Whatever happened to Hi-Fi?

[Irvrobinson]

I think there are a multitude of problems.

For the non technical music lover nothing is user friendly anymore.

I think people do want an AV experience now, and with good reason. Locating two speakers either side of a TV in a lot of rooms is problematic, let alone five or seven.

In the old days, you had simple connections, switched it on and selected the source.

I note a lot of users do not get the hang of GUI interfaces and are often defeated by things like speaker set up and assigning inputs.

Speakers in the main these days really do require a sub. Setting that up and finding room for a sub puts a lot of people off.

Then the choices of where to spend money on home and personal electronics is wide. Mobile devices are often required for a job and take priority.

Finding and getting CDs, DVD, and BD requires Internet order pretty much. Storage or transferring to hard disc is hard for the nontechnical. Streaming is handy, but getting good results is not easy or straightforward. Streaming in dreadful quality is easy, but finding and getting quality is hard.

Finding good speakers is a hassle, with the decline of the specialist dealer. Most speakers are of the small cone narrow front variety, and the drivers actually not very good at handling power even with multiple drivers. Classical music in particular has a lot of power below 400 Hz, and even at those frequencies x-max can get exceeded.

There is virtually no such thing as a good 2.1 or 3.1 receiver with good bass management, and slim profile.

The hassle factor for the average person is now off the clock.

I think you're painting, as you often do, an overly negative picture of the current state of affairs. I've never run into anyone so helpless as you describe, at least anyone who is at all interested in reasonable sound quality. Tens of millions of people order products online from Amazon and thousands of other companies. iTunes is easier to use than an old record store.

Non-geeks don't care about stereo beyond 2.0, and most of the surround equipment sold today by volume is pre-packaged stuff in one big box complete with color-coded cables. For the truly inept there's Bose, and Bose sells a lot of equipment. For the upper 10% buyers there are home theater companies that design and install everything. Below that there's Geek Squads and their competitors.

The average Polk or JBL system I've heard at Frys sounds better than I remember Advent or AR speakers ever sounding in my youth. The old stuff generally sounded like crap, unless you were really into audio as a hobby and bought the good stuff, that cost a lot more, inflation-adjusted, than electronics and speakers do now.

I stand by my original statement, the good old days in audio are now. And it's not just reproduction. My $200 Tascam handheld digital recorder, with built-in mics no less, produces better recordings than my cherished, built in Indiana, Crown CX822 running at 15ips on 3M 456, though I'll grant you that my old Calrec Soundfield beat the built-in mics in the Tascam.

The funny thing is, even dinosaurs can still have their way. You know as well as anyone, Quad is still selling electrostatic speakers, companies still sell tube electronics, and every third person I run into is buying vinyl again [barf].

Maybe you should prescribe yourself some Prozac...

 

[Lulimet]

I think you're painting, as you often do, an overly negative picture of the current state of affairs. I've never run into anyone so helpless as you describe, at least anyone who is at all interested in reasonable sound quality. Tens of millions of people order products online from Amazon and thousands of other companies. iTunes is easier to use than an old record store.

Non-geeks don't care about stereo beyond 2.0, and most of the surround equipment sold today by volume is pre-packaged stuff in one big box complete with color-coded cables. For the truly inept there's Bose, and Bose sells a lot of equipment. For the upper 10% buyers there are home theater companies that design and install everything. Below that there's Geek Squads and their competitors.

The average Polk or JBL system I've heard at Frys sounds better than I remember Advent or AR speakers ever sounding in my youth. The old stuff generally sounded like crap, unless you were really into audio as a hobby and bought the good stuff, that cost a lot more, inflation-adjusted, than electronics and speakers do now.

I stand by my original statement, the good old days in audio are now. And it's not just reproduction. My $200 Tascam handheld digital recorder, with built-in mics no less, produces better recordings than my cherished, built in Indiana, Crown CX822 running at 15ips on 3M 456, though I'll grant you that my old Calrec Soundfield beat the built-in mics in the Tascam.

The funny thing is, even dinosaurs can still have their way. You know as well as anyone, Quad is still selling electrostatic speakers, companies still sell tube electronics, and every third person I run into is buying vinyl again [barf].

