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The return of the DIYer

I’ve been thinking about several trends and forces that are affecting our hobby and how this will change things.

The global pandemic and supply issues, unemployment and how disposable income has dwindled in the middle class over the last 30-40 years. The brick and mortar showroom is vanishing, and audio shows have become scarce. About the only aspect of the audio industry which has not dwindled or hurt as much are bloggers/review sites and DIY suppliers.

Our hobby grew up out of tinkerers and experimenters, and then seemed to have been subsumed by the all powerful consumer. The arm chair speaker or amplifier designer who could talk tech without every doing a bit of math or soldering became what we call a "true audiophile" so long as they regularly bought and sold gear.

Now though, perhaps the tables are turning. The lack of funds in many an audiophile’s pocket, lack of ability to go listen for yourself, I’d like to believe the age of the mega speaker holding the cover of audio magazines is over. I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing most mega-speakers vanish, being rarely more than excess without commensurate capabilities. Tweaked sounds, and fashionable trends in frequency alterations dominated the press and showrooms.

Is that all over? And if it is over, are we ready to return to our roots as makers instead of buyers, or are we in a temporary malaise? Nothing more than a flu from which we will bounce back? Or is the DIY er himself to vanish as well with the hobby?
erik_squires

Showing 4 responses by mahgister

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,851 posts
 
DIY in my own  case is not about  electronical designing of amplifiers, cables, or speakers...

DIY for me is in the heart of S.Q. experience my own DYI is : acoustic and psycho-acoustic experiments...

No soldering here....

And acoustic after a well chosen or well newly soldered piece of gear it is half at least of the S.Q.


I add that because my point is acoustic exist also for DIY with potential astronomical improvement....For me the more important one...
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,851 posts
 
The "prince" is you when you realized the sleeping power of acoustic lying like a sleeping princess in your  unwatched and untreated and uncontrolled room...

😁😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

My best to you....
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,851 posts
 
And the most interesting no correlation between the prices of the systems and sound quality. Actually most super expensive rooms on shows sound horrible!
Electronic audio engineering has matured long ago...(50 years at least ? )

Very good gear with audiophile S.Q. potential exist for many decades at low cost...

But on the other hand ACOUSTIC of small room is underestimated by most and in my experience only passive material treatment is used and often not in the right way...

Acitive mechanical controls of small dedicated room cannot be an easy market because most system are in a living room not in a dedicated room ...Sellers of acoustic products dont have the time to fine tune a mechanical adapted grid of mechanical Helmholtz device controls...It is more financially interesting to sell ready made bass traps, diffusers surface, or reflecting surfaces...

Then the fact that highly costing system sound bad or horrible is often because the room where they are is uncontrolled, if minimally treated, and absolutely not prepared acoustically for the specific demands of the specific speaker...

It takes me many months to fine tune my room... an expert acoustican will make it in hours...But hours amount to many thousand of dollars + devices cost+ +material cost.... Then it is not surprizing that some sellers ask for 50,000 bucks to transform acoustically a room for dedicated audio room listening....




Acoustic is the sleeping princess and all the pieces of gear are the 7 working dwarves...




We listen WITH our system but THROUGH the controlled room/speakers...


Most people think the opposite:

They think they listen WITH their uncontrolled room/speakers ,THROUGH their system....

😁😊

In a word, the sound experience is in the ears/room not in the cables, dac, or amplifier....

They put the cart in front of the ox....

 The ultimates reason is simple: money... It is more financially interesting to sell new gear  for the living room  and more easy to  plug it on the wall and listening to it , than investigate acoustic and psycho-acoustic  science control in a dedicated room...
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,851 posts
 
In my understanding of audiophile experience, DIY is necessary because not only ready made  "tweaks" may be costly but they are not always designed for all needs and anyway in acoustic some devices dont exist on the market ( my mechanical Helmholtz equalizer for example) or are very costly...


My audio truth and experience is, when the gear is well chosen, you must deal with the working domensional embeddings of your system: mechanical,electrical and acoustical, then DIY here play the greatest role for me and make sometimes future upgrading pointless or useless or not so attractive anymore...
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