achieve this critical goal. But, admittedly, those can be very difficult to design and build and get right. Its taken me almost 20 years. Higher directivity is ALWAYS an advantage when the room is small and not capable of improved acoustics. Small two way systems can be a disaster in such rooms.
So yes, I can definately see the advantages. But I would encourage you to seek out a good very high directivity system as I think that you would find these even more impressive.
Problem - extinction ?
First of all, thanks Patric Bateman for a nice thread! A lot of interresting discussions going on.
Well spoken! I too beleive that it's possible to enjoy a tune from a audiotechnical standpoint as well as a pure musical standpoint. For example: If i've been to a live concert, I can tremendously enjoy a recording of that concert even if it is a ultra crappy recording, then its all about the emotion! On the other hand, a truly great recording of something (I may not even care for musically) can still get me going just by the admiration of the recording itself.
You definetly get a taste of audio nirvana when theese two areas coinside. I think that mr. Geddes sums it up quite nicely when he points out the destinction between the art and the science.
Now, on the topic. I think that one problem we hifi nuts can be facing is: the future. It seems to me that we're a dying breed. What I fear is the availability of good material.
My reasoning is this: The recording industry is payed collectively by the big mass. In that way the industry is indirect manouvered by the consumer habits of the big mass. Now, the big mass doesn't really care that much about the technical side of audio, they care about their favorite music. Most people I know are totally satisfied with MP3 (or similar compression) as audio medium. Actually, many have stopped bying CD's and keeps a handy mediacenter containing all their songs. The recording giants are slowly understanding the paradigm shift that is taking place and will soon figure out that there is lots of bucks to be made by making virtual productions instead of aluminium discs.
A good way to understand the present is to look in the rearview mirror. In the seventies the vinyl disc was the prevailing medium. I think that apart from the inconvenience with handling/scratching etc it is agreed that LP's sounded good. Then came (the more convenient) CD, and about the same time lots of households threw away their big vinyl Hi-Fi system in favor of a "minisystem". Currently it looks like the CD is beeing pushed aside by MP3 and people invest their money in iPod docking stations. In fact, MP3 seems a lot more likely to be the successor to CD than SACD or DVD Audio.
The question is, how good will the availability of high quality media be for us hifi eccentrics?
I know, this post seem a bit apocalyptical. Consider it a worst case scenario. None the less, I think it is an important question. Perhaps the current home theatre trend will open up new roads? There's at least hope.
Thanks for reading my somewhat grumbling post 🙂
- Jon
First of all, thanks Patric Bateman for a nice thread! A lot of interresting discussions going on.
despotic931 said:
Well spoken! I too beleive that it's possible to enjoy a tune from a audiotechnical standpoint as well as a pure musical standpoint. For example: If i've been to a live concert, I can tremendously enjoy a recording of that concert even if it is a ultra crappy recording, then its all about the emotion! On the other hand, a truly great recording of something (I may not even care for musically) can still get me going just by the admiration of the recording itself.
You definetly get a taste of audio nirvana when theese two areas coinside. I think that mr. Geddes sums it up quite nicely when he points out the destinction between the art and the science.
Now, on the topic. I think that one problem we hifi nuts can be facing is: the future. It seems to me that we're a dying breed. What I fear is the availability of good material.
My reasoning is this: The recording industry is payed collectively by the big mass. In that way the industry is indirect manouvered by the consumer habits of the big mass. Now, the big mass doesn't really care that much about the technical side of audio, they care about their favorite music. Most people I know are totally satisfied with MP3 (or similar compression) as audio medium. Actually, many have stopped bying CD's and keeps a handy mediacenter containing all their songs. The recording giants are slowly understanding the paradigm shift that is taking place and will soon figure out that there is lots of bucks to be made by making virtual productions instead of aluminium discs.
A good way to understand the present is to look in the rearview mirror. In the seventies the vinyl disc was the prevailing medium. I think that apart from the inconvenience with handling/scratching etc it is agreed that LP's sounded good. Then came (the more convenient) CD, and about the same time lots of households threw away their big vinyl Hi-Fi system in favor of a "minisystem". Currently it looks like the CD is beeing pushed aside by MP3 and people invest their money in iPod docking stations. In fact, MP3 seems a lot more likely to be the successor to CD than SACD or DVD Audio.
