Marketing. But you have to have NEW to market. Old tech is sooooo yesterday
Can anyone tell me where the progress in audio went?
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When you have audiophiles convincing themselves that turntables have magic properties, that tube amplifiers have magic properties, that cables can have magic properties, that digital has bad properties that don't actually exist and a whole host of other things that are never going to result in progress, then you will have an industry that is focused on feeding that neurosis, not progress.
Fortunately, as a portion of audio, "hifi" is small and even less when you consider the audio portion of movies and video. Hence while this industries plods along deifying 100 year old technology, the rest of the world developed dirt cheap high quality DACs, multi-channel object oriented surround sound, relatively dirt cheap and near straight-wire with gain class-D amps (with switching power supplies), DSP based crossovers, accurate room measurement systems that only require a $100 microphone, a whole host of room correction systems and bass management (that came out of home theater), DIY base management and low cost multi-channel DACs, relatively good sized acoustic panels companies (HiFi is just a portion of their business), DSP subwoofers (another offshoot of home theater), a host of pro/prosumer ADCs that give performance light years beyond tape for < $1000 (and up of course). Well designed high end speakers today, for the most part, can achieve lower distortion at higher volumes (but perhaps not as high of volume), have much better dispersion, and flatter frequency response. They can do it at relatively lower cost too and if desired, in a smaller package (with trade offs). The biggest hurdle to advancement in hifi is audiophiles. |
few industries are immune from needing continual sales to sustain... high end audio is no exception so the marketing machinery, in all its forms, keeps cranking that is not to say that progress is not being made, in both the absolute front, and on trickling-down of higher performance aspects to more customers at more affordable levels
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Like a lot of things once the technology has improved to a particular point where further improvement is marginal at best, effort starts to go into styling, snake oil, aesthetics etc. that's where things are with hi-fi. Just look at cars (pre EV) or surfboards or many other things. Not much has really changed unless you believe the marketing. |
@kairosman -- Uber expensive speakers maybe, and even upper mid-end speakers. Most of the electronics tapped out ages ago. It is just marketing now.
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@theaudioamp sorry I guess I misunderstood the thrust of your post. IME there has never been a better time to be into hifi whether you want to spend $1K or $1M. |
Vu has very specific ideas. His equipment is lovingly built and modified and has superb dynamics. I have had him get mad at me, perhaps not undeservedly, for pointing out shortcomings that my ears told me. They sound like horns, with a reduced but still there horn edge. To say things haven’t advanced is silly. I think simply of how capacitor technology has advanced. |
+1 @jjss49 People in business must make profit to be in business. Marketing, advertising, and hype are part of the deal. There is engineering and design progress, also. Sorting out hype from genuine progress is the job of critics, both amateur and professional, and of the consumer, who must use her own ears to make the final determination as to whether things sound better. That's kinda all there is to it. |
There is a lot of truth in what others have already published, but the biggest setback in high quality audio over the last twenty+ years has been extreme price increases and unsustainable rent cost for audio stores. More than 90% of all audio shops are closed, so most of us can not hear what we buy before we buy it. Even if a reputable mail order house has good return policies, you can only audition what you order. This makes review magazines more important than ever and they concentrate on components that few can afford. The industry has to somehow, give more people the opportunity to hear good sound before they understand what they are missing. |
I read a review today about a solid state DAC, professional reviewer, where the reviewer went on about bass performance, sound-stage, etc. If you know anything about SS DACs designed to be accurate, then you will know that all this eloquent waxing about these magical properties is akin to the latest book from J.K. Rowling. I.e. high quality fiction. While perhaps, perhaps, they could tell this DAC apart from a similar design goal product, it would be very difficult for them, and these qualities they colorfully described would never come into it. Much of audio reviews is fiction. In another thread here, someone is claiming to be able to extract what would have to be a super subtle difference, from 192kpbs AAC Youtube videos with volume levelling, clipping and what appears to be some automatic gain. Personally, most reviews are worth less than the bits used to communicate them.
Has there been extreme price increases? I don't think so. There are extremely more expensive pieces, but for the most part, the same real quality level is close to the same price it has always been. When you look at DACs, Amplifiers, what is required to stream, and the music itself, access to music and pristine electronics has never been cheaper. Some amazing speakers under $2K with clarity and accuracy we could only hope of it the past, and active crossovers are setting a new level too..... But ..... and to your point, w.r.t. HiFi as a hobby, has it has changed. A new "hobby" exists that has little to do with sound quality and is all about feeding the machine and feeding egos.
