Discussion
toasty said:
his pretty much sums it up for me.
I spent 000's in the '90s building up my system only to find I was listening to the hifi rather than the music.
I sold the lot to get a deposit on a house and never bothered replacing it.
I just like a bit of peace and quiet these days with maybe a hint of classical in the background.
I still yearn for a Linn LP12 but just know it'd see 1% usage compared to the ipod/car stereo.
I thought I might have has a twinge of sadness when I setup the arcam separates for the guy who had bought them to see that they worked, I craved that setup, and even blew my first student grant on a separates setup but not once, but he was over the moon with his purchase, I suspect I sold them too cheap but hey ho they wasn't doing anything in the garage, I have my B&W Zep for that.I spent 000's in the '90s building up my system only to find I was listening to the hifi rather than the music.
I sold the lot to get a deposit on a house and never bothered replacing it.
I just like a bit of peace and quiet these days with maybe a hint of classical in the background.
I still yearn for a Linn LP12 but just know it'd see 1% usage compared to the ipod/car stereo.
toasty said:
his pretty much sums it up for me.
I spent 000's in the '90s building up my system only to find I was listening to the hifi rather than the music.
I love that quote! It's such a good point. It's about enjoying the music, it's too tempting to spend hours messing around with different hi-fi components when you realise you're too busy concentrating on all the imperfections and the bits that are missing than the sounds themselves. Being a hi-fi fanatic can ruin music for people!I spent 000's in the '90s building up my system only to find I was listening to the hifi rather than the music.
I like these basic turntable systems that are coming in, and the idea of finding a funky looking LP in a charity shop and throwing it on when entertaining. There's definitely a certain something that vinyl has!
This little system is a cheap, all in one set up from Audio Affair
Vandenberg said:
Hi-Fi is dead to me, disruptive technology has changed the way I listen to music.
<clip> All of my CDs and records are packed away in boxes and I haven't listened to a full CD or record in about 3 years now for me its all about playlists and have around 2,500 of them for every mood an occasion. <etc.>
It's sad to think that in future few people will actually listen to an album from start to finish as a complete piece of work. Earlier someone mentioned Brothers in Arms, that has to be heard from end to end in the order the musicians decided, what about Dark Side of The Moon? Surely there is lots of modern music where tracks compare to the movements in a classical suite, to select individual tracks is rather like saying I love The Brandenberg Concerto but I've only out the third movement on my iPod for certain moods or Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture but only the canons for when I'm angry... <clip> All of my CDs and records are packed away in boxes and I haven't listened to a full CD or record in about 3 years now for me its all about playlists and have around 2,500 of them for every mood an occasion. <etc.>
If I ever go to a wh smiths or a newsagents there's always a copy of What hi-fi and similar on the shelves, they must still be reasonably popular.
I've always had hi-fi, I find little that's more enjoyable than to sit at home with a glass of something nice and listen to some excellently produced albums on a system that can do them justice. My system isn't that special (reasonable spec Linn Sondek, marantz amp, B&W speakers + Pioneer streaming thing). I don't currently have an CD/SACD/DVD-A player.
What I struggle with is that the way music is listened to has changed, back in t' day for convenience we'd listen to the radio and let it decide what to play, stations would play a wide variety of genres and we'd hear ones we liked and would then go and buy an album. The process was more laborious than today, we'd own fewer albums or singles as a result so would play each one dozens of times. Classic albums appeared because of this.
Our albums were rare, we'd cherish and look after them and want to present them as best as we could, thus a hi-fi was important, and we'd queue up to see them performed at the local hall.
In the digital world, radio stations now only play one thing, if you listen on-line then you'll only hear stuff you already like as media streams are tailored to suit. Albums are now play-lists, you just click a bunch of tracks and it'll provide that instant gratification, there's no reason to care where the tracks came from, who made them, when, if they're apart of something backwards like an 'album'! You can Spotify anything to any device now, at home, on the loo, in the car, on a train, whatever then all your playlists and tunes are there piped in as a background distraction. I see my son do this all the time, I rarely see him without headphones on, there's no distinction in his world from a hit record to something someone knocked together by someone at home on SoundCloud or YouTube. There's no value to music, it is just something you have on, trying to present music the best way possible is like worrying about the lighting used in a clip from YouPron.
Gigs seem to be in decline also, every venue is now owned by O2 and show the same bands, for there to be a chance of discovering something different you have to attend one of the bagillion 'festivals' that are now on where artists are just rounded up to play quick basic sets on rotation.