The question is, how good will the availability of high quality media be for us hifi eccentrics?
I know, this post seem a bit apocalyptical. Consider it a worst case scenario. None the less, I think it is an important question. Perhaps the current home theatre trend will open up new roads? There's at least hope.
Thanks for reading my somewhat grumbling post 🙂
- Jon
Re: Problem - extinction ?
This is a scary thought, this idea of losing quality mediums, however I don't believe it will happen and here is why. There will always be people who want that physical medium, they want to be able to hold it in there hands, to read through the CD booklet, etc. The record companies also understand this as well. And if we continue to look in the rearview mirror you will realize that we have never digressed and used a poorer sounding medium as our primary source (well excluding our little trek from vinyl to 8-track and cassettes, but vinyl never died through that). Recording studios still use analog, and those that use digital are using higher and higher sample rates. MP3's are being produced with bit rates that give them quality surpassing a CD. And amongst this all vinyl record sales are up! There will always be a physical medium to carry our music, granted it's popularity may fade, I don't believe it will ever die. I believe this for the same reason that vinyl records never died, there are enough of us who demand them. As much as I love analog, I will have to admit that the advances in digital audio can offer astounding results. Good recordings will always exist, they may just be created differently in ten years than they are now.
-Justin
p.s. Me mentioning cassette tapes reminded me of a recording we once did in a studio a couple years ago where we bounced the master down to a cassette tape and then back again just to get that crappy sound, hehe, good times, but you would've thought we were on acid! But, I am glad that for the most part we have managed to kill the cassette tape...
ion said:
This is a scary thought, this idea of losing quality mediums, however I don't believe it will happen and here is why. There will always be people who want that physical medium, they want to be able to hold it in there hands, to read through the CD booklet, etc. The record companies also understand this as well. And if we continue to look in the rearview mirror you will realize that we have never digressed and used a poorer sounding medium as our primary source (well excluding our little trek from vinyl to 8-track and cassettes, but vinyl never died through that). Recording studios still use analog, and those that use digital are using higher and higher sample rates. MP3's are being produced with bit rates that give them quality surpassing a CD. And amongst this all vinyl record sales are up! There will always be a physical medium to carry our music, granted it's popularity may fade, I don't believe it will ever die. I believe this for the same reason that vinyl records never died, there are enough of us who demand them. As much as I love analog, I will have to admit that the advances in digital audio can offer astounding results. Good recordings will always exist, they may just be created differently in ten years than they are now.
-Justin
p.s. Me mentioning cassette tapes reminded me of a recording we once did in a studio a couple years ago where we bounced the master down to a cassette tape and then back again just to get that crappy sound, hehe, good times, but you would've thought we were on acid! But, I am glad that for the most part we have managed to kill the cassette tape...
gedlee said:
Gotta agree with you there. Dr. G. OB speakers are a lot better than many of the designs that are common today, but they aren't the best you'll ever hear. Just too many problems. But the trade-offs are not bad.
First problem is size. If you want real bass, you have to build them big.
Second problem is the bass loss incurred by the lack of box. That's why we build box speakers in the first place, to maintain the bass. Massive EQ, lots of power or many drivers are needed for OB. Related to the first problem.
But in the practical realm, they are easy to build and usually easy to make sound good - and they're cheap. The easy to build part is really close to my heart. =) There is the clue- easy to make sound good.
So I think the current fad for OB is understandable. Quick, easy, and no box tunings or resonances to worry about. So they can sound very clean with little effort.
Given enough floor space though, I'd rather have very large BR boxes. But that's just my opinion.
FYI, I run open baffle bass and horn mids in my current system.
panomaniac said:
Yes, looked at in this context it makes perfect sense.
I have looked at an open baffle design for my speakers that picked up at 1 kHz, down to maybe 200 Hz. But the transition from 200 Hz. down is very problematic, and I would gain in directivity increase only over about 1-2 octaves, octaves where the ear is not very sensitive to problems that directivity solves. Someday I may yet try this.
Re: Problem - extinction ?
I would echo this fear. If you look at the trends - much less interest in true high quality sound and a marketplace where "OK" is good enough - you have to conclude that the quality of the audio will go that way too.
