How to Revive High-End Audio

The problem is that this hobby has become even more exclusionary over the years and not less, IMO.
The other problem, IMO, is that the number of brick and mortar dealer's has receded over the years. It is clearly NOT a good business plan to own a brick and mortar high-end audio store. Why is this a problem? IMHO due to the fact that the general public has now far less possible initial exposure to what high-end offers. A "catch 22" situation....

treitz3 said:

Hello, Rob. It would definitely help to revive the high-end audio movement if the majority of today's recordings were actually worthy of a high-end system and not just an I-pod. This might make the upcoming generations realize that when they do upgrade their gear, that they actually get something out of it besides a more refined, compressed and mutilated sound.

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Exactly!

I suspect entry level, and a little above, gear today performs at a higher level than comparable equipment 30 years ago. Since not everyone is interested in squeezing every nuance of a note out of a recording, selling higher performing gear becomes more of a challenge now.

treitz3 said:

Hello, Rob. It would definitely help to revive the high-end audio movement if the majority of today's recordings were actually worthy of a high-end system and not just an I-pod. This might make the upcoming generations realize that when they do upgrade their gear, that they actually get something out of it besides a more refined, compressed and mutilated sound.

Tom

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There are many recordings being made that are worthy of high fidelity. Many of them are louder than the recordings of previous generation, but that's one factor. Set the volume where you want, and with many of these "offending" recordings, all you'll lose is some dynamic range. And not much. There's never been a lot of dynamic range in most popular recordings. I think this is just an excuse to blame something outside of the industry. A much more likely answer is in purogave's post:

the cost of entering into high-end audio must also be a major contributor. using the US inflation calcuator* the system i owned back in '93 had a list price of ~23k, fast forward twenty years and in todays dollars the same system should cost 37k, an increase of about 61%. the fact is, if i try to build the same system today with equivilent components from the same manufacturers i came up with 78K, which at this point not only would i be priced out but i would consider it poor value.

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A cost that was prohibitive in '93 has become absurd in 2013. And it has far out-stripped inflation in an industry, consumer electronics, that has consistently lowered costs and raised quality in every other category. In the meantime, while that deepened already ripe skepticism and distrust in what most people already think is an absurdly expensive tweaky hobby, society has become more mobile and headphone listening has taken a huge chunk of the stereo listening market. And in that niche, an iPhone and a $400 pair of IEMs can compete well against high-end systems in everything but spatial presentation (a solvable problem in the process of being solved, by the way).

I could go on. There are more reasons why most music lovers aren't compelled to buy stationary stereo systems and don't trust the hobby and the industry that delivers them at the "high end," and none of them have to do with the quality of contemporary recordings.

So how do you revive the high end? IMO the "high end" cannot solve the problem; it is the problem, or at least part of it. How do your revive high fidelity ? By designing systems for and marketing them to regular people at affordable prices. By selling the joy of music, throughout the home, as a part of everyday life. Sell the romance of sitting down with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and relaxing as you listen to your favorite music. Bring the media to the message - sell concerts in the home (it worked for movies, and concerts are much more expensive and much more hassle than going to the theater) -- performance videos maximized for stereo instead of for complex surround systems that require installation and take over entire rooms. And design speakers to sound good in rooms occupied by people, furniture, life.... instead of a dampened environment with a single chair in the sweet spot.

Tim

treitz3 said:

Hello, Rob. It would definitely help to revive the high-end audio movement if the majority of today's recordings were actually worthy of a high-end system and not just an I-pod. This might make the upcoming generations realize that when they do upgrade their gear, that they actually get something out of it besides a more refined, compressed and mutilated sound.

Tom

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The majority of classical recordings and of recordings of classical 'avantgarde', both the type of music that I listen to most, are well worthy of a high-end system. In fact, recordings of such music have, if anything, become better over the last three or four decades (speaking in general terms, you can quibble about exceptions to the rule here and there). For jazz I might also find it worthwhile having a high-end system, even though perhaps to a lesser degree. While I also listen to rock and pop, I do so more in the car than at home. Some of those recordings are worthy of listening on my system, but if I would mainly listen to just pop and rock I might not even have a high-end system.

Al M. said:

The majority of classical recordings and of recordings of classical 'avantgarde', both the type of music that I listen to most, are well worthy of a high-end system. In fact, recordings of such music have, if anything, become better over the last three or four decades (speaking in general terms, you can quibble about exceptions to the rule here and there). For jazz I might also find it worthwhile having a high-end system, even though perhaps to a lesser degree. While I also listen to rock and pop, I do so more in the car than at home. Some of those recordings are worthy of listening on my system, but if I would mainly listen to just pop and rock I might not even have a high-end system.

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I find this statement true of jazz, folk, Americana, blues....pretty much everything that's not mainstream pop, rock or country. Is there some "loudness wars" going on, even in these genres? Yes. I find many recordings to be more than worthy of high fidelity reproduction in spite of that.

Tim

Phelonious Ponk said:

I find this statement true of jazz, folk, Americana, blues....pretty much everything that's not mainstream pop, rock or country. Is there some "loudness wars" going on, even in these genres? Yes. I find many recordings to be more than worthy of high fidelity reproduction in spite of that.

