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Audio as a hobby is dying ... ?

Z

Zygmo

Super Member
at least it was in 2009, according to Stereophile magazine founder, Gordon Holt, who said:

“Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me..”

Of course, he hadn't yet seen the resurgence of vinyl records, or cassette tapes. (A short lived fad though, in my opinion.) Although I do believe it's true, it's just going to take longer than he probably thought. Most of my family and acquaintances dropped out of the hobby some time ago, and their children did not take it up.
I am sure some of you will say you have seen just the opposite.

In perusing several articles about audio testing today, I did get a big surprise. Of all the different cables, amps, preamps, digital players, toy train trestles, etc. tested, a couple did actually appear to prove out. Power cables! During some well-done tests, several people were able to consistently pick after-market power cables over the OEM stuff.
How about that! I'll have to eat just a little more crow.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/

High-end AV cables appeared to be noticeable to some listeners, but it was the audio instead of the video that seemed to be improved! The author said maybe we should be using High-end AV cables for our audio equipment. :)
 
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That does seem to be true... I know lots of folks into music, but yet very few who are into audio. I see so much decent, inexpensive gear for sale that it's all I can do to keep myself from telling my friends that they should let me help them shop for some cool old audio gear, but I know that they really aren't interested. Folks seem mostly happy to listen to music on really crummy systems. Even a friend of mine who's become really crazy about collecting records (of lots of really arty contemporary stuff on small labels that tends to be pretty expensive) for as much as he spends on vinyl seems perfectly content to play it on a really cheap, underwhelming system.

I did have a friend over recently (Covid be dammed! - we're both pretty solitary types though) who was noticing just how great my system sounded when I was playing some music. Who know's though, she might have had ulterior motives for complimenting my gear... Anyway, I do think that most folks who care about music probably can hear a bit of the magic that a great system has, but somehow they still don't feel like they need to own one.
 
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Eh, it's been dying since before I was born and will still be dying after I'm dead and gone. It just changes and evolves. Those wanting high fidelity sound have always been in the minority and frankly music became less important to most once television came along.

That said, I was recently able to convert mum and her husband to a decent two channel setup with small full range open baffles, a small class D amp with built in DAC, and a separate multibit DAC for music from a media PC with JRiver. The integrated DAC is used just for watching TV.

They're delighted with it as it far outperforms their previous quite expensive sound bar. It's not just music but now they can understand what is being said on TV where before they were struggling.

The key to acceptance is that the open baffles are small, bookshelf sized and site on each side of the TV on their entertainment unit, and the amp and multimedia PC are both easily hidden out of sight. While performance is important..... To the majority aesthetics are more important. Why do you think Bose is so popular? Ditto Bang & Olufsen? Nice sound though certainly not mind blowing by any means.

For them though it's not a hobby..... They were just lucky enough to know someone to whom it is a hobby so they could best fulfil their needs. It was difficult not going all out, and I had to always keep in mind their requirements without going to overboard with my own.
 
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Zygmo said:
at least it was in 2009, according to Stereophile magazine founder, Gordon Holt, who said:

“Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me..”
Click to expand...

That's an interesting quote, and I found that in an article here:

https://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/index.html

It was also interesting to read Holt's purpose in engaging in the audio business in the first place, his "love for the sound of live classical music." That sound is also what drove his definition of what high end audio is all about, "Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space," and why he believes that goal is dead, "That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. As Art Dudley so succinctly said [in his January 2004 "Listening," see "Letters," p.9], fidelity is irrelevant to music."

In that referenced Listening column, Dudley wrote, "It might sound good or it might sound bad; your opinion of how it sounds might change over time, or even from day to day. But if you get something out of it—if the music moves you and connects with you in some otherwise indescribable physical, emotional, or even spiritual way—then it's good. . . The above is only one of the many, many reasons I say that real music and hi-fi have nothing to do with one another. They are different experiences." He goes on to lament that "audiophiles" of the day ignored Leonard Bernstein's recordings (which Dudley considered "artistically brilliant") simply because "his label, Columbia Masterworks, opted for a house sound that today's audiophiles abhor," so they felt, "his recordings aren't conducive to the "high-end" listening experience."