But I do have to say that I think there is a savior. That savior is DVD. The reason is that the sound quality of a DVD tends to be far better than what I typically hear in CD's. DVD audio seems to be done better all the way around. I know that the mixing stages in film have standardized audio, whereas for CD's there is no standard - the quality is all over the place. The best recordings that I have heard as of late have been on DVDs.
Lets face it - the CD guys mix and produce for car audio and FM stations, to get the maximum volume. There is no real consideration for audio quality. The last remaining bastion for audio quality is the motion picture theater, where audio quality is still held by many in power (Like George Lucas) to be of critical importance.
ion said:
I would echo this fear. If you look at the trends - much less interest in true high quality sound and a marketplace where "OK" is good enough - you have to conclude that the quality of the audio will go that way too.
But I do have to say that I think there is a savior. That savior is DVD. The reason is that the sound quality of a DVD tends to be far better than what I typically hear in CD's. DVD audio seems to be done better all the way around. I know that the mixing stages in film have standardized audio, whereas for CD's there is no standard - the quality is all over the place. The best recordings that I have heard as of late have been on DVDs.
Lets face it - the CD guys mix and produce for car audio and FM stations, to get the maximum volume. There is no real consideration for audio quality. The last remaining bastion for audio quality is the motion picture theater, where audio quality is still held by many in power (Like George Lucas) to be of critical importance.
Beyond the OBs the second most startling revelation I have experienced in audio and therefore approach changing experience was hearing LP playback in all its real glory.
I grew up with LPs but the sound was pretty limited so when CDs came along it was easy to make a convert of me, it took me many years to realise the problem was not the LP but the playback gear and actually do something about it.
LP well played has real ambience and gives that feeling of live performance, it is simply stunning, but it remains illusive due to the variability of pressings and for most folk compromised playback gear.
Digital can get close though, but only via hi bit high res formats and at present these are not standardised but I am confident the will is there and eventually via downloads and improved computer playback systems we will see and hear something as good as LP without the drawbacks.
There is no doubt in my mind the CD playback system is a limiting factor and I don't care how much money is thrown at it the end result can never approach what is possible when we go for a much better specced format.
I am a photographer and I see a parallel here the CD/ MP3 format is what we would have had if we stopped development of digital cameras once they got to 1 megapixel or so. These days digital cameras are capable of results that film cameras could never approach, (i know we still get those who want to debate that point, but you won't find many pros actually saying "i think I will go and invest a whole heap of money in film based technology).
Digital cameras benefit from higher bit depths and more pixels (in general terms anyway) and the way for for digital music is similar, the problem is the whole technological upgrade process got hijacked along the way by music companies and bun fights between hardware manufacturers over standards and we the consumer have been lumbered with 2nd rate formats long after the technical limitations that governed the CD in the early 80s have disappeared. And as a result we have spent a whole lot of money trying to get around these limitations. With fast computers, massive hard drives, plenty of RAM, and great software etc what is the problem....nothing really except we just can't get hold of the material to play on it...but I am sure there are plenty of clever music company guys out there starting to see an opportunity.
No wonder LPs are making a revival within the hard core audiophile market.
I grew up with LPs but the sound was pretty limited so when CDs came along it was easy to make a convert of me, it took me many years to realise the problem was not the LP but the playback gear and actually do something about it.
LP well played has real ambience and gives that feeling of live performance, it is simply stunning, but it remains illusive due to the variability of pressings and for most folk compromised playback gear.
Digital can get close though, but only via hi bit high res formats and at present these are not standardised but I am confident the will is there and eventually via downloads and improved computer playback systems we will see and hear something as good as LP without the drawbacks.
There is no doubt in my mind the CD playback system is a limiting factor and I don't care how much money is thrown at it the end result can never approach what is possible when we go for a much better specced format.
I am a photographer and I see a parallel here the CD/ MP3 format is what we would have had if we stopped development of digital cameras once they got to 1 megapixel or so. These days digital cameras are capable of results that film cameras could never approach, (i know we still get those who want to debate that point, but you won't find many pros actually saying "i think I will go and invest a whole heap of money in film based technology).
