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Is Hi-Fi dead??

Ohighway said:
I noticed Crutchfield is beginning to push what they call "Hifi 2.0". At least some recognition and a step in the right direction from a mainstream seller?

Lifted from their site: "There's an interesting paradox in the consumer electronics industry. For an increasing number of music fans, the pursuit and appreciation of high-fidelity sound has diminished as technology has advanced." ...................."Digital audio can sound amazingly good. Unfortunately, some of today's most popular digital sources – MP3 players, satellite radio, and Internet radio – often do not. These technologies are wonderful in many ways. But their operation typically depends on lower-resolution signals than you get with CD. Therefore, millions of young people may never have experienced true high-fidelity sound reproduction."
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Yeah, i forgot about that. It felt good to read that in Crutchfield.

My main concern that I may have not mentioned in my original post is that I hope that in the coming years that the media containing the recordings will not get worse, as we will always be able to purchase hi-end equipment.
 
Dr. Music said:
I agree, we have always been a niche market, though these days that niche is simply smaller due to people wanting to get their audio components for the same price they were going for 30 years ago. They get 'em, but they are mostly junk. Then again, we had junk in the 70's as well. Not ALL silver was golden :)....I cringe when I walk into the local GW and spy silver, only to see Soundesign, Yorx and Electrophonic names on the faceplates....
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Right, the niche is getting smaller. So HiFi is not dead, but slowly on it's way there...but will never actually die (I hope)
 
heh... 15" speakers... I'm a firm believer in 18"... Nope.. NOT dead..

When I was a kid, you weren't **** if your boom box didn't have at least 6" speakers... now a days I don't think a kid could carry something like that.. Granted, boom boxes weren't so much hi-fi, but they sounded better than most the crap stereo's for sale now, and they sounded a HELL of a lot better than an ipod..
 
So here's what I believe:

First, we live in one of those awkward transitional times. Our transition, whether we like it or not, is from a culture where we physically possessed the media we bought to one where we own the rights to access media stored elsewhere.

Netflix streams movies. Get your Kindle at Amazon. Your music from iTunes and elsewhere.

I think what's led to the highly compressed nature of things, though, is lack of bandwidth. They compressed song files down so that it wouldn't take all freakin' night to download a three and a half minute song. Now you can do that in a minute or two, but that's because you're still downloading, for the most part, highly compressed music.

As higher connection speeds proliferate, and as the cost of mass storage decreases (heck, I just bought an 8 gigabyte memory chip for my digital camera for $25), you'll see more and more fans of music buying music at higher bit rates or in formats like FLAC.

We're just not there yet. Oh, and you analog and tube guys, no offense, but I think you're just gonna be $hit outta luck. I keep trying to market this thing I call the vIpod... You can store 12 12-inch records in it and, along with its convenient wagon, you can take your music anywhere. No one seems to be interested in a portable music system that weighs 75 pounds and only gets 30 minutes on a battery charge.

Certain things, though, you can't get around. There's this funny thing about physics that just says no matter how hard you try, you can't get good mid-bass from a 2-inch paper driver.

I remember, though, laughing about what a piece of junk my original record player was (I bought it for $50 and it had a turntable and a pair of detachable plastic speakers). When I got my first notable system (Sansui G4700 receiver, Sansui TT, Marantz HD550 speakers), I looked back and couldn't believe what had been passing as a stereo for me. Some day, we'll all look back and laugh at the crappy sounding files everyone used to download.

But the thing about omnipresent music is that, unless you're wearing earbuds, you can only listen to one person's music at a time. When we're as self-involved as our Facebook culture is, who's gonna say, "Okay, let's listen to your music instead of mine."?
 
iPods and iPod docks are the transistor radios of today. As bad as they sound, they are a lot better than the typical 1960's 5 transistor AM radio with crystal earphone, and built in 2" speaker. With good headphones, and good files, iPods can actually sound very good (better than a typical cassette Walkman). I do occasionally see someone walking down the street with a pair of good quality headphones on.

I would choose just about any name brand home theater 5.1 system over a typical 50's-70's all in one, or low end console. The better ones are actually real receivers than can output an honest 75+ watts per channel in two channel mode. All you have to do is replace the cube speakers with some real speakers.
 
I kind of agree with andy here.. True hi-fi has always kind of been a smaller and niche market, where as low-fi and mid-fi have pretty much been the norm through all of time..

Just because a Sansui, or Pioneer receiver and their associated speakers were called hi-fi, if you compared the sound of those to the top end of the spectrum that was available, you quickly see that those were actually mid-fi systems..
 
A lot of these kids that have crappy home systems have pretty nice car systems, and they don't all have one-note bass. I know that when I lived in California, I spent way more time listening to music in my car than at home. Maybe eventually they'll want to hear at home some of what they're used to in the car.

