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Current Trends In Home Audio

This is not a question, but a personal observation.

For the past few weeks I've been house hunting in the Ann Arbor area and consequently I've walked through about 25 homes. Not a single audiophile setup in any of the houses. Not a single phono rig, though one household had about 100 albums next to their CD collection. There also weren't any elaborate home theater setups. The most common audio systems were mini systems with built in CD/DVD players and computers with satellite/subs. Also saw a few Bose Wave radios. In talking with our broker he stated in the new subdivision construction, which he specializes in, that whole house audio systems are a big selling point. He also stated that in the high end housing market ($1 million plus in Michigan) that dedicated media rooms are the norm, but all the speakers are in wall/ceiling types.

Apparently audiophiles are a small chose few.
128x128onhwy61
theaudiotweak
2,777 posts
 
I am in the home theater business..What most people want is lotsa boom sizzle and glitz...and ease of use. One of the posters here did a 10.2 system and with Levinson, Revel, Harmonic Precision, Sistrum and Sonoran wire all of the same length. Room treatment was not needed because room geometry and angles were designed into the room itself. The poster was totally involved with research, design,construction techniques and some labor..Sounds great, looks great.Have been working with another client on one room since January hope to have completed in November..Really most people are only interested in the movie experience..sound as they know it is secondary at best..Even with exposure to true high-end audio most people, even those who can afford the best dismiss the value of truly great sound ..as most audiophiles here discuss..Tom
plato
1,543 posts
 
Agreed. I moved to Tucson a year ago and this place has virtually zero audiophile presence. NJ was much better with regard to the number of audiophiles but became too crowded, overtaxed, and has too much bad weather for me to tolerate any longer.
eyeballman's avatar
eyeballman
26 posts
 
I bought my home 2 years ago in the SF Bay Area. With the prices of homes here, there's a good reason for people not to own expensive rigs - just can't afford it. I also suspect most people store away the good stuff before a bunch of strangers wander through their home. I know I would.
darrylhifi
498 posts
 
While their will always be audiophiles , sadly, I believe the numbers will diminish. It seems that the trend is for convenience over quality. Music all stored on a Hard Drive with sound quality as a secondary consideration. Its frustrating. I was in a music store this morning , I remember two of the first CD's I ever purchased were Dire Straights , Brother in Arms , and Stevie Wonder In a Sqaure Circle . To this day, they are among the best sound quality CD's I own. Twenty years later, If I go out and but twenty newly recorded CD's at random , I would be lucky if I found 1 or 2 out of the 20 that could approach the sound quality of these two CD's . Thats a crime. Twenty years and no consisent sound quality on redbook software.
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61 OP
5,150 posts
 
Darrylhifi, excellent sound quality can be readily acheived with hard disk based systems. It doesn't have to be MP3 compressed audio.

BTW, I was going through some nice homes in nice neighborhoods, not mega-mansions, but homes where the owners could easily afford $30,000-50,000 audio systems if they so desired.
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