Digital cameras benefit from higher bit depths and more pixels (in general terms anyway) and the way for for digital music is similar, the problem is the whole technological upgrade process got hijacked along the way by music companies and bun fights between hardware manufacturers over standards and we the consumer have been lumbered with 2nd rate formats long after the technical limitations that governed the CD in the early 80s have disappeared. And as a result we have spent a whole lot of money trying to get around these limitations. With fast computers, massive hard drives, plenty of RAM, and great software etc what is the problem....nothing really except we just can't get hold of the material to play on it...but I am sure there are plenty of clever music company guys out there starting to see an opportunity.
No wonder LPs are making a revival within the hard core audiophile market.
I think cost of the CD is not the issue, rather the design of the power supply is really more the driving factor. Most designers ignore the necessary match between the load and the source. This also happens when speakers are not designed to provide a constant load impedance for the amplifier.Zero One said:
Zero One said:
LPs usually has a loud pre and post echo with ~ 2 sec delay which is mistaken as "better ablience".
soongsc said:
You have mentioned this before and I don't understand the issue.
If the amp has a very low output impedance then the load impedance is irrelavent. If the amp has a higher output impedance, like tubes, then it is only logical that one needs to design the crossover for this impedance. In neither case does the loudspeaker need to have a constant load impednace.
But then you CAN do what some do and that is to just put a smaller impedance across the loudspeaker to "flatten out the impedance", but this is simply a dumb idea. Only a low output amplifier, like a tube amp, would have a high output impedance and the last thing that one would want to do is waste power by shunting it across the loudspeaker load.
Far far better is to design the crossover for the higher output impedance of the amp, which doesn't waste any power at all.
In the case of speakers, whenever there are some peaks in the impedance, it's and indication of energy ringing. Once this happens it will be dissipated in some form, and some gets fed into acoustic form, some gets back into the amp feedback loop. If we use some kind of method like zobel to flatten out the impedance, then this seems to provide less feedback into the amp feedback loop, thus the harmonic distortion is reduced closer to what it would be if you used a resistor as a load.gedlee said:
Quite interestingly is that with tube amps that have output transformers, most people feel that loading is less of an issue based on listening impressons. I think it's probably becasue less is feed back into the amps loop.
http://stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/428/index7.html
Fcserel
(LPs usually has a loud pre and post echo with ~ 2 sec delay which is mistaken as "better ablience".)
Maybe, but I feel most of the improvement is due to more info being available in the high end, which with CDs is simply cut off. In the end though it really doesn't matter why LPs have in my opinion far superior ambience and sound more like real music than CD.
I do have and have heard SACD and DVD-As that get somewhat close to LPs in sound, but in my case the electronics seem to still detract a bit......but it is all academic as there is just so little material avaialable in these formats.
(LPs usually has a loud pre and post echo with ~ 2 sec delay which is mistaken as "better ablience".)
Maybe, but I feel most of the improvement is due to more info being available in the high end, which with CDs is simply cut off. In the end though it really doesn't matter why LPs have in my opinion far superior ambience and sound more like real music than CD.
I do have and have heard SACD and DVD-As that get somewhat close to LPs in sound, but in my case the electronics seem to still detract a bit......but it is all academic as there is just so little material avaialable in these formats.
Zero One said:
Your opinion about LP's is fine, but it is perhaps best if you justify that opinion with more factual data. CD's have a bandwidth to 22 kHz. - there are no LPs or players with a bandwidth that high, so you need to look for another excuse.
And no one could hear it if it did.
Gedlee
Just to clarify a few things re LPs and I don't want to get this thread all hijacked.
LPs can in fact hold detail out to 36khz, the limiting factor is not the format but the stylus and pickup.
CDs do not hold detail to 22Khz, though that is the theoretical limit, basically you can't reproduce a frequency that exceeds half the sample rate, so 44.1 divided by 2 = 22, 050hz
But the reality is that as you approach the limit you get horrific distortion, so in most cases the file has all info beyond 20khz filtered out very sharply. In addition to that the players and discs usually reduce the amount of volume as the frequency increase above about 16khz, and most are pretty much showing very little above 18khz. This is all in an effort to reduce distortion.
CDs and any format limited to 44.1khz sample will have the same problems, the way digital works means there is simply less information to redraw the waveform from as the frequency increases. This is what, when combined with poor DACs etc leads to the breaking glass sound of CDs at the high end, which many people find quite grating on the ears.
