Whats the future of hi fi Equipment?

[Perkinsman]

I've been wondering lately if I've spent alot of money and time on a disappearing art form. Audio stores dedicated to music equipment are almost extinct. Is AM and FM going the way of newspapers, soon to be replaced by Pandora, Sirius, and other subscriber providers? Instead of a nice tube amp, we'll only need a smartphone and headphones.

Or will we technology reverse much like when guitarists realized that tube amps just sound better than solid state.

 

[winters860]

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but AM has given way to talk radio, and aside from some great public and college radio on the edges of the dial, FM is a wasteland, post-1997. If you want to listen to programming passively (or nearly passively) piped in, you've had better options than radio for quite some time. The possibilities are staggering.

Audio stores are almost extinct not only because the popular mania for "decent or better" consumer audio faded 35 years ago or so, but also because the customers that do buy it are increasingly going online. Sure something's lost, but there's a lot to be said for the online shopping, as well.

There are plenty of headphone audiophiles using their phones as sources, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

Where is hi-fi going?

Chi-Fi (cheap and cheerful mini-components) is taking over the world. The "powered DAC" mini-amp market segment continues to gain traction, and I think is poised to make inroads with the normals. The recent Pioneer SP-BS22-LR speakers redefine what $100 should sound like and will, within their well-explored limitations, embarrass most vintage speakers. Within mass market audio, sound bars are the rage, and they do a good job of meeting the needs of (I'm guessing) 75% of the listening public. Those who desire more can absolutely seek it out.

The audio hobby is far from disappearing, and it perhaps only appears that way because you're still only looking in the same places it's disappeared from.

 

[nj pheonix]

I think winter covers most of this very well. I'd just like to add a few thoughts. I think chip amps will become mainstream (not just pancake sub drivers) I think flac servers will become the norm rather than niche as they are now. Speculating on this . I think vinyl will continue to make its resurgence a bit longer and maybe plateau a bit then ebb. Long term I think its too much trouble for most folks. I think the die hards will ride it to a long slow death. (I figure 50 yrso from now they'll be like 78s today. (Not a bad run and it won't be an issue for me. If I'm still kicking my hearing won't be worth crap).:

 

[c.coyle]

I've been wondering lately if I've spent alot of money and time on a disappearing art form. Audio stores dedicated to music equipment are almost extinct. Is AM and FM going the way of newspapers, soon to be replaced by Pandora, Sirius, and other subscriber providers? Instead of a nice tube amp, we'll only need a smartphone and headphones.

Or will we technology reverse much like when guitarists realized that tube amps just sound better than solid state.

The future is opaque. We are largely powerless over it. Listen to what sounds good to you. Use whatever equipment you like best, even if it's obsolete technology. Don't worry.

In the long run, things always get better.

 

[c.coyle]

. . . The audio hobby is far from disappearing, and it perhaps only appears that way because you're still only looking in the same places it's disappeared from.

+1. Nicely put.

 

[Condorsat]

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Kansas - Dust In The Wind Lyrics

This sum it up for me :yes: (heard this when I was just a kid). Just enjoy the now ... the future is dust eventually anyway ... it's just a matter of when.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

I don't see Flac servers as a main format. The record companies want something they can control. Sirius/XM is not a real commercial success, their main success is in background music for businesses where they are becoming a threat to Mood Media/formerly Muzak and DMX. Chip amps will improve and be mainstream but not totally overtake discrete transistors and tubes on the high end. Vinyl will endure.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Sirius/XM is not a real commercial success, their main success is in background music for businesses where they are becoming a threat to Mood Media/formerly Muzak

We've had Sirius on our last three cars and though my wife uses it I never do; their Pop music stations have the same idiotic banter as do regular radio stations and that is what I wanted to get away from in the first place. Christ, that Cousin Brucie lamebrain...

 

[chodad]

 

[slow_jazz]

I will continue down the vintage path.

I have enough equipment to last a while.