My suggestion? Music is mainly art. Music reproduction is mainly science with some art thrown in. Learn about the science, and then learn about how to apply your own artistic touches. Let others stroke their egos in vain and feed the machine.
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You want progress? I look at the Yamaha R-N803… to me that’s progress. For under a Grand it has a very good medium powered amplifier, a full streaming device, even a broadcast receiver. Furthermore it has a room correction system and volume adaptive EQ to compensate for lower listening levels. Ivan Berger reviewed it when it came out and compared it to a stack of separates costing far far more and came away raving about its SQ as a pure amplifier, not just for the price. BTW, I don’t own one of these…my latest acquisition is a custom made new Dyna ST35 (EL84 based amp with 17.5 watts/ channel). |
When i was in college it was everybody's goal to have a stereo in their dorm room. Stereo Systems sold like hotcakes, about $600 could get you a speakers, receiver, and cassette deck ($300/$200/$100, borrow someone else's turntable to turn your records into cassettes), especially on president's day when everyone took their tuition money and sliced off a chunk to purchase a stereo. Then portable electronics (walkmans) started to destroy that trend in the mid-80's. If my sons are any example, most listeners today use a cellphone and airpods or headphones they stream audio that they don't own. I think this has applied huge downwards pressure on the home stereo market. There is really no reason to have a home stereo system when any song on the planet is 30 seconds away on youtube or soundcloud. |
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In our hobby the story behind a piece of gear is more important to some audiophiles than the actual sound. I just came back from the Pacific Audio Fest and I heard a lot of speakers and other gear that had a great story but sounded so-so. I've been to 3 audio shows and I've seen that price has a very tenuous relationship with sound quality. I believe that the looks and story behind a component are more important than how it sounds to many buyers. A high price is now a feature. A five or six figure price tag makes the gear more attractive to a certain buyer demographic. Utilizing a sexy sounding old technology just adds to the mystique. |
What's old is new and what new is old. The cycle will go on and on. Tube amplifiers have been around since 1906 and will be around as long as people continue to make tubes (and they will because they are used in everything including your microwave). Solid state is great also. Buy what pushes your buttons both emotionally and creatively. Who cares what is the latest's and greatest if it doesn't move you then why bother, just buy a boom box. This is about what please you not your peers in these pages. Now I am going to hook up my Dads old Fisher tube amp up to his old Zenith Allegro's and drive down memory lane. You class D will not take me there.
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tablejockey The demo was requested from the audio reviewer and it was not chosen from the exhibitor. However, if one listen carefully, he/she will find out that even this simple percussion demo reviles a lot of details and micro/macro dynamics, as well as enormous energy. Even though the demo is simple - and yet one can hear more in sound quality nuances. Sometimes, you have to listen to what is there (simple or not) and then evaluated for what it is and not for what it is not. I'm sure, you'll get there one day, but for now you can enjoy the sound from Best Buy.
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@tannoy56 it cannot reveal any more dynamics, or energy than the system I or anyone else clicking on that video is listening to, in 192kbps AAC by the way. It sounds much better played directly even through Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnM8f95gzUE
Youtube videos for evaluating equipment? :-( |
tannoy: The sound of the speakers you linked on YouTube video is not very good (and that's putting it mildly). I went the extra step and played it (the video) through my mini-system via the iMac and the sound was even worse. I have a small vinyl collection of Maori tribal music and it sounds a LOT BETTER on my vintage single driver speakers than it does on the speakers in that video. Whether the problem is with the video/recording quality, or not I do not know, but I do know that it (the video) sounds awful.
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dekay The video I presented to you is not to be evaluated as a critical listening experience of the system, but to provide the viewer with some ideas and hint of what is possible to achieve with vintage drivers, transformers, capacitors etc. In addition, the recording was made in a hotel room at the Munich hi-fi show - not in a professional studio/environment with the best possible tools for recording. Furthermore, I was present in the room and can tell you that under those inadequate recording conditions , that the sound reproduction by the system was near spectacular.
