Whatever happened to Hi-Fi?

[Irvrobinson]

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.

Yup, this is why Bose is able to sell those little cubes so easily, and why lots of people like their speakers in-wall. Audio should be heard and not seen. The number one comment most women make when they see my system: Can't you at least push those speakers against the wall, and hide all of those wires? People serious about audio have always been relatively rare, as a percentage of the total population, and I don't think the percentage has changed much over the past forty years. What amazes me is how many brands and products there still are. How many new brands of relatively expensive speakers are still appearing? On the other hand, people like my parents, who thought the TV speakers sounded just fine, and thought even having the power cord visible was terrible, have always been the mainstream.

I remember that in 1960s many people I knew who had a dedicated audio system had a "console", where the turntable and the speakers were in the same cabinet! Now how stupid is that?

 

[ImcLoud]

Yup, this is why Bose is able to sell those little cubes so easily, and why lots of people like their speakers in-wall. Audio should be heard and not seen. The number one comment most women make when they see my system: Can't you at least push those speakers against the wall, and hide all of those wires? People serious about audio have always been relatively rare, as a percentage of the total population, and I don't think the percentage has changed much over the past forty years. What amazes me is how many brands and products there still are. How many new brands of relatively new brands of speakers are still appearing? On the other hand, people like my parents, who thought the TV speakers sounded just fine, and thought even having the power cord visible was terrible, have always been the mainstream.

I remember that in 1960s many people I knew who had a dedicated audio system had a "console", where the turntable and the speakers were in the same cabinet! Now how stupid is that?

Back then them speakers, 8 tracks and turntables were so good that no one cared about placement or crossovers... It makes me laugh a little when I hear people say how vinyl and tubes are the "best " sound, a friend of mines father has a lot of money invested in a really nice music system, its in their dining room and they have a beautiful home, he has a nice tube amp, with a nice turn table and a pair of heritage cornwalls {the new ones}, he had to spend over $12K for everything... And when he heard the system we put in his sons house he was in SHOCK, his son bought a pair of xpa1's, an xda1, a pair of Monitor audio silver rx8's. The system sounds great and I guess big dave never heard solid state before because he couldn't believe the quality and amount of sound for under $4000... I explained his system was nostalgic and "heritage" and his sons is new and sounds better for less, lol...
Don't get me wrong I have a turntable, with a tube amp, running my tekton lores, but honestly its for looks, it sounds good, but its for looks, I have it in my master bedroom for ambiance... not critical listening...

 

[sterling shoote]

Who knows what happened. After college I put together a system and now, 40 years later, with my last upgrades made in 2000, I am satisfied with what I hear from it. I think today young folks are satisfied with an earphone experience which eliminates the need for anything else but an iPhone or iPad.

 

[JerryLove]

Who knows what happened. After college I put together a system and now, 40 years later, with my last upgrades made in 2000, I am satisfied with what I hear from it. I think today young folks are satisfied with an earphone experience which eliminates the need for anything else but an iPhone or iPad.

As opposed to the youg folks of yesteryear with walkman, boom-boxes, and the afore-mentioned turntable/amp/speaker combos.

The masses are usually somewhere else than the hobbiests; but yes, audio as a hobby has lost base to video (as RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, while not gone, lost base to computer games)

 

[3db]

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..

If compressed audio is your bag, then who am I to argue. I know first hand that even a modest turntable setup like mine will shame any lossy codec stored on an ipod regardless of the DACs used.

 

[Ponzio]

If compressed audio is your bag, then who am I to argue. I know first hand that even a modest turntable setup like mine will shame any lossy codec stored on an ipod regardless of the DACs used.

Shame? What shame?

I'll do a blind test using my Oppo BDP-105 with a Sabre 32 DAC chip & a 320kb MP3 or high-bit FLAC file against any other setup without any sense of shame.

 

[ImcLoud]

If compressed audio is your bag, then who am I to argue. I know first hand that even a modest turntable setup like mine will shame any lossy codec stored on an ipod regardless of the DACs used.

If 120 year old technology is your bag, then who am I to argue , lol... I know one of my uncles is a die hard vinyl guy, he actually was in a magazine for having one of the most impressive collections in the country, over $800,000 of vinyl!!!! And he has a serious table, I helped him set it up, it weighs 200 friggen pounds, lol.. But he loves how it sounds and admits that digital sounds "cleaner" but says "vinyl sounds how I want my music to sound" what ever that means... To me you are hearing the mechanical properties and no the recording, the hiss and popping or what ever you want to call the noises that come with vinyl... I know my uncles system doesn't have much of that , but you can buy a $30 digital player and it will sound better than a $300 turntable...

