The death of hi fidelity

[noogies]

Not being ageist, because we're all headed the same way, just at different speeds. We've evolved from listeners of music to consumers of content. You decide whether it's an improvement.

 

[Tom Brennan]

We've evolved from listeners of music to consumers of content.

I think we are both and have been as long as people have made a living from music.

 

[Splatter Pak]

Remember CB radios? They had a certain sound signature, so in order to not appear as noobs, users would mush-mouth into the mike. Later, when personal stereos came along with smallish headphones to match, users didn't seem to miss the loss of full-spectrum sound. Combine that with a craze for bass and (mostly bad) sub-woofers, and at some point sound engineers had to ask themselves, "Why bother? Everybody seems happy with quick and dirty."

There you go, and there it (Hi-Fi) went...:thumbsdn:

 

[Sam Cogley]

And yet there are so many companies making hi-fi (or at least good mid-fi) equipment, even in the mass market.

Yes, there is crap out there. There has always been crap out there. A lot of it from the 50s and 60s has already been junked, so you don't see it around as much.

This website needs to collectively start snorting Xanax or...something.

 

[jsisk]

My first record player was a flip-down GE Wildcat. That was what I first listened to music on. Being stereo, it was actually better than the suitcase record players most of my friends had. Compared to an iPod, it was crap.

IMO, young people today with digital music, iPods, and Beats Headphones are way ahead of where I was at their age from a SQ standpoint.

 

[cratz2]

And yet there are so many companies making hi-fi (or at least good mid-fi) equipment, even in the mass market.

Yes, there is crap out there. There has always been crap out there. A lot of it from the 50s and 60s has already been junked, so you don't see it around as much.

This website needs to collectively start snorting Xanax or...something.

I like it.

 

[Permanent Waves]

20 years too late. The Loudness War was over in the mid 90's when DR measures reached the single digits, at least for many "popular" ("non-audiophile") music releases.

Starting in the 2000's even much new Jazz (or remastered old albums) was compromised, as well as other more traditionally "audiophile" genres like Blues, Folk, World Music, Fusion, etc. I'm just waiting for the Classical genre to produce albums with a DR of under 10; so far they have been largely immune.

Handy site for purchasing between versions of an album:

http://dr.loudness-war.info/

EDIT: As for the "today's kids' systems/listening devices suck" or "no one sits and listens to music anymore", the first has always been true (the average kids' system was crap since the advent of consumer stereo systems) and the latter is of course patently false. The perceptual distortions of ludditism/ageism/nostalgiaism aside.

 

[Sam Cogley]

Now the Loudness War has been a real problem, and the one people should be complaining about, IMHO.

 

[asciibaron]

cram it to make it louder than the other stuff on itunes/beatport/bandcamp. that's how you get sales.

*tongue firmly in cheek*

 

[Permanent Waves]

Now the Loudness War has been a real problem, and the one people should be complaining about, IMHO.

Very much so. No good source, no good sound.

My main system, which is VG++ (lol), whether in terms of cost (which I'd rather not divulge) or general consensus of the gear, but if (when) I play LOUD COMPRESSED music on it (since I still like much 90's and 2000's "pop" music as well as newer jazz), well, the music sounds like crap (though tolerable for background music or something I just have to put up with for the music I really like when I'm listening to it).

cram it to make it louder than the other stuff on itunes/beatport/bandcamp. that's how you get sales.

*tongue firmly in cheek*

Actually it started with radio: make it LOUDER than the other songs on the radio to get people's attention. I noticed this in the 90's (the last decade I listened to radio in the car which was the only place I ever listened to radio) and knew something was going very astray: why did I have to turn down newer music? (Same with newer music on my stereo: turn it down in relation to the older music...this holds true to this day).

 

[Dr. Morbius]

I sure wish I could have had access to some of the portable gear young people have access to today. DACs, headphone amps, headphones, MP3 players, they're all pretty amazing. I could have tuned my parent's yap right out. :yes:

What's that dad? You say your an ass? You betchya!

 

[asciibaron]

Actually it started with radio: make it LOUDER than the other songs on the radio to get people's attention. I noticed this in the 90's (the last decade I listened to radio in the car which was the only place I ever listened to radio) and knew something was going very astray: why did I have to turn down newer music? (Same with newer music on my stereo: turn it down in relation to the older music...this holds true to this day).

i worked in radio in the mid 90's. ugh. lots of pushing there, including speeding up the cd players to get another minute in a day of ads. we pushed the exciter pretty hard to get a monster wide signal within FCC limits. crazy times. #1 station in market.