 

[BadassBob]

I don't see Flac servers as a main format. The record companies want something they can control. Sirius/XM is not a real commercial success, their main success is in background music for businesses where they are becoming a threat to Mood Media/formerly Muzak and DMX. Chip amps will improve and be mainstream but not totally overtake discrete transistors and tubes on the high end. Vinyl will endure.

Well said. Even though I maintain my own FLAC server, I can't really see it gaining much steam in favor of physical media or streaming subscription services. Once subscription services start offering lossless streams, it will make the home FLAC server somewhat irrelevant to many unless those people (such as me) continue to buy and rip their own music.

 

[Dr Tinear]

... Where is hi-fi going?

Chi-Fi (cheap and cheerful mini-components) is taking over the world. The "powered DAC" mini-amp market segment continues to gain traction, and I think is poised to make inroads with the normals. The recent Pioneer SP-BS22-LR speakers redefine what $100 should sound like and will, within their well-explored limitations, embarrass most vintage speakers. Within mass market audio, sound bars are the rage, and they do a good job of meeting the needs of (I'm guessing) 75% of the listening public. Those who desire more can absolutely seek it out.

IMO the Chi-Fi you just described is the early 21st century replacement for the cheap compact stereos of the 1970s -- the ones that had a BSR or Garrard record changer with ceramic cartridge and an 8-track or cassette player in the same wood-grained vinyl box as the receiver, with a pair of cheap speakers and a hank of 22-gauge speaker wire. I don't think many of us on AK would consider that vintage gear high-fidelity, and I personally don't consider most sound bars or Chinese mini-components high-fidelity either.

The audio hobby is far from disappearing, and it perhaps only appears that way because you're still only looking in the same places it's disappeared from.

The High End is still with us, though brick and mortar stores are getting harder to find, and the mid-fi or worse budget gear from China is readily available online. What's going missing is mass-market gear that can deliver high-quality sound.

 

[Reynolds531]

I think that the future will see sophisticated levels of digital signal processing and complete system integration with new materials and methods for transducer improvements resulting in superb audio that will blow everything today away at a price point that will be astonishingly low. I also think that many of the breakthroughs will come from mass consumer products and industrial technologies, not the high end or even the mid level audio.

A good portion of mid and high end audio is stuck in the 1960's, creating an analog electrical signal with one component, amplifying the signal with one or two additional components using 50 year old technologies, then using yet another separate component to transduce the electrical signal into sound. Much of this hobby is focused on selecting these individual components, all with limitations and inaccuracies, to work as a synergistic unit. Much of High end is a boutique business with no world class R&D, locking in the 1960's low tech approach as long as some companies can derive high margins selling equipment that has barely advanced in performance for 50 years, and increasingly using vague, non-quantifiable marketing techniques divorced from real science, engineering, and technology.

Powerful electronics and data processing are very inexpensive, new manufacturing technologies allow rapid prototyping, and globally there has been an explosion in the education of the smartest people in the world. That mix will eventually impact audio in ways that we can't imagine.

A high end 1970 color TV compared to my 55" flat screen is a complete joke. A computer from 1970 compared to my iphone is a complete joke. A 1970 Mercedes compared to a 2014 Hyundai is a complete joke. A high end stereo from 1970 is about as good as most systems you can get today. The big markets benefited from technology first, but audio won't lag 50 years behind forever.

 

[sony6060]

Music has survived like baseball over the years. It has been around longer and will always be a part of life. The issue is the average consumer has less money to spend now in most markets. Many have not had more buying power for 20 years despite raises at their jobs. And, entry level audiophiles have school debts and a small job market to contend with too.

The masses can afford portable audio and downloads of free music that did not exist years ago. Although a compromise, it keeps interest alive for better sound systems. Higher-end stereo has survived thanks to the internet. Besides inexpensive advertising, the internet keeps the potential audiophile better informed of better audio systems.

Cost is the factor. The music is well and alive.

 

[WaynerN]

The HIFI industry as we know it has slit its own throat, with boutique products at boutique prices. Brick and mortar stores can't afford to stock much in the way of boutique, and no-one likes to wait for something special to be ordered (perhaps with a 10% restocking charge). So Brick and mortar sell cheap fi to satisfy the masses with limited purses, and the boutique stuff is all on line.