Upsampling/oversampling and other tricks are filtering methods designed to overcome these problems but in a general sense you just trying to fix the issue after the horse has bolted.
A lot of the problems with CD playback has to do with the filtering as it causes problems well down below the actual cutoff. Additionally as I think someone mentioned digital reproduction is very much effected by power supply issues and this is partly why really good CD players are so pricey.
LPs being analogue hold all the waveforms information totally intact and in fact actually reproduce better at the higher end than the low end where tracking of heavy bass modulations can be an issue. IN theory CDs should produce bass better, but in reality poor DACs etc seem to not make the most of this in my experience.
On the issue of no one can hear it, well this is open to lots of debate. True few folk of adult age can hear a 18khz or above signal, but we can in most cases hear information from 6 to 14khz at least, the fact is that even by 9khz the sound of CDs is starting to get somewhat ragged in comparison to the original analogue waveform.
Now where things get messy is that some feel (myself included) that a lot of the ambience in LPs is tied up in the upper order harmonics, which occur above 10khz, and maybe out to 36khz or so. Most of this we cannot directly hear, but they are in the LP and when played back they maybe produce lower order harmonics down the scale which we can hear.....whatever the cause, the experience of most who have heard good LP playback is that the ambience and life is definitely there and the CD sounds sterile in comparison.
An LP recorded to digital at hi bit depth/hi res and played back via a suitable system of your computer will end up sounding pretty much like the original LP and of course you can filter out the surface noise etc should you wish. The CD is a nobbled format, conceived in a time when the computing power needed to run it was far far less capable than what we have available today, higher bit depths and sample rates were just not technologically and financially feasible in the late 70s when it was being developed....the real miracle is that given the right high grade gear that today it can be made to sound good at all.
If you really want to make your ears bleed just grab an early model CD player and CD and have a listen....then you will hear how a CD as a format really sounds without all the other tricks applied. (PS: No offence to owners of early marnatz players I know they can be very good indeed.)
Cheers
Zero One
Just to clarify a few things re LPs and I don't want to get this thread all hijacked.
LPs can in fact hold detail out to 36khz, the limiting factor is not the format but the stylus and pickup.
CDs do not hold detail to 22Khz, though that is the theoretical limit, basically you can't reproduce a frequency that exceeds half the sample rate, so 44.1 divided by 2 = 22, 050hz
But the reality is that as you approach the limit you get horrific distortion, so in most cases the file has all info beyond 20khz filtered out very sharply. In addition to that the players and discs usually reduce the amount of volume as the frequency increase above about 16khz, and most are pretty much showing very little above 18khz. This is all in an effort to reduce distortion.
CDs and any format limited to 44.1khz sample will have the same problems, the way digital works means there is simply less information to redraw the waveform from as the frequency increases. This is what, when combined with poor DACs etc leads to the breaking glass sound of CDs at the high end, which many people find quite grating on the ears.
Upsampling/oversampling and other tricks are filtering methods designed to overcome these problems but in a general sense you just trying to fix the issue after the horse has bolted.
A lot of the problems with CD playback has to do with the filtering as it causes problems well down below the actual cutoff. Additionally as I think someone mentioned digital reproduction is very much effected by power supply issues and this is partly why really good CD players are so pricey.
LPs being analogue hold all the waveforms information totally intact and in fact actually reproduce better at the higher end than the low end where tracking of heavy bass modulations can be an issue. IN theory CDs should produce bass better, but in reality poor DACs etc seem to not make the most of this in my experience.
On the issue of no one can hear it, well this is open to lots of debate. True few folk of adult age can hear a 18khz or above signal, but we can in most cases hear information from 6 to 14khz at least, the fact is that even by 9khz the sound of CDs is starting to get somewhat ragged in comparison to the original analogue waveform.
Now where things get messy is that some feel (myself included) that a lot of the ambience in LPs is tied up in the upper order harmonics, which occur above 10khz, and maybe out to 36khz or so. Most of this we cannot directly hear, but they are in the LP and when played back they maybe produce lower order harmonics down the scale which we can hear.....whatever the cause, the experience of most who have heard good LP playback is that the ambience and life is definitely there and the CD sounds sterile in comparison.