Sure there are still the 'stars' where major labels spend a fortune to create these people and force-feed them to the public for 5 minutes before they find someone new, but outside that I think music fans and musicians are being shafted, there's no avenue any more for either side to have a product that they're really passionate about, that they'll cherish for ever.
for me I still care, the other day I was playing an LP, it was one that my wife bought when she was 19, she came into the room and told the whole tail about when and where it was bought, the story about how she discovered the artist, who she was with, the whole thing was a photograph to a particular memory, you're never going to get that with a stream or download. I still buy albums, I play them in order, start to finish. Yes I have a computer that streams to my Pioneer N50-A (320kbps MP3, never got on with FLAC) and a bunch of Apple Airport devices, if I'm having a BBQ I might put together a general 'mixtape' play-list but then that's for the background so is less important.
Fast forward 20 years or so then I think hi-fi, albums and that sort of thing will be dead, you'd have a generation that has grown up with streaming and broadband and a noise-cancelled universe, they'll have no concept of anything different.
Fast forward
I've always had hi-fi, I find little that's more enjoyable than to sit at home with a glass of something nice and listen to some excellently produced albums on a system that can do them justice. My system isn't that special (reasonable spec Linn Sondek, marantz amp, B&W speakers + Pioneer streaming thing). I don't currently have an CD/SACD/DVD-A player.
What I struggle with is that the way music is listened to has changed, back in t' day for convenience we'd listen to the radio and let it decide what to play, stations would play a wide variety of genres and we'd hear ones we liked and would then go and buy an album. The process was more laborious than today, we'd own fewer albums or singles as a result so would play each one dozens of times. Classic albums appeared because of this.
Our albums were rare, we'd cherish and look after them and want to present them as best as we could, thus a hi-fi was important, and we'd queue up to see them performed at the local hall.
In the digital world, radio stations now only play one thing, if you listen on-line then you'll only hear stuff you already like as media streams are tailored to suit. Albums are now play-lists, you just click a bunch of tracks and it'll provide that instant gratification, there's no reason to care where the tracks came from, who made them, when, if they're apart of something backwards like an 'album'! You can Spotify anything to any device now, at home, on the loo, in the car, on a train, whatever then all your playlists and tunes are there piped in as a background distraction. I see my son do this all the time, I rarely see him without headphones on, there's no distinction in his world from a hit record to something someone knocked together by someone at home on SoundCloud or YouTube. There's no value to music, it is just something you have on, trying to present music the best way possible is like worrying about the lighting used in a clip from YouPron.
Gigs seem to be in decline also, every venue is now owned by O2 and show the same bands, for there to be a chance of discovering something different you have to attend one of the bagillion 'festivals' that are now on where artists are just rounded up to play quick basic sets on rotation.
Sure there are still the 'stars' where major labels spend a fortune to create these people and force-feed them to the public for 5 minutes before they find someone new, but outside that I think music fans and musicians are being shafted, there's no avenue any more for either side to have a product that they're really passionate about, that they'll cherish for ever.
for me I still care, the other day I was playing an LP, it was one that my wife bought when she was 19, she came into the room and told the whole tail about when and where it was bought, the story about how she discovered the artist, who she was with, the whole thing was a photograph to a particular memory, you're never going to get that with a stream or download. I still buy albums, I play them in order, start to finish. Yes I have a computer that streams to my Pioneer N50-A (320kbps MP3, never got on with FLAC) and a bunch of Apple Airport devices, if I'm having a BBQ I might put together a general 'mixtape' play-list but then that's for the background so is less important.
Fast forward 20 years or so then I think hi-fi, albums and that sort of thing will be dead, you'd have a generation that has grown up with streaming and broadband and a noise-cancelled universe, they'll have no concept of anything different.
Fast forward
Caffiend said:
red997 said:
IMHO the problem is that we live in a 'want it now' disposable world - and spending time to listen, chose, install, and setup a relatively complex set of kit for real hi fi reproduction is just too much for most - and the easy (and cheaper!) alternatives are now so much better that say 10-15 years ago, that this becomes the default option for most.
Amen! Its the 'give it to me right now' attitude that gives us tinny laptop speakers and poorly produced albums.Hi fi takes time to set up, especially listening to vinyl, it's labour intensive... but that's also why there's a bit of a revival, people are rediscovering the activity of listening to music as a pass time, so for many people music is becoming more than just background noise - some for the first time.
Firstly, I'm now married to someone with whom I share very little in musical taste, so if one of us is listening to something we like, chances are the other will be less than overjoyed by it.