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"The video I presented to you is not to be evaluated as a critical listening experience of the system, but to provide the viewer with some ideas and hint of what is possible to achieve with vintage drivers, transformers, capacitors etc." Really? How were you supposed to be demonstrating that with such poor material and bad sound? I think that I have heard sound just as spectacular made by garbage collectors in alleyways...with better dynamic range. That looked like a great system. Why wouldn't he choose a demo track with a combination of percussion, human voice. strings and brass instruments to showcase its capabilities? |
Roxy54 As I mentioned prior, the demo was provide by a professional audio reviewer , who dropped by the room, asked for his cd to be played and made a video recording of it. Later on, he posted the video on youtube. Obviously, he did like this recording or he was trying to hear a specific sound reproduction from the CD track he was familiar with. That’s all. Judging from you posting logo of yours, you must be big on SS Mcintosh gears. If this is what makes you happy - Enjoy the music! |
What does McIntosh have to do with anything? I said before that the system looked to be amazing, but the demo was bad. First you mention Best Buy, and now I suppose Mac isn’t good enough for your refined tastes. What a snob. It so happens that I have owned quite a bit of tube gear and still do. And yes, I like Mac too. I don’t even understand your point in starting this thread. What’s your question? |
Engineering at any price point is always a tradeoff. No, you "can’t have it all" most of the time - but you can have much of it. I think as others have noted that "technology" and manufacturing has reached a level people only dreamed of say in the 1950s and 1960s. As one guy mentioned this is a GREAT time to be into audio no matter what your budget is, from $1K to $1M. And you reach the point of diminishing returns pretty quickly as you go up the food chain. At some point you are paying more for the industrial design and "looks" than for a huge improvement in sound quality. |
@moonwatcher , I would argue that lenses still have a long way to go, especially when price is taken into account :-) Sensor technology has barely moved in what 7 or 8 years? Small incremental improvements but that is it. Even back side illuminated (BSI) are only a small improvement over front side with micro-lenses. There are some fundamental physical limits w.r.t. cameras. Look up Shot noise if you are unfamiliar. I think computational photography is where mirrorless needs to go next. The processing in my phone is way beyond what is in my cameras.
Back to your regular arguing (I mean programming) :-) [not directed at you Moonwatcher] |
Perhaps with your camera analogy should be the recognition that some things you really can't improve or are as good as ever needed for human consumption. Look at pixel count. If you are not blowing it up and/or looking at a printed version close, 12 megapixels can display all the resolution our eyes are capable of picking up. You can add more pixels but you won't see any more as your eyes simply do not have the resolution. No ones eyes have the resolution. The same is true of audio. This concept of "everything matters" has to be one of the dumbest things in audio yet I wonder how many people have typed it on these forums just this week? There are limits on what we can hear, let alone detect in music. They apply to everyone. There are minor differences but they are not all that great, and the main difference is training. This flawed idea has been used to justify all kinds of things are just nonsense and is used as a crutch by people to avoid accepting their own limitations. Just think if the spend in HiFi was redirected from all the things that make little or no difference into the things that actually do and the companies that do them? Maybe it would make no difference, but given the op feels, and I tend to agree, that the industry is rather stagnant, change would be welcome. |
@theaudioamp you wrote, "I would argue that lenses still have a long way to go, especially when price is taken into account :-) "....My nephew who has a few Sigma Art lenses would say his are "good enough" and especially his wife, who looks askance at his spending on hobbies like audio and photography... ha! |
I am a big fan of "Walking Around" lenses, you know those ones with big zoom ranges. Ken Rockwell may suggest framing with your feet, but try that over a body of water, or where access is restricted or physically impossible. Those still have a long way to go. Inexpensive lenses still have a lot to be desired when used outside their sweet spot. The Sigma Art stuff is nice. One area of considerably improvement would be using plastic for internal lenses in the assembly. That would dramatically lower weight. The quality however is not there for plastics yet.
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I have seen an interview with B. Putzeys in which he stated that it's not important what is in the amplifier, but rather what isn't there in terms of distortion. His conclusion is that classic solid-state amplifiers have some type of distortion that tube amps don't have, which is why they are still very popular. As seen in the pages here many have ditched their tubes for some of the newer GaN Class D amplifiers by AGD, Atmospheres and others. Also he claims that separate components inhibiting progress and the sound chain.
Also he claims that separate components inhibiting progress and the sound chain.
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