sunrayjack12
Active Member
I new someone had one.I do
Young people, none of them are into hifi.
- Thread starter No Money
- Start date
donprice
Wound up workin' at a gas station....
Pro tip....use a concert video or clips from blu-ray movies with excellent PQ & SQ....and pick something they like instead of the dad/grand-dad rock
For me, the only reason I still play vinyl, is that is how I first started listening to music that I couldn't hear on AM radio (there was no FM). Its a comfort thing. Not very mobile. I used a slide rule , read newspapers and had an encyclopedia set.
My son started listening with CD's. Along with a disc man, he was mobile. Now with smart phones and a blue tooth speaker or earphones, everything is in the size of a deck of cards.
I'm glad I've seen what I've seen but I'd rather pull out the phone to do a calculation rather than a slide rule, like I used for a while.
My son started listening with CD's. Along with a disc man, he was mobile. Now with smart phones and a blue tooth speaker or earphones, everything is in the size of a deck of cards.
I'm glad I've seen what I've seen but I'd rather pull out the phone to do a calculation rather than a slide rule, like I used for a while.
charles 1973
Super Member
This!
To me, as long as the equipment doesn't get in the way of the music I'm good. And that doesn't take expensive or rare speakers and 200 wpc separate amps to do that. I love Spotify Premium through my 95 wpc 2019 Yamaha RX A770 Network HT receiver and 2009 Energy Reference Connoisseur RC30 tower speakers. Less is more! For music I usually use it in stereo mode. Most of those matrix surround sound effects do more harm then good. For video 6.1 channel DD works best for most programs.
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SeanMiller60
New Member
I saw this article the other night and read it as well, found it super inspirational as someone just getting interested in building my own audio gear (plus a love for Altec)
P.s. 30 years old don't really have any friends into Hifi though quite a few who enjoy spinning vinyl.
That's a great quote.
The perceived loss of interest that some see in the young is probably an inevitable consequence of mature technology. Does anyone really think today's youth are less intelligent than young people in the 1970s or 1980s? If you think that and were around back then, take a moment to think of the biggest goofballs you knew back then and compare them to the biggest goofball kids that you know today (not much difference, see what I mean).
Mature technology has made it unimportant to know anything about how a system works, so you can focus entirely on the function of the system. Three examples are audio, computers, and cars.
Setting up a stereo was never all that complicated, but if you go back 40 or so years, everybody interested in audio knew how to hook up components, cut speaker wire, put the speakers in phase, do basic maintenance (cleaning tape heads, adjusting tracking force on a record) and so on. Plus, most everyone could rattle off the specs of their equipment (watts per channel, THD, and so forth). Now, most just put some earbuds in their phone or point the phone at a bluetooth speaker. But the bottom line is young people like music and get the benefits of music without needing to know much about audio.
If you had a computer back then, you had to be pretty knowledgeable to get anything out of it. You probably knew how to write code - Applesoft BASIC, GWBASIC, or whatever came with your system. You also probably knew all the specs on your computer, and may even have had the computer's memory map imprinted in your own memory. Now the computers are about a trillion times more powerful but only a very tiny percentage of users knows how to write code - instead focusing on web browsing, video games, Instagram, Facebook, and so forth. But the bottom line is young people like computers and get the benefits of computers without needing to know much about them.
Cars back then were not nearly as reliable. Many were in the junkyard before 100,000 miles and now many cars seem to get to that milestone without any breakdowns at all. Back then, even if you weren't interested in auto mechanics you had to know some basic stuff out of necessity - how to change the oil and spark plugs, the air filters, replace a flat, and so on. If you were into it all you probably had a basic understanding of an how internal combustion engine worked. Few young people probably know anything about what's under the hood now. But the bottom line is young people like to drive and get the benefits of driving without needing to know much about cars.
I'm not sure why anyone would blame the younger generation for this, as they are growing up in a different world where the technology has greatly advanced, but also where the inner workings are too complex for the average person to understand or learn. But I do think the maturation of technology has a downside - it makes it tougher to turn your passion/hobby into a job when you don't understand the way things work.