 

[woodj]

My appologies if this has already been said, as I have not read all of the posts in this Thread.
High Fidelity (the word) has been with us for many decades, but in truth actual High Fidelity (or HI-FI) has been pursued in it's true form by only a comparatively small segment of listeners (later referred to as Audiophiles) in the overall population.
The same applies today, in that only a small fraction of the listening populace even care what Hi-Fi is.
Although I only skimmed the article, the naivety and lack of historical background on the subject of Hi-Fi as it applies to the general listener seems to beg the question; who are the real Hi-Fi enthusiasts?
The author, however seems to have nailed the loudness/bass wars part.
I find it rather unfortunate that the affordability and high availability of Hi-Fi equipment beginning in the late 60s did not spawn a larger group of Hi-Fi enthusiasts.
Oh well, thanks for AK anyway.

 

[Permanent Waves]

i worked in radio in the mid 90's. ugh. lots of pushing there, including speeding up the cd players to get another minute in a day of ads. we pushed the exciter pretty hard to get a monster wide signal within FCC limits. crazy times. #1 station in market.

Interesting. And excuse my earlier implication that you weren't already cognizant of the fact that the Loudness Wars started way back then. (I figured you were aware of this, as most people are, but the way you focused on the digital world in your comment made me wonder).

Oh, and thanks for contributing to the problem back then! :tongue:

My appologies if this has already been said, as I have not read all of the posts in this Thread.
High Fidelity (the word) has been with us for many decades, but in truth actual High Fidelity (or HI-FI) has been pursued in it's true form by only a comparatively small segment of listeners (later referred to as Audiophiles) in the overall population.
The same applies today, in that only a small fraction of the listening populace even care what Hi-Fi is.
Although I only skimmed the article, the naivety and lack of historical background on the subject of Hi-Fi as it applies to the general listener seems to beg the question; who are the real Hi-Fi enthusiasts?
The author, however seems to have nailed the loudness/bass wars part.
I find it rather unfortunate that the affordability and high availability of Hi-Fi equipment beginning in the late 60s did not spawn a larger group of Hi-Fi enthusiasts.
Oh well, thanks for AK anyway.

Well said; particularly agree with the bold (emphasis mine) parts.

 

[Urizen]

Fidelity is alive and well in casa d'Urizen. Now is my golden age of audio.

 

[cratz2]

Fidelity is alive and well in casa d'Urizen. Now is my golden age of audio.

+ eleventy!

 

[jdmccall]

There's a lot of garbage product out there, but good sounding, good music is still being made. We just have to find it and support it...and that can be hard to do. (Maybe) we need a clearing house for hi-fi, a Consumer Reports for music consumers, to apply ratings of sound quality or lack of same, to all releases.

 

[Pio1980]

Sturgeons rule hasn't changed, it takes some culling to get the Good Stuff.

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[Beatnik]

Really? It has to be analog media? That is too bad because my digital media sounds really nice, and its music from small artists who cannot spend the money to release their work on analog media.

This is a very important topic really. Digital media has given the small artists a way to get their music out in a way that was cost prohibitive before. I listen to a lot of modern folk music, and appreciate that I can get artists work in general, in whatever media is available.

Regards
Mister Pig

I was suprised to find out here that Brothers in Arms the "state of the art" lp for so many is recorded digital.

"Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums to be recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine. The decision to move to digital recording came from Knopfler's constant striving for better sound quality. "One of the things that I totally respected about him," Dorfsman observed, "was his interest in technology as a means of improving his music. He was always willing to spend on high-quality equipment"

 

[Pio1980]

I was suprised to find out here that Brothers in Arms the "state of the art" lp for so many is recorded digital.

"Brothers in Arms was one of the first albums to be recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine. The decision to move to digital recording came from Knopfler's constant striving for better sound quality. "One of the things that I totally respected about him," Dorfsman observed, "was his interest in technology as a means of improving his music. He was always willing to spend on high-quality equipment"

BiA was one of the good sounding early CDs, so were the Windham Hill releases.

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