One of the things I've long appreciated about Dudley's reviews and columns is that he wanted people to "forget about the sound and listen to the music," asking themselves, "Is this thing playing the tune properly? Is it getting the beat? Is it really fun to listen to? Is it conveying the emotion that’s on the disc or in the groove? That’s the thing for me." http://www.soundsgoodtome.us/2011/01/06/noted-audio-critics-fess-up/
 
I am trying to get into audio as a hobby out of necessity as we no longer have a repair shop. It is not an easy endeavor without a mentor. It may very well prove to be way out of my abilities and outlast this body before I make any real strides.
All however is not lost as I have someone fairly close and open to questions. The trouble is that he is a tube specialist but is becoming open to the idea of solid state if only as a hobby. The problem is that he is my age and the gates could close on either of us any time. Well the gates can close on anyone anytime. Sorry, didn't mean to get on a morbid track. Switch the station Pearl!
 
smoothtune said:
I am trying to get into audio as a hobby out of necessity as we no longer have a repair shop. It is not an easy endeavor without a mentor. It may very well prove to be way out of my abilities and outlast this body before I make any real strides.
All however is not lost as I have someone fairly close and open to questions. The trouble is that he is a tube specialist but is becoming open to the idea of solid state if only as a hobby. The problem is that he is my age and the gates could close on either of us any time. Well the gates can close on anyone anytime. Sorry, didn't mean to get on a morbid track. Switch the station Pearl!
Click to expand...

When I first started, I had the good fortune of living near the world's greatest receiver collector who introduced me to an extremely capable repair technician. Having a team of enablers in place really jump started the hobby. I could not have put together my collection without them.
 
We are seeing the result of this as manufacturers merge and discontinue some brands. A good number of brands are now owned by Samsung, Voxx and Sound United. I'm surprised we haven't yet seen badge engineering with receivers.
 
Zygmo said:
at least it was in 2009, according to Stereophile magazine founder, Gordon Holt, who said:

“Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me..”

Of course, he hadn't yet seen the resurgence of vinyl records, or cassette tapes. (A short lived fad though, in my opinion.) Although I do believe it's true, it's just going to take longer than he probably thought. Most of my family and acquaintances dropped out of the hobby some time ago, and their children did not take it up.
I am sure some of you will say you have seen just the opposite.

In perusing several articles about audio testing today, I did get a big surprise. Of all the different cables, amps, preamps, digital players, toy train trestles, etc. tested, a couple did actually appear to prove out. Power cables! During some well-done tests, several people were able to consistently pick after-market power cables over the OEM stuff.
How about that! I'll have to eat just a little more crow.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths.486598/

High-end AV cables appeared to be noticeable to some listeners, but it was the audio instead of the video that seemed to be improved! The author said maybe we should be using High-end AV cables for our audio equipment. :)
Click to expand...
I’ve repurposed a 35 ft run of concealed high quality component video cable I ran 30 years ago. Now I have my amps in the front of the room with the speakers. It sounds much much better than the 35 ft runs of 12 ga CL2 cables I put in at that time.
 
smoothtune said:
I am trying to get into audio as a hobby out of necessity as we no longer have a repair shop. It is not an easy endeavor without a mentor. It may very well prove to be way out of my abilities and outlast this body before I make any real strides.
Click to expand...
Interesting way of phrasing it; when you say "I am trying to get into audio as a hobby out of necessity as we no longer have a repair shop," you seem to equate the hobby with audio equipment repair. That's a nice hobby, too, but audio itself does not require a local repair shop or any repair abilities on the part of the hobbyist. It is quite possible to get service needs taken care of by simply sending the unit off to either the manufacturer or importer; I haven't had many service needs over the decades, but even my local dealers typically just ship a unit off to the company that made it rather than trying to repair it locally.

All however is not lost as I have someone fairly close and open to questions. The trouble is that he is a tube specialist but is becoming open to the idea of solid state if only as a hobby. The problem is that he is my age and the gates could close on either of us any time. Well the gates can close on anyone anytime. Sorry, didn't mean to get on a morbid track. Switch the station Pearl!
Click to expand...
Death is just a reality. With my family history of male longevity, the only piece of gear that I'm thinking I might outlive is my preamplifier. I've had it for 15 years, and it was a used item when I bought it from the manufacturer, so who knows when it might up and quit on me. Fortunately, that manufacturer (Audio by Van Alstine) is still in business and can probably repair it if needed at some point (though I'm more likely to simply buy a new preamp than fix something so old that another issue might crop up soon anyway).
 
smoothtune said:
I am trying to get into audio as a hobby out of necessity as we no longer have a repair shop. It is not an easy endeavor without a mentor. It may very well prove to be way out of my abilities and outlast this body before I make any real strides.
All however is not lost as I have someone fairly close and open to questions. The trouble is that he is a tube specialist but is becoming open to the idea of solid state if only as a hobby. The problem is that he is my age and the gates could close on either of us any time. Well the gates can close on anyone anytime. Sorry, didn't mean to get on a morbid track. Switch the station Pearl!
Click to expand...
There are some very, very good techs here on AK, and a whole lot of wannabees. Learning to sort the wheat from the chaff is half the battle. DIY Audio has some top flight techs and designers as well. If you are willing to learn, there are plenty who will teach you.
 