Secondly - and to me, this is where the "want it now" thing comes in - the way in which I find the music I want to listen to has just changed beyond recognition. A good proportion of completely new stuff will be songs that are part of the sound track to something I'm watching on TV. One press on the Shazam widget on my phone to find out what it is, and another to add it to a playlist on Spotify. Compare that to the historical hassles of finding out what it was, then deciding whether I liked it enough to buy the whole album etc....
Thirdly, I do most of my listening out of the house anyway, either in the car or on foot, so if it's all in Spotify on my phone, I can just take it with me everywhere.
Finally, with a big enough SD card on the phone to save tracks in higher quality, it still sounds decent enough when plugged into my A/V amp with Kef speakers and sub-woofer that I just couldn't even begin to justify the extra cost of separates these days.
Not sure I agree with the sentiment guys... I want my music "now" and yet I find technology has enabled music to be far more accessible than it ever was, and I see this as a huge positive rather than a negative.
My main system now comprises one unit and a pair of speakers (granted, its a fairly expensive setup) but the point is that simplicity and immediate accessibility of music doesn't mean that the listening experience has to be compromised. In fact pound for pound, mainstream kit has to sound much better now than it did 10-20 years ago.
There is certainly a lot more music playing in my house than I remember from my own youth so I could argue that technology is enabling and increasing exposure to high quality musical reproduction, in the younger generation.
My main system now comprises one unit and a pair of speakers (granted, its a fairly expensive setup) but the point is that simplicity and immediate accessibility of music doesn't mean that the listening experience has to be compromised. In fact pound for pound, mainstream kit has to sound much better now than it did 10-20 years ago.
There is certainly a lot more music playing in my house than I remember from my own youth so I could argue that technology is enabling and increasing exposure to high quality musical reproduction, in the younger generation.
Kind of goes back tomboy started this.
There is no exposure to real HiFi anymore.
Dealers used to have open evenings where you could enjoy hearing the latest kit etc.
Still think I am sadly correct.
A few of us care but that is all.
HiFi shows are for the geeks so won't ever get a passing visit.
Music releases are so atrociously mastered they are unlistenable without hours of tweaking on a PC.
Still there will be yet another Apple Store opening nearby selling their made in China for £10 iHavetoHave its and there s
tty iTunes rubbish.
There is no exposure to real HiFi anymore.
Dealers used to have open evenings where you could enjoy hearing the latest kit etc.
Still think I am sadly correct.
A few of us care but that is all.
HiFi shows are for the geeks so won't ever get a passing visit.
Music releases are so atrociously mastered they are unlistenable without hours of tweaking on a PC.
Still there will be yet another Apple Store opening nearby selling their made in China for £10 iHavetoHave its and there s
tty iTunes rubbish.I've got a pile of Linn Aktiv kit but 99.9% of the time nowadays it is used to stream audio from the net. I rarely even play back from the 100s of carefully ripped FLAC albums I have on the server, the same tunes uploaded to Google Play are often simply easier to get going via the Media Center PC that I use for just about all playback.
Now, I'm the first to attest to the 'source first' philosophy (I used to work for Linn and have tune-dem'd to death!) so I know that the MP3s I'm listening to definitely don't sound as good as they could from another source, but you know what?
I no longer care.
In my 20s it was all about the sound. I'd rent flats based on the wall/floor construction and their suitability for speaker placement. I'd obsess about placement and solidity of the stands. I'd swap cables and clean stylus, records, connections etc. far more than I probably needed to.
In short, I was a bit of a plonker
20 years, a wife and two kids later means that, while I'll never sell the kit, I now expect the hi-fi to fit round me, not the other way round. Tethering it to a PC (via a nice DAC, of course!) means I can at least leverage most of its fundamental audio qualities whilst enjoying the lazier aspects of modern playlist curation and discovery. The records/CDs are still there though...if I can be bothered.
The kit sits on an IsoBlue rack but is shoved in the corner of the room, almost behind a chair, liked an unloved elderly relative. The speakers are placed on a solid oak shelf that was 90% designed to look good with only a bit of my attention being paid to ensuring it was at least rigid/true. The listening position, such as it is, is sub-optimal but as the speakers are used for a/v playback too they have to sit either side of the telly so their position is dictated by that. The sub is in a box in the garage (completely unnecessary).
I dug out my old Thorens last year and bought a cheap NAD MC phono stage (having sold the Kairn I used to have) but have probably only played about 20 LPs since resurrecting it (the behind-the-chair placement probably hasn't helped!).