Tim

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Well, there's definitely no "loudness war" going on in classical. Both macro- and micro-dynamics are superb on a great majority of modern classical recordings (also on standard Redbook CD if played back with high quality). Spatial depth often less so, even though there still is a substantial minority of recordings where spatial depth is superb. When depth comes at the expense of clarity of timbre or texture, however, I'd rather side with clarity.

I think both recording quality and accessibility of hardware (geographically and financially) are the main contributing factors. With regard to recording quality, if Apple suddenly decided to offer hi-rez downloads in the iTunes store, many people who only buy MP3s would suddenly be made aware of higher quality options than what they now exclusively experience. Would this lead all of them to suddenly buy hi-rez downloads and augment their hardware with high quality DACs and speakers? Most of them? Most likely not. But some of them might let their curiosity get the better of them and explore what the "higher quality" is all about. That situation is better than the present, in which millions of people buying music through iTunes store or Amazon Downloads have no clue about better-recorded download options for their favorite music. Without that initial interest, the second factor is all but irrelevant.

While I think that the high-end audio industry has basically priced itself out of business, that's not the real problem. The problem is that lifestyles have changed. Most consumers aren't interested in sitting down with friends and enjoying music on a good system (insert price, it doesn't matter). Convenience and quick access has taken preference over everything and music has become background.

Al M. said:

Well, there's definitely no "loudness war" going on in classical. Both macro- and micro-dynamics are superb on a great majority of modern classical recordings (also on standard Redbook CD if played back with high quality). Spatial depth often less so, even though there still is a substantial minority of recordings where spatial depth is superb. When depth comes at the expense of clarity of timbre or texture, however, I'd rather side with clarity.

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We're in complete agreement, and you've described exactly where I think a lot of non-mainstream recording falls, here in the heat of the loudness wars -- great clarity, timbre and texture...lack of big dynamics. You may notice that the fiddle and the bass are pretty uniform in volume, even when the fiddle steps up for a solo, but the instrument's attack characteristics remain intact.

I personally find it a fair trade for the muddiness of 60s and early 70s multi track recordings. I think this is quite a bit better, in fact.

Tim

Al M. said:

Well, there's definitely no "loudness war" going on in classical...

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WRONG, unfortunately. One needs to look no farther than the recent Brahms symphonies by Chailly, in either Redbook or HD 24/96. They sound very nice but are victims of quite marked compression and peak-limiting, totally unnecessary. There are many more examples although I agree that it is relatively rare compared to rock/pop. Jazz, OTOH, is every bit as bad as rock/pop on most new recordings.

Everyone posting here realizes that the Stereophile editorial that started the thread was written and first published many years ago?

Phelonious Ponk said:

You may notice that the fiddle and the bass are pretty uniform in volume, even when the fiddle steps up for a solo, but the instrument's attack characteristics remain intact.

Tim

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On the other extreme, on jazz recordings from the 50s and 60s it is often bothersome when the double bass has its solo. It cannot 'step forward' of course, but nonetheless the volume in the recording is often unnaturally cranked up for that instrument's solo. Even a legendary engineer like Rudy van Gelder could not resist the temptation -- and otherwise, he did a lot of stuff really well (for example, on the CD of his 24-bit remaster from 1998 of his '64 recording of Eric Dolphy's avantgarde jazz classic "Out to Lunch!" the clarity of all the instruments is superb; that includes Tony Williams' drum kit which sounds really stunning).

rbbert said:

WRONG, unfortunately. One needs to look no farther than the recent Brahms symphonies by Chailly, in either Redbook or HD 24/96. They sound very nice but are victims of quite marked compression and peak-limiting, totally unnecessary. There are many more examples although I agree that it is relatively rare compared to rock/pop. Jazz, OTOH, is every bit as bad as rock/pop on most new recordings.

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Well, you admit that it is relatively rare in classical, so there. I also had stated that "both macro- and micro-dynamics are superb on a great majority of modern classical recordings". If there's a great majority, this still obviously leaves a minority where this is not so.

The disturbing thing is that the "loudness wars" are affecting classical music at all, especially on a hires high profile new release at a time when other genres are clearly scaling back. That distresses me a great deal.

I believe that the quality of current recordings have little to do with growing the number of individuals who participate in high end audio. My take is that it comes down to disposable income. When many of us first dipped our feet into expensive audio we didn't have to allocate a rather hefty slice of our monthly income to cable/satellite TV, internet connections and cell phone bills. I will bet those bill are equal to the monthly car payments for a lot of people in there 20's and 30's.

Also the pricing gap between entry level audio and high end gear was not Grand Canyon like as it is today.

High end audio, jazz and classical music are perpetually dying. Due to changes in the distribution model, popular music has recently been added to the list of the terminally ill.

Yes, the high end extreme of audio is stratospherically priced, but occasionally you can get a degree of performance that is commensurate with the expense which was heretofore unobtainable at any price. In the meantime, there is a degree of price/performance at the lower end that JA and his ilk could only dream of a a few years ago.

IMO, two things have changed the paradigm of the mid-50's to mid-80's, both related to the the digitial age:
1) The internet has revolutionized how music is recorded, played back and sold. Not all of the changes are for the good.
2) There are many more sources of enterntainment chasing the consumers dollar and attention. A generation ago, you had the 3 major TV networks; now you can watch 200 channels on the TV or streaming on your computer. How much time do middle aged guys spend surfing porn when they might have been listening to a record player thirty years ago?