Aaron Hayman said:
That does seem to be true... I know lots of folks into music, but yet very few who are into audio. I see so much decent, inexpensive gear for sale that it's all I can do to keep myself from telling my friends that they should let me help them shop for some cool old audio gear, but I know that they really aren't interested.
Click to expand...

And that is the exact example to show what separates us “hobbyists” and the rest of the general population.

For whatever the reason, only us “weirdos” care about quality music reproduction; other people might even acknowledge the difference but aren’t significantly motivated to act upon it.

We are our One Percent.
 
Since the sixties and seventies, home entertainment has really diversified. TV and home theater came along. Video games driven by consoles and PCs came after that. I dipped my toe into it the PC world when covid started and I decided to build a gaming PC as a way to keep in touch with friends. I play an hour of battle royale games a day give or take. Some folks in PC? That's all they do. It's wild. It justifies them spending thousands of components, compared to me just trying to spend $500 on something I can upgrade as time goes by.

My wife collects blu rays of shows and movies, along with books. And she has a Nintendo Switch, a gaming laptop, and she can connect her phone to my tube amp in the living room whenever she wants via my chromecast audio. Theres a lot to do at home, a lot more than there used to be.

Now, is the hobby really shrinking? Or growing? Or young people not interested? I don't know. In the last decade, established names in the industry have found ways to grow and diversify, like Audiquest making dacs and headphones, Sony making great DAPs and industry leading bluetooth headphones, or focal breaking into headphones and making some bangers. New names have popped up like U-Turn Audio among countless others.

Personal audio has popped off in a big way thanks to technology and the internet. Personal audio has more appeal to consumers in developing markets, or college students in dorms in western markets who move a lot or don't have a lot of space. I'm going to use reddit because it's easy to come by the numbers. r/headphones has almost 500,000 subscribers. r/audiophile has 1.4 million subscribers. The folks my age and younger aren't worried about flowery prose in Stereophile. They're interested in measurements of headphones, speakers, and DACs. Maybe even to a fault. There's a lot of discourse around products like Grado headphones, where everybody aknowledges that they don't measure well, but some people condemn them based on just that, while others just love the way they sound. That's just an example. But there's an avid and young community out there numbering a few million. This hobby will always be a niche, but a million is still a lot of people. And it's probably more, because I'm not even looking at headfi, or audio science review, nor am I taking into account lurkers who do their research, buy, and never post anything....
 
jrtrent said:
It is quite possible to get service needs taken care of by simply sending the unit off to either the manufacturer or importer; I haven't had many service needs over the decades, but even my local dealers typically just ship a unit off to the company that made it rather than trying to repair it locally.
Click to expand...

Not always the case. I am going through my old friend and the best looking receiver that I own. It is a Project One dc series Mark 600. Distributor/retailer was Playback who is no longer in business. Project one faded into obscurity along with a close relative Telefuken. There is no source for a service manual or board schematics. All I have is the operators manual. It went through a lot of playing time throughout the years and has only needed one transistor and a few light bulbs. The local repair shop stopped working on audio components including pro gear a few years back. Only does computers and analog to digital recordings now. Told me he was having trouble finding parts and when he could find the parts the customers didn't want to pay a fair price for repair. So, I almost have it back together again after giving up on repairing or finding replacement meters for it. Who repairs defunct companies receivers? I'm not making light, I would really like to know.
 
This has been asked before, and bantered about on other sites as well.

I depends upon who you ask, and how valid is the source of info, taking into consideration wherein & how the POV is estab.

As society changes, so does the taste in what it sees as being important. I suppose this is where the nostalgia factor enters in the whole affair.

The changing generations have different perceptions on what is of value, and you can see this in aspects of sales, pursuits, hobbies and interests.

Life is full of change, is all!

Q
 
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