Like many cultural societies, it has become the "haves" and the have nots". If you don't have $5,000 to spend on a cheap, boutique preamp, you either hunt on Craig's List or eBay, or you go to Best Buy and settle for something that they have.

I see this trend (and the gap between them) getting larger and larger, until the baby-boomer era is over, or the US economy tanks again, which will kill both e-commerce and brick and mortar.

The other "leverage" bar in the retail business is how unfair, unbalanced the game is played. E-tailers by and large, do not charge any sales tax, have their wearhouses in states that do not have high taxes and can undercut brick and mortar stores considerably, who by the way, have to charge sales tax, pay property and business taxes on the store and in general, are a sitting duck as far as trend movements go.

Brick and mortar can't win because of the unfair advantages. Without competition, prices will increase with e-retailers until they have reached a breaking price point.

It all, and I do mean all goes down the money trail.

With the kids becoming iRobot with the iPad/iPhone and learning not to share their music (hence the $200 Beats headphones), there will be no need to buy a system to "share" music, because it is not in their understanding. So in the end, hifi dies a sad death.

 

[RamblinE]

Judging the industry by the amount of brick and mortar stores still in operation is backwards. Especially considering how the internet has expanded product selection and distribution. Good thing we have it over solely brick and mortar stores as our selection of new and used gear would be dramatically and severely limited.

So what if department stores and RadioShacks don't carry mass market receivers and big speakers anymore. Those were never hifi or high end products to begin with. We have more access to great designs and products now and the prices are steadily dropping contrary to popular belief. I doubt very people in the 70s would go out on a whim and drop a weeks or more wages on a whole system without serious planning and discipline first.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Jeffery]

As for FM -

I live in the sticks, my choice of FM stations has always been damn sparse.

But I click Radio Stations on my Sonos and get a mind boggling array of choices. Too many, really. There's not enough hours in the day to give all of them a fair shake.

Growing up, I could listen to just about any genre of FM I wanted to - as long as the choices were country or western. You don't think I would have loved to have had about a million different rock stations?

The good ol' days weren't all that great in many regards.

Now get off my lawn!

 

[Chris Brown]

Audio Stores are much less common now, especially "high-end" audio stores. Stuff that is expensive is more likely to be "window shopped" than almost anything else - meaning of course that people look at the items in the store and then buy it online for a discount. Few are going to buy it from the store instead of online if it comes down to saving a significant amount of money.

But consider the positive aspects of audio today. These days we have amazing communities like Audiokarma to help support our hobbies, which just in and of itself makes me feel like the hobby is in a better state than it was before. I can imagine a world without physical audio stores, but i'm not sure I can imagine a world without Audiokarma anymore

 

[WaynerN]

Judging the industry by the amount of brick and mortar stores still in operation is backwards. Especially considering how the internet has expanded product selection and distribution. Good thing we have it over solely brick and mortar stores as our selection of new and used gear would be dramatically and severely limited.

So what if department stores and RadioShacks don't carry mass market receivers and big speakers anymore. Those were never hifi or high end products to begin with. We have more access to great designs and products now and the prices are steadily dropping contrary to popular belief. I doubt very people in the 70s would go out on a whim and drop a weeks or more wages on a whole system without serious planning and discipline first.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Believe what you want to believe, but buying hifi over the internet is like buying a mail-order bride. If you can't hear the piece (or the system) what the **** good is it? Just because people have settled for what is now considered the "norm" doesn't mean that it's a good thing. Back in the old days, there were many brick and mortar stores to choose from, just like as on the internet now. However, it was a lot more fun going to the store, listening to the pieces, rather then looking at a stupid web page as it is now.

So don't tell me it's backwards. New methods do not = better. I many cases, we are going backwards, IMO.

 

[damacman]

Greed is definitely a factor (IE - Ruthless people) in the demise of brick and mortar audio stores. However, the consumer has changed and the audio hobby asks something of them they're for the most part not willing to do - sit down and listen. No iPhones, no iPads, no facebooking, just listen.

All things must change.