Basically, despite still getting at least 4-5 hours use per week, the 8 or so boxes that comprise my hi-fi are absolutely an anachronism. Sure, they will still make a sound that will blow just about any modern Wifi/Bluetooth capable system out of the water, but I no longer need them to do any more than sound pleasant enough to avoid me getting annoyed.
Younger folk must look at the pile of black boxes with a mixture of bemusement and pity. Why, they wonder, does he have all that stuff when my Sonos does all the same stuff? They may have a point.
A Sonos delivers markedly better sound than 95% of what passed for consumer "hi-fi" in my youth and as it facilitates the discovery and enjoyment of music (surely the whole point!) much better than a crusty old collection of expensive boxes and round things bought from shops then surely as a means of bringing the pleasure of music to your life a modern one-box thing is actually a "better" solution.
Who is really going to spend hours learning and obsessing over clunky and expensive collections of ugly boxes when the bar is set pretty high by a slick £500 white thing that requires almost no knowledge or setup to get going? Not many, hence the premise of this thread.
If someone like me loses interest in hi-fi there's not much hope. My previous employer, like many of their peers, has retreated upmarket to become a luxury goods purveyor. I'm sure their new DS kit sounds fantastic and finds a ready market among the very rich, but as an aspiration for a student to spend summer job money it's at least an order of magnitude too expensive.
Yes, cheaper kit is available but still comes at a considerable investment in time and space, if not money, and at the end of the day has to compete with decent enough 'premium' wireless options from B&W and the like.
I think "proper" hi-fi will always be around, and will have advocates here and elsewhere, but its time really has passed.
Now, I'm the first to attest to the 'source first' philosophy (I used to work for Linn and have tune-dem'd to death!) so I know that the MP3s I'm listening to definitely don't sound as good as they could from another source, but you know what?
I no longer care.
In my 20s it was all about the sound. I'd rent flats based on the wall/floor construction and their suitability for speaker placement. I'd obsess about placement and solidity of the stands. I'd swap cables and clean stylus, records, connections etc. far more than I probably needed to.
In short, I was a bit of a plonker
20 years, a wife and two kids later means that, while I'll never sell the kit, I now expect the hi-fi to fit round me, not the other way round. Tethering it to a PC (via a nice DAC, of course!) means I can at least leverage most of its fundamental audio qualities whilst enjoying the lazier aspects of modern playlist curation and discovery. The records/CDs are still there though...if I can be bothered.
The kit sits on an IsoBlue rack but is shoved in the corner of the room, almost behind a chair, liked an unloved elderly relative. The speakers are placed on a solid oak shelf that was 90% designed to look good with only a bit of my attention being paid to ensuring it was at least rigid/true. The listening position, such as it is, is sub-optimal but as the speakers are used for a/v playback too they have to sit either side of the telly so their position is dictated by that. The sub is in a box in the garage (completely unnecessary).
I dug out my old Thorens last year and bought a cheap NAD MC phono stage (having sold the Kairn I used to have) but have probably only played about 20 LPs since resurrecting it (the behind-the-chair placement probably hasn't helped!).
Basically, despite still getting at least 4-5 hours use per week, the 8 or so boxes that comprise my hi-fi are absolutely an anachronism. Sure, they will still make a sound that will blow just about any modern Wifi/Bluetooth capable system out of the water, but I no longer need them to do any more than sound pleasant enough to avoid me getting annoyed.
Younger folk must look at the pile of black boxes with a mixture of bemusement and pity. Why, they wonder, does he have all that stuff when my Sonos does all the same stuff? They may have a point.
A Sonos delivers markedly better sound than 95% of what passed for consumer "hi-fi" in my youth and as it facilitates the discovery and enjoyment of music (surely the whole point!) much better than a crusty old collection of expensive boxes and round things bought from shops then surely as a means of bringing the pleasure of music to your life a modern one-box thing is actually a "better" solution.
Who is really going to spend hours learning and obsessing over clunky and expensive collections of ugly boxes when the bar is set pretty high by a slick £500 white thing that requires almost no knowledge or setup to get going? Not many, hence the premise of this thread.
If someone like me loses interest in hi-fi there's not much hope. My previous employer, like many of their peers, has retreated upmarket to become a luxury goods purveyor. I'm sure their new DS kit sounds fantastic and finds a ready market among the very rich, but as an aspiration for a student to spend summer job money it's at least an order of magnitude too expensive.
