When Was The Audio Golden Age?


I looked at the Vintage section here for the first time.  It made me speculate on what other forum users would view as the best era in Audio.  For me it is the present.  The level of quality is just so high, and the choice is there.  Tube fanciers, for example, are able to indulge in a way that was impossible 3 decades ago, and analog lovers are very well set.  And even my mid Fi secondary systems probably outshine most high end systems from decades agoHowever when one hears a well restored tube based system, play one speaker from the mid to late 1940s it can dazzle and seduce.  So what do others think?  Are we at the summit now, or did we hit the top in past and have we taken a few steps down?

mahler123

Showing 1 response by ltmandella

A case could be made that it was when there were VERY affordable heathkits, hafler kits, and dynaco kits, to introduce people to the experience of HIFI.

Of cvourse there has been great technical progress since those times, but much progress has been ignored due to the likes of spotify and lossy digital encoding.

Why invest in multi-thousand $$ system if you have a lofi source and can't hear any improvement over a boombox?