Maybe you should prescribe yourself some Prozac...

Excellent post. I too thought the article was full of crap.

Good audio is more affordable now than ever.

 

[ImcLoud]

MAKE TIME FOR MUSIC. an ex of mine once told me "you waste so much time listening to music, why don't you grow up?" coming from a women who watched soaps all day and worked 5 hours a night was a joke in itself.. The truth is, when Im listening to music, most of the time I'm relaxing and organizing my thoughts, I listen to music when I am driving, when I am working, when I am home and doing paper work, when I am surfing the internet, when we eat dinner, in the mornings on weekends, {its on rite now, since 7am, I have had music playing at a good volume, it wakes up the kids, gets everyone moving around, vs laying in bed...

Music is one of the only things in my life that doesn't ask me for anything, even TV asks you to devote almost all of your attention to it, watch at certain times, stay rite in front of it, watch until the end and tune in next week, ect. Music allows you do use your brain for other things at the same time, listen from any where even with your eyes closed, end a song restart a song in the middle, its all about the same...

 

[Ponzio]

MAKE TIME FOR MUSIC.

Too busy (in their mind) and too lazy. If it can't be done for them instantly or yesterday, most people don't care. They seem to have the attention span of goldfish. Poor little maroons.

 

[cpp]

Whatever happened to Hi-Fi?

it's still alive in people rooms all over the world of course it might be age dependent as compared to the ipod earbud crowd who feel their method of listening to music is all that's needed. Today's younger crowd is so "mobile" wanting everything at their fingertips and that in my opinion is what's keeping a lot of people from entertaining "hi-fi" which means setting back in that sweet spot and listening to music without playing games while their listening to music. Manufacturers see this mobile movement hence the growth of itunes and Amazon for those downloads of anything and everything mobile be it music, games, books or video. There are still those who feel the high-quality reproduction of sound is still a personal choice and select the equipment they feel meets that objective, so yes it's still alive, it might look different than it did back in the 70's and early 80's but it still alive out there for those that actually care..

 

[markw]

Dunno about that.

Quad did confuse the bejeezus out ofpeople and it never did live up to the hype. In response, people simply ignored it and it went away. Stereo remained, though.

Granted, it did become "commoditized (is that even a word?) and a lot of famous names lost their glitter, but it still sold.

Then video hit. VHS-Hi Fi and Dolby Pro Logic started the move towards the true marriage of audio and video. That's when the great diaspora started. Now, the video and audio fanatics really started. When DVD and digital true Multi-channel hit, it pretty much broke up that chain. Many people didn't care about poor old two channel anymore and those that did lost their interest in the quality. It was relegated to the back ground, rec rooms and cellars.

When MP3's and file sharing hit, stereo was justa niche and by noew mainstream manufacturers had long since abandoned that market in favor ofthe more fertile HT grounds.

But, stereo is aliveand welltoday, but it's not the really advertised any more. ...and it's not just the overpriced high end stuff with 1/4" faceplates either. Great value can be had at reasonable prices.

In the mid 60's, I bought a Lafayette LA-224A tube integrated amp (not a receiver) for $59.95 1965 (or so) dollars. It out out a whopping 6 watts (RMS) per channel which wasn't enough to drive my first speaker upgrade, which was a pair of Wharfedale 60Cs without distorting unbelievably.

Today, you can go out and, for around $100 of today's dollars, buy a Sherwood RX-4109 which does everything that little Lafayette did, plus it has a tuner, remote control and much, much more power.

As for speakers, yes, they were cheaper then but, when you consider inflation, you can get better speakers today for a much lower price.

So, what's the beef? That AV has pushed stereo out of the forefront? Welcome to the consumer driven society.