Of course I have compared the two, Im not sure if my table would be considered modest {just a $400 pro-ject, bought it because it was red} and I can not say it sounds as good as cd or mp3.... Ipods are so convenient and I don't want to debate which is better because that never gets anywhere, lol... But it all boils down to -- "to each their own"... the convenience of an ipod is worth much more than the nostalgia of a turntable...

this is worth a read Are Vinyl Recordings Better than Digital?

 

[Ponzio]

Good article.

Partial quote:

It's a hard science fact that digital is capable of reproducing higher frequencies than vinyl, above the range of what most people can hear. But, can people distinguish whether a piece of music contains those frequencies or not? According to research performed at Japan's NHK Laboratories in 2004, the answer seems to be no. They took 36 people and ran 20 tests with each. Only a single 18-year-old girl was able to beat random chance, and so they retested her separately, but the effect disappeared. Nevertheless, the researchers issued a somewhat qualified conclusion that they could "neither confirm nor deny the possibility that some subjects could discriminate between musical sounds with and without very high frequency components." Whether that recording is vinyl or digital, any frequencies it may or may not have above 20,000 Hz make no difference.

While FLAC/MP3's may not be up to snuff to mastered CD's or SACD I'll take the sound quality of a high-bit FLAC/MP3 over my vinyl versions any day. Speaking from experience, I have over 2,000 albums, where I've taken the CD version and converted it to 320kb MP3 file and it sounds way more enjoyable. Is the record "warmer" sounding; no doubt. But I can do without the barely audible analog hum and the occasional scratch, that's inevitable with records.

 

[ImcLoud]

Good article.

Partial quote:

It's a hard science fact that digital is capable of reproducing higher frequencies than vinyl, above the range of what most people can hear. But, can people distinguish whether a piece of music contains those frequencies or not? According to research performed at Japan's NHK Laboratories in 2004, the answer seems to be no. They took 36 people and ran 20 tests with each. Only a single 18-year-old girl was able to beat random chance, and so they retested her separately, but the effect disappeared. Nevertheless, the researchers issued a somewhat qualified conclusion that they could "neither confirm nor deny the possibility that some subjects could discriminate between musical sounds with and without very high frequency components." Whether that recording is vinyl or digital, any frequencies it may or may not have above 20,000 Hz make no difference.

While FLAC/MP3's may not be up to snuff to mastered CD's or SACD I'll take the sound quality of a high-bit FLAC/MP3 over my vinyl versions any day. Speaking from experience, I have over 2,000 albums, where I've taken the CD version and converted it to 320kb MP3 file and it sounds way more enjoyable. Is the record "warmer" sounding; no doubt. But I can do without the barely audible analog hum and the occasional scratch, that's inevitable with records.

Brian is VERY talented at conveying his thoughts to others, I tip him $5 a month for his writings, because I enjoy them and feel guilty reading them for free, lol... look into some of his others, you can read them or listen to them, I read them since my wife is usually next to me when I'm on the site watching Ellen or glee reruns, lol...

 

[Ponzio]

Just added him to my bookmarks ... thanks.

 

[Duff man]

I disagree with the author's almost complete dismissal of stereo for "virtual presence". One does NOT need 4 channel or surround audio to enjoy music. I've played in several bands over the years and have seen hundreds of bands perform live. In every single case, 100% of the audio when at a live performance came from in front of me. Why should it be any different at home? The vast majority of music is recorded in stereo, mixed in stereo, and sounds great through a pair of decent speakers. Surround sound is fine for movies, but not required for music.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I disagree with the author's almost complete dismissal of stereo for "virtual presence". One does NOT need 4 channel or surround audio to enjoy music. I've played in several bands over the years and have seen hundreds of bands perform live. In every single case, 100% of the audio when at a live performance came from in front of me. Why should it be any different at home? The vast majority of music is recorded in stereo, mixed in stereo, and sounds great through a pair of decent speakers. Surround sound is fine for movies, but not required for music.

I'm with you. A really good 2-channel set-up beats quad or surround for realism. Even my 2-channel video system has the ability to put choppers overhead and various noises off to the side. There's a fireplace to the left of the monitor, a few feet to left of the speakers, and on an episode of Law and Order recently I had to mute the sound to convince myself that a weird scratching noise wasn't coming from the fireplace.

 

[panteragstk]

I'm with you. A really good 2-channel set-up beats quad or surround for realism. Even my 2-channel video system has the ability to put choppers overhead and various noises off to the side. There's a fireplace to the left of the monitor, a few feet to left of the speakers, and on an episode of Law and Order recently I had to mute the sound to convince myself that a weird scratching noise wasn't coming from the fireplace.

