New York Times: "The New Audio Geeks"

[nailer]

You could wait for N. Korea to blast your city. That way you will be the only person left and you have the rest of your life to read books.

.......then your eye glasses break........

(isn't that a Twilight Zone episode?)

One of the best TZ's in my opinion. Remember his huge/brutish henpecking wife?

 

[Gun Doc]

. . . and other exotic headphone options are more my generation than the stale demographics floating around here.

That struck me as a rather insensitive way to refer to generations older than yours.

 

[Karl vd Berg]

Value-added, Japanese Strategies for Serving Overseas Markets: The Case for Electroni

Please, start reading this:

Value-Added

Buying or collecting stereo equipment, like other hobbies such as golf, frivolous litigation, autocrossing, travel or elective surgery requires disposable income. Given that my peer group (late thirties, early forties) is generally out of the day-care expenditure phase (or close to it- I can think of some folks counting the days), one would think that the people I know who are so inclined would generally have more to spend on stereo gear. Unfortunately, given the current economic climate and the promise of higher taxes on what little is earned in the very near future, we find ourselves in a position relative to consumer electronics purchases not that different from when we first entered the workforce. As a newly employed college grad in 1989 or 1990, it was unlikely that you were earning enough to purchase new stereo gear from the likes of Conrad Johnson, Mark Levinson or McIntosh (did all of those companies exist in 89? I know McIntosh did, and I think CJ started in the late seventies) while at the same time renting that first non-slum apartment, replacing Aunt Edna's 67 Volvo wagon that faithfully got you back and forth to school on only 2 quarts of oil a day, and starting to pay off the student loan debt you incurred (for fun and extra-credit, calculate what each slept-through class cost you, with interest).

....

Those "audiophiles" (yes, that's a disparaging usage) who dismiss Japanese stereo equipment of that era are not acknowledging the fact that the Japanese recognized the demand for their products overseas and aggressively pursued it ( in 1984, consumer electronics outpaced car exports- see: Burton and Saelens, (1987). Japanese Strategies for Serving Overseas Markets: The Case for Electronics. In Management International Review [online] available: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40227856?uid=3738736&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102496220411 Government support was available to further the industry's efforts. More importantly for the budget-minded consumer, the Japanese consumer electronics industry was consciously pursuing a: "value-added" strategy which allowed many expensive, esoteric and innovative technologies in premium stereo gear to trickle-down to lesser product lines.

...

Full article on Bad Audio Reviews: Value-Added

 

[JoeESP9]

That struck me as a rather insensitive way to refer to generations older than yours.

That comment IMO isn't that far off the truth. There are a more than a few posters here who will argue that there have been no advances in audio since their favorite receiver and vintage speakers stopped being made.

 

[cubdog]

That comment IMO isn't that far off the truth. There are a more than a few posters here who will argue that there have been no advances in audio since their favorite receiver and vintage speakers stopped being made.

I'm 61. I kind of agree with Ramblin. Also, I don't think he meant any disrespect.

cubdog

 

[ev13wt]

Most of the people the article talks about weren't born then. There seems to be an assumption on the author's part that high-end audio hasn't changed much in the intervening 36 years.

Except digital, what has changed? Not much really. People still listen to vinyl amped by tubes.

And the author focuses on digital (and tt's), I liked the article.