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I have my main system to which I did a lot of work to get just the way I like it. It gives me goose bumps when those 15's get down in the 20-30 hz range. I love how my system sounds, but here's the clincher, I'm often listening to the gear, even sometimes over the actual music! IOW I'm listening for image, tone, timber, all the audiophile terms.
Now out in my shop I have a pair of JBL LSR 308's that are decent enough for there, but I really think I get into the actual music a bit more than my main rig. And then there is when I'm out on a road trip. I wear a pair of cheap $99 noise canceling headphones plugged into my cellphone. In that instance it's totally all about the music! If I have many hundreds of miles to get over, just give me a thermos of good coffee and that headset, and I can stay awake and alert for 12, 14 hours, totally INTO the music!
I second that, and this is in all age groups too. What I noticed is the people I knew 40 years ago who were into audio and music, they for the most part couldn't care less about it now. And if they do even have a rig outside of the car, they probably stream DSOTM and maybe Queen or some thing once in a great while on a pair of rag Bic 20's .. They stopped growing with equipment as well as musically once their coming of age decade rolled away and was left in the dust.
I guess when I think about it I was one who let my audio standards and musical growth slip all through the 90's and the first decade of the new century I was running my old pair of JBL L65's with one woofer kicked in.. I got my second wind when my L200's came back to me.
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sqlsavior
Lunatic Member
Peter J. Walker could have said the exact same thing, in 1957!
https://www.stereophile.com/news/121503walker/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_Electrostatic_Loudspeaker
Regarding the young man in the article, to me it would be interesting to see his reaction to 'stats. They're vintage, too.
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Audiophiles are special with special needs.
Semanon
Super Member
I’ll add to that. I couldn’t care if 99.9% of the world population didn’t care for hifi. I do, and it keeps me occupied and fills a need.
Don’t get me wrong. I have Bose noise cancelling headphones from when flying was a thing. And I use Bluetooth earbuds and Spotify when I walk the dog or do the dishes. And a Jabra speakerphone for when I’m on a web call. And the crappy speaker in my iPad when I’m sharing YouTube and TikTok videos with my kids. I love the fact that everyone’s is completely engaged with their electronics in their own way. But when I want to do my own thing, I crank up the speakers in the garage and fix an old receiver or sit in a chair and listen to some vinyl. At those moments it’s all about me...world be damned.
Semanon
Super Member
Me, too. Classic music every car ride when hey had no choice. Both my kids have their own taste in music now, but both love stuff like Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song!’
Mystic
We're all born mad
Seconded.
Mystic
We're all born mad
Gotta be dead to not like "Immigrant Song", especially a high (sound) quality "live" rendition replete w/ the introductory "Drone" element.
Dazaa
Super Member
Some of you old folk just can’t accept that things change and technology moves on. The cost of living is so high most of my generation will never be able to own a house; why would they want a massive heavy stereo system to move around when a portable BT speaker does the job fine for next to no money. There will always be exceptions, myself being a rather extreme example.
Also, being a youngun in to audio I found a lot of the older guys I met were just pretentious assholes who seemed to take offence at someone younger than them poking in to their club. Same thing with classic cars, building a restomod 71 Vette and always get comments about how it should be kept stock by grey haired old men rather than commend saving an otherwise scrap car. It aint 1971 anymore.
Also, being a youngun in to audio I found a lot of the older guys I met were just pretentious assholes who seemed to take offence at someone younger than them poking in to their club. Same thing with classic cars, building a restomod 71 Vette and always get comments about how it should be kept stock by grey haired old men rather than commend saving an otherwise scrap car. It aint 1971 anymore.
No Money
Super Member
I'm more talking about the general kneejerk reaction I see in a range of threads here when some members get all annoyed when "young kids" don't do what they did when they were younger. That with the "music today is crap" sort of thing.
So, most younger people prefer small, portable music devices, "they know nothing" say the people who are so proud of not owning small portable music devices. They can't rebuild a Chevy small block with a screw driver, a ball of string and a used oil filter say the people who can't assemble a computer and write code.
Yes, I know I'm exaggerating slightly, you need a broken wrench to rebuild that Chevy ... but the attitude wears a bit thin after a while.
But it's been going on for ages:
"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for
authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their
legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."
Attributed to Socrates.
No Money
Super Member
Yeap! Says a grey haired, grey bearded old man.