I'm hoping when I do my 2-channel system that I get those results. I still haven't decided to use a regular AVR, integrated amp, dac+amp combo, pre/pro+amp, or a stereo receiver. Good to have choices, but it make decisions difficult.

 

[Irvrobinson]

I'm hoping when I do my 2-channel system that I get those results. I still haven't decided to use a regular AVR, integrated amp, dac+amp combo, pre/pro+amp, or a stereo receiver. Good to have choices, but it make decisions difficult.

And the funny thing is that the video system set-up is so non-optimal that I can't believe it images well or sounds good at all. One of these days I should post a picture of it, but I'm afraid some people will laugh...

 

[panteragstk]

And the funny thing is that the video system set-up is so non-optimal that I can't believe it images well or sounds good at all. One of these days I should post a picture of it, but I'm afraid some people will laugh...

Well, you have to do it now. We're curious.

 

[Adam]

There's a fireplace to the left of the monitor, a few feet to left of the speakers, and on an episode of Law and Order recently I had to mute the sound to convince myself that a weird scratching noise wasn't coming from the fireplace.

Alex has learned to stop moving when he sees someone go for the remote.

 

[3db]

Good article.

Partial quote:

It's a hard science fact that digital is capable of reproducing higher frequencies than vinyl, above the range of what most people can hear. But, can people distinguish whether a piece of music contains those frequencies or not? According to research performed at Japan's NHK Laboratories in 2004, the answer seems to be no. They took 36 people and ran 20 tests with each. Only a single 18-year-old girl was able to beat random chance, and so they retested her separately, but the effect disappeared. Nevertheless, the researchers issued a somewhat qualified conclusion that they could "neither confirm nor deny the possibility that some subjects could discriminate between musical sounds with and without very high frequency components." Whether that recording is vinyl or digital, any frequencies it may or may not have above 20,000 Hz make no difference.

While FLAC/MP3's may not be up to snuff to mastered CD's or SACD I'll take the sound quality of a high-bit FLAC/MP3 over my vinyl versions any day. Speaking from experience, I have over 2,000 albums, where I've taken the CD version and converted it to 320kb MP3 file and it sounds way more enjoyable. Is the record "warmer" sounding; no doubt. But I can do without the barely audible analog hum and the occasional scratch, that's inevitable with records.

Viny's high frequency cutoff. Is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 70KHz which is more than 3xtimes than the 20KHzlimit of human hearing. This was an experiment and never made it commericially. High frequency is not a problem for vinyl. Bass frequencies are far more problematic.

It all comes down to personal preferences. I will take the vinyl sound with its scratches over compressed audio any day.

 

[Swerd]

Viny's high frequency cutoff. Is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 70KHz which is more than 3xtimes than the 20KHzlimit of human hearing. This was an experiment and never made it commericially. High frequency is not a problem for vinyl. Bass frequencies are far more problematic.

I am aware of your preference for vinyl records and the sound of their mechanical playback, and I'm always willing to tolerate and respect the preferences of others .

The high frequency response of digital recordings on CD is deliberately limited to about 22,000 Hz. Vinyl playback has no such upper limit. But to suggest that vinyl's potential high frequency performance might be part of vinyl's characteristic sound is, however, quite wrong. You never said that outright in your post, but others have claimed as much.

The limiting factor to the high frequency performance of any recorded music, digital or analog, is the performance of the recording microphones. Few if any recording microphones are actually capable of operating as high as 20,000 Hz, much less at significantly higher frequencies such as 70,000. During the decades when vinyl records were the main commercial form of high fidelity recordings, recording microphones rarely operated higher than 15,000 Hz. So the sound at 20,000 Hz or higher on vinyl playback is irrelevant.

 

[Darkwing_duck]

Way long, and full of BS. These are the good old days for audio. The equipment, especially speakers and subwoofers, are better than ever, awesome electronics are available at very reasonable cost, CD quality or better music is available with point and click ordering or downloading, and the choices in the market for everything are so numerous it can be bewildering.

All of that blather about 4-channel audio is BS too. Quad sucked. Great stereo is where the sweet spot is.

+1 I don't think I want to feel like in in the middle of the band while listening to a soundtrack via quad stereo...I'd rather sit IN front of the band similar to the experience of actually sitting in front of a band in a club.

 

[mtrycrafts]

...
It all comes down to personal preferences. I will take the vinyl sound with its scratches over compressed audio any day.

Which compressed audio? Compressed how? I need to see that reference to 70 kHz and at what level can it record it at? The cutting head will burn up in a hurry.
Oh, how was anything recorded beyond 20kHz? How was it engineered? Wonder who checked the hearing ability of that recording engineer.
What is the JND at 20kHz? At 50 kHz?