An LP recorded to digital at hi bit depth/hi res and played back via a suitable system of your computer will end up sounding pretty much like the original LP and of course you can filter out the surface noise etc should you wish. The CD is a nobbled format, conceived in a time when the computing power needed to run it was far far less capable than what we have available today, higher bit depths and sample rates were just not technologically and financially feasible in the late 70s when it was being developed....the real miracle is that given the right high grade gear that today it can be made to sound good at all.
If you really want to make your ears bleed just grab an early model CD player and CD and have a listen....then you will hear how a CD as a format really sounds without all the other tricks applied. (PS: No offence to owners of early marnatz players I know they can be very good indeed.)
Cheers
Zero One
Zero One said:
Every system has some defficiency. LP systems have a bit more ambiency created by the imperfection of electro mechanics. This characteristic copled with a normally "dry" sounding speakers. Which seems to be a good combination, but not the correct solution.bigwill said:
Normally in the process of development, when one aspect of the system is improved, it may casue some other defficiency to stand out, and thus seemingly causing the system to be unacceptable, the fact is, if we correct this other problem, then the system would be improved so much, but if we shy away from doing that improvement, then we revert back into the endless loop of tweaking for a different set of compromises withnot real improvement.
Are you sure the cutting process has the capability to go beyond 22KHz? I have never seen spec. of the cutting machine that does. Playing with LPs, there are two additional electro-mechanical devices in the process from recording to playback that introduce more non-linearity and energy storage problems.
Well, these guys certainly aren't giving up on it:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/main.jsp?site_id=E402
http://www.classicsonline.com/
What is interesting to me, a classical music fan, is that the selection from these people is about as good as, if not better, than I could ever get from a good music store back in the days when they existed.
The quality of production on CD's is extremely variable, but so was production quality in the the era of LPs. This was very obvious in the case of recordings of large orchestral and choral works. I have hundreds of LPs and I don't listen to them much because of the inconvenience.
And it's my experience that a well recorded, well produced CD sounds much better than a high quality LP
When I convert the LP to CD I can't hear any difference in the reproduced sound. No, actually, if I fool around a bit with processing sometimes the CD sounds marginally better.
BTW the selection and reproduction quality of classical download music is starting to improve. It's not good yet, but it is improving. I think the internet is giving recorded classical music sellers a sales niche they can't get on Main Street in most cities anymore.
Re: Problem - extinction ?
😀 This one always gives me a chuckle. 😀
I've been hearing that since the 70s. First transistors were going to kill Hi-Fi, then 8 track tapes, then cassettes, the CD was going to save it, then kill it. Then ipod and downloads. Hasn't happened yet.
Someone very highly placed in the European Hi-Fi scene told me 20 years ago that audio DIY was dying out. Modern equipment just didn't lend itself to DIY and so the kids weren't getting into it.
Look how wrong he was! (And he's now the president of a large speaker manufacturer.) Point is, it's very hard to predict the future, as much as we would love to. Young guys are getting into Hi-Fi thru all sorts of avenues. Car Audio, live show downloads, computer audio, etc. And the Internet has meant a huge boom in the DIY segment. I don't see it dying any time soon.
Well, time for me to go catch a plane to Montreal for the FSI show. See me in room # 1015. Hi-Fi may smell a bit, but it's not dead yet!
ion said:
😀 This one always gives me a chuckle. 😀
I've been hearing that since the 70s. First transistors were going to kill Hi-Fi, then 8 track tapes, then cassettes, the CD was going to save it, then kill it. Then ipod and downloads. Hasn't happened yet.
Someone very highly placed in the European Hi-Fi scene told me 20 years ago that audio DIY was dying out. Modern equipment just didn't lend itself to DIY and so the kids weren't getting into it.
Look how wrong he was! (And he's now the president of a large speaker manufacturer.) Point is, it's very hard to predict the future, as much as we would love to. Young guys are getting into Hi-Fi thru all sorts of avenues. Car Audio, live show downloads, computer audio, etc. And the Internet has meant a huge boom in the DIY segment. I don't see it dying any time soon.
Well, time for me to go catch a plane to Montreal for the FSI show. See me in room # 1015. Hi-Fi may smell a bit, but it's not dead yet!
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