 

[ImcLoud]

I had a conversation about music only systems vs ht with a few guys at a semi local audiophile store front and the owner told me that in the last 5 years Stereo has come back, one of the salesman said that they were probably selling more stereo vs ht because most ht people are going to best buy now vs before they didn't have that big box option, so we kind of left it at, THEY are selling more stereo vs HT but there is being much more HT sold vs stereo.... Not to say you can not have a very nice ht system that does music well, and if I was single I would probably invest in an all around do it all system vs multiple systems, but with the family all over the house, its much easier to not command the ht room for music since its almost always in use, either playing dvr'd epesodes of ellen, or some cartoon show about teenage super heros....

 

[3db]

I had a conversation about music only systems vs ht with a few guys at a semi local audiophile store front and the owner told me that in the last 5 years Stereo has come back, one of the salesman said that they were probably selling more stereo vs ht because most ht people are going to best buy now vs before they didn't have that big box option, so we kind of left it at, THEY are selling more stereo vs HT but there is being much more HT sold vs stereo.... Not to say you can not have a very nice ht system that does music well, and if I was single I would probably invest in an all around do it all system vs multiple systems, but with the family all over the house, its much easier to not command the ht room for music since its almost always in use, either playing dvr'd epesodes of ellen, or some cartoon show about teenage super heros....

I wonder how many people with HT also dual purpose it by using their main system for stereo? (I use it for CDs vinyl, and MP3s stored on a media player strictly in stereo and not multichannel). And I also wonder how many people built up a 2nd system because of non availability of their 1st system? I have a 2nd system built up on an old Technics AVR which I use as 2.1 system. I don't think I'll ever purchase a stereo receiver again because of its lack of flexibility compared to that of an AVR.

 

[ImcLoud]

I wonder how many people with HT also dual purpose it by using their main system for stereo? (I use it for CDs vinyl, and MP3s stored on a media player strictly in stereo and not multichannel). And I also wonder how many people built up a 2nd system because of non availability of their 1st system? I have a 2nd system built up on an old Technics AVR which I use as 2.1 system. I don't think I'll ever purchase a stereo receiver again because of its lack of flexibility compared to that of an AVR.

Stereo receivers may be a thing of the past {until they commonly integrate digital inputs}, but I can hear the difference between a high end avr and a mid level integrated amplifier when it comes to music... I am a strong believer that music sounds best with a simple short path, so a dac with volume control to an amplifier, or your analog source rite to an integrated amp, or a preamp to your amp, sounds better than an avr for 2 channel listening... The flexibility is the issue, but what more do you need? HDMI inputs are nice but besides that and multi channel play a basic stereo setup will do it all....

I have had non believers over here before, and I have a simple a b comparison I let them hear, I plug an ipod directly into my marantz avr and play a few songs, it sounds good, we listen to a few tracks and then I plug in the tp60 {50w} and play a few songs, always better, before my brother heard it he swore I was crazy and all amps sound the same, until we a b'ed it and now that is all he runs...

A simple, short path is going to give you the cleanest most "untouched" sound.... Why clutter it all up with the video circuitry, the extra volume and balance controls, and all that software, dolby, surrounds, ect ect ect....

 

[markw]

I wonder how many people with HT also dual purpose it by using their main system for stereo?

Owing to space limitations, I do. Perviously, my main two-channel system and my HT system could easily fit into one large living area. When we moved into a smaller house, I had to "furlogh" my Maggies (but a friend is getting good use out of them).

Now, since most guests appreciate a movie more than music (sigh) the HT is is the biggest room and the two channel NAD system, with smaller speakers, is in the small guest room/library. But, I also have better then average stereo systems in our bedroom and the basement/gym/office/man cave.

It doesn't suck, though. Maybe the fact I use a fairly decent univerdsal DVD/CD/SACD player and avail myself of it's internal DAC by using the receiver's external analog inputs might have something to do with it.

 

[Adam]

...I plug an ipod directly into my marantz avr and play a few songs...

Does your Marantz have a pure direct mode? If so, were you using it?

 

[Adam]

I wonder how many people with HT also dual purpose it by using their main system for stereo?

I do, but I only have one "real" system. Heaven knows that I have enough electronics to set up a second (and third, and...) setup, but I don't have enough good speakers for multiple systems. I'd have to steal a pair of speakers from my 7.1 system, and I'm not willing to do that. I have other pairs of speakers, but they're older Radio Shack speakers and not that great.