And I'll also go on record as saying the iPod with good headphones doesn't sound as bad as some people make it out to, especially with some of the newer, less lossy formats. Apples new downloads aren't nearly as bad as they used to be, and it's only going to get better as download speeds increase (as cwall99 mentioned already).
 
Is Hi Fi dead? As in, does it matter to a majority in sociality, it was never alive. If Hi Fi was alive Audiokarma would rival Utube.
 
I don't think its dead, but I do think we have been seeing a decline in overall quality, not just in hardware, but in vocals. Now a days, artist lip sing or need a studio and sound processor to sound good. I do have hope though as some "old school" style new artists have started to emerge, folks that can sing live, write thier own lyrics and some can write thier own music.

My wife has finally come around on the concept of good sound, though I don't have top end gear, but I do have mid-fi gear that blows away my friends 3k bose surround sound systems. When she is serious about listening to music, or watching a movie, she will do so on the better systems in the house.

Hell, she even appreciated the new vintage system in the dining room that replaced a tinly little mp3 radio and is loving it (thanks for the receiver James, thats where it went).

Though I have to say, with myself recently seeing vinyl in the local Bestbuy, and picking up new artists on vinyl via Amazon, I'm a little hopeful.
 
Rygen said:
I don't think its dead, but I do think we have been seeing a decline in overall quality, not just in hardware, but in vocals. Now a days, artist lip sing or need a studio and sound processor to sound good. I do have hope though as some "old school" style new artists have started to emerge, folks that can sing live, write thier own lyrics and some can write thier own music.

My wife has finally come around on the concept of good sound, though I don't have top end gear, but I do have mid-fi gear that blows away my friends 3k bose surround sound systems. When she is serious about listening to music, or watching a movie, she will do so on the better systems in the house.

Hell, she even appreciated the new vintage system in the dining room that replaced a tinly little mp3 radio and is loving it (thanks for the receiver James, thats where it went).

Though I have to say, with myself recently seeing vinyl in the local Bestbuy, and picking up new artists on vinyl via Amazon, I'm a little hopeful.
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I bet there is more new music around now than in anytime since stereo came about, because the major labels no longer control what the public sees. Try to find out what is going on with independent music, or brouse the music forum here on AK. There are a number of artists in all genres making great music, it's just not on the radio anymore.
 
Just glad you had a use for it Todd.. you know I don't do receivers myself.. saved me the hassle of trying to sell it, and then feeling guilty about that..
 
My main concern for the future lies in the recording/mastering of our music. Will hi fi exist there? - this is the key for me. I really don't want to deal with a shrunken selection of overpriced recordings made for hi fi enthusiasts that cost a fortune. Mainstream recordings should be hifi, then play it on whatever you want.

I'm not sure how this will be addressed in the future but hope favorably for us AK types. I think there will always be hifi equipment to purchase, if you have the money to afford it, (plus vintage) but if the recordings are so - so to crap, the hifi experience will be limited.
 
andy said:
iPods and iPod docks are the transistor radios of today. As bad as they sound, they are a lot better than the typical 1960's 5 transistor AM radio with crystal earphone, and built in 2" speaker. With good headphones, and good files, iPods can actually sound very good (better than a typical cassette Walkman). I do occasionally see someone walking down the street with a pair of good quality headphones on.

.
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:thmbsp: Good point. We are at the beginning. Imagine those old timers with tubes and corner horns from the 50s watching the teens from the 60s playing music on transister radios, am car radios, and those suitcase turntables. They probably thought their hobby was ending too.
 
similost said:
When I was a kid, you weren't **** if your boom box didn't have at least 6" speakers... now a days I don't think a kid could carry something like that.. Granted, boom boxes weren't so much hi-fi, but they sounded better than most the crap stereo's for sale now, and they sounded a HELL of a lot better than an ipod..
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You are right about boomboxes and big Japanese speakers with giant white woofers. They looked cool, but sounded terrible. Just like today, it was style over substance. In those days the style was big stereos with lots of lights and buttons, big 3 way speakers with white woofers. Today it is sleek ipods with little earbuds.
 
mrt2 said:
:thmbsp: Good point. We are at the beginning. Imagine those old timers with tubes and corner horns from the 50s watching the teens from the 60s playing music on transister radios, am car radios, and those suitcase turntables. They probably thought their hobby was ending too.
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Same probably goes for the guy with tube separates seeing the inrush of giant Japanese solid state receivers that are regarded by many in this thread as the kind of Hi Fi that is actually dying.
 
mrt2 said:
You are right about boomboxes and big Japanese speakers with giant white woofers. They looked cool, but sounded terrible. Just like today, it was style over substance. In those days the style was big stereos with lots of lights and buttons, big 3 way speakers with white woofers. Today it is sleek ipods with little earbuds.
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Somewhere a sad HPM is thinking "Oh no, what did I do now?"
 
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