I'm a believer that a good stereo setup can be a subset of a good HT setup, so I don't see a big need for separate systems. Granted, "good" is a relative term, and I'm not overly critical. Also, I enjoy music recorded/mixed in more than two channels.

 

[psbfan9]

I'l try make this post more thoughtful and coherent than the one I posted yesterday and deleted. The definition of Hi Fi is the reproduction of sound with minimal distortion. In the article toward the end the author states that a recording is not "Hi Fi". This, to me, destroys his credibility. Per definition, if there is no or minimal noise then it's hi fi. Maybe his equipment is faulty or he does not understand/know the definition of "Hi Fi"

To me, 'Hi Fi' is alive and well. Isn't that why were are all here at AH to figure out to get the best possible sound out of out system(s) with out distortion, noise, and internet warble?
The definition doesn't state whether hi fi is two channel or multi channel. It (The definition) states broadcast or recorded sources. Does that mean two channel (recorded) and multi channel (broadcast)?

I like music in two channel stereo or direct and broadcast, if broadcast means tv/movies, in multi channel. No matter the format I want the sound to be clean and noise free. You know, "Hi Fi".

 

[3db]

A simple, short path is going to give you the cleanest most "untouched" sound.... Why clutter it all up with the video circuitry, the extra volume and balance controls, and all that software, dolby, surrounds, ect ect ect....

Most top end AVRs go to great lengths to seperate the digital domain from the analog domain. Color me skeptical. An IPOD is the last thing on the planet I would use to test system fidelity. I would prefer a turntable or a CD player using analog outputs.

 

[psbfan9]

I wonder how many people with HT also dual purpose it by using their main system for stereo?

I do. But, I'm looking for another pair of speakers for a music only system.

A simple, short path is going to give you the cleanest most "untouched" sound.... Why clutter it all up with the video circuitry, the extra volume and balance controls, and all that software, dolby, surrounds, ect ect ect....

True, but that can be turned off by using direct mode.

 

[ImcLoud]

Does your Marantz have a pure direct mode? If so, were you using it?

yup pure direct with simple subwoofer output.... If I had it on stereo or surround it would be night and day, in direct it is still noticeably not as "good" as my simple tripath amplifier and that is really noticeable at lower volumes.... I even tried this with different speakers, simple sounds better... I am constantly trying and moving stuff around, Ill buy a set of speakers just to test them out to see if I maybe like them more than what i have... Today and I am going to play around in the guest suite and try another preamp I just got, just for the fun of it, it will eat up a few hours of my sunday and Ill enjoy every minute of it...

 

[psbfan9]

Ok, if I'm honest, I do listen to some music in multi channel. I think Funk, R&B and some jazz sound good in multi channel. The latest(?) Tom Petty was in multi channel and sounded pretty good. But 99% of music is just as good, or better in stereo. YMMV...

 

[markw]

I do believe that if you've got a subwoofer output, at least some of the signal path goes through digital processing.

 

[ImcLoud]

Most top end AVRs go to great lengths to seperate the digital domain from the analog domain. Color me skeptical. An IPOD is the last thing on the planet I would use to test system fidelity. I would prefer a turntable or a CD player using analog outputs.

Actually if done rite, an ipod/ipad/iphone can sound really good I use the i20 dock with an external dac {XDA2 or D! both work good} and the sq is excellent {I have played with apps and settings, once you have it rite its better than most cd players analog outputs, AND better than pretty much every turntable I have ever heard, and I have heard some of the best...

Plus even if it couldn;t be made to sound as good, the convenience is worth the tiny loss..

 

[panteragstk]

When I sold A/V around 4 years ago it was nearly impossible to convince people that audio was important. I could sell $3000 tv sets all day, but hardly ever would anyone spend money on a decent sound system. HTIB's were usually the only way to get them something other that TV speakers. I usually got push back along the lines of "speakers are big". Yes, some of them are. They all used to be.

Off the subject a bit. I had a couple come in to look at TV's once. In order to pick the one they wanted they were turning off the display sets to see which one would look best above their fireplace.