Yes, cheaper kit is available but still comes at a considerable investment in time and space, if not money, and at the end of the day has to compete with decent enough 'premium' wireless options from B&W and the like.
I think "proper" hi-fi will always be around, and will have advocates here and elsewhere, but its time really has passed.
StuH said:
Exactly, Sonos enhances the hi-fi not replaces it! Just don't use the ste all-in-one Play:x unots. I have a Sonos Connect that has been modded and then feeds into my main hi-fi system. With lossless and HD material its absolutely brilliant.
https://wyred4sound.com/products/upgrades-and-mods...
Your mention of HD caught my eye but the link mentions "It is important to note that the modification does not allow the SONOS to play high resolution files." What do you mean by HD material? Thanks.te all-in-one Play:x unots. I have a Sonos Connect that has been modded and then feeds into my main hi-fi system. With lossless and HD material its absolutely brilliant.https://wyred4sound.com/products/upgrades-and-mods...
H..... said:
StuH said:
Exactly, Sonos enhances the hi-fi not replaces it! Just don't use the ste all-in-one Play:x unots. I have a Sonos Connect that has been modded and then feeds into my main hi-fi system. With lossless and HD material its absolutely brilliant.
https://wyred4sound.com/products/upgrades-and-mods...
Your mention of HD caught my eye but the link mentions "It is important to note that the modification does not allow the SONOS to play high resolution files." What do you mean by HD material? Thanks.te all-in-one Play:x unots. I have a Sonos Connect that has been modded and then feeds into my main hi-fi system. With lossless and HD material its absolutely brilliant.https://wyred4sound.com/products/upgrades-and-mods...
Mermaid said:
H..... said:
StuH said:
Exactly, Sonos enhances the hi-fi not replaces it! Just don't use the ste all-in-one Play:x unots. I have a Sonos Connect that has been modded and then feeds into my main hi-fi system. With lossless and HD material its absolutely brilliant.
https://wyred4sound.com/products/upgrades-and-mods...
Your mention of HD caught my eye but the link mentions "It is important to note that the modification does not allow the SONOS to play high resolution files." What do you mean by HD material? Thanks.te all-in-one Play:x unots. I have a Sonos Connect that has been modded and then feeds into my main hi-fi system. With lossless and HD material its absolutely brilliant.https://wyred4sound.com/products/upgrades-and-mods...
loudlashadjuster said:
I've got a pile of Linn Aktiv kit but 99.9% of the time nowadays it is used to stream audio from the net. I rarely even play back from the 100s of carefully ripped FLAC albums I have on the server, the same tunes uploaded to Google Play are often simply easier to get going via the Media Center PC that I use for just about all playback.
Now, I'm the first to attest to the 'source first' philosophy (I used to work for Linn and have tune-dem'd to death!) so I know that the MP3s I'm listening to definitely don't sound as good as they could from another source, but you know what?
I no longer care.
In my 20s it was all about the sound. I'd rent flats based on the wall/floor construction and their suitability for speaker placement. I'd obsess about placement and solidity of the stands. I'd swap cables and clean stylus, records, connections etc. far more than I probably needed to.
In short, I was a bit of a plonker
20 years, a wife and two kids later means that, while I'll never sell the kit, I now expect the hi-fi to fit round me, not the other way round. Tethering it to a PC (via a nice DAC, of course!) means I can at least leverage most of its fundamental audio qualities whilst enjoying the lazier aspects of modern playlist curation and discovery. The records/CDs are still there though...if I can be bothered.
The kit sits on an IsoBlue rack but is shoved in the corner of the room, almost behind a chair, liked an unloved elderly relative. The speakers are placed on a solid oak shelf that was 90% designed to look good with only a bit of my attention being paid to ensuring it was at least rigid/true. The listening position, such as it is, is sub-optimal but as the speakers are used for a/v playback too they have to sit either side of the telly so their position is dictated by that. The sub is in a box in the garage (completely unnecessary).
I dug out my old Thorens last year and bought a cheap NAD MC phono stage (having sold the Kairn I used to have) but have probably only played about 20 LPs since resurrecting it (the behind-the-chair placement probably hasn't helped!).
Basically, despite still getting at least 4-5 hours use per week, the 8 or so boxes that comprise my hi-fi are absolutely an anachronism. Sure, they will still make a sound that will blow just about any modern Wifi/Bluetooth capable system out of the water, but I no longer need them to do any more than sound pleasant enough to avoid me getting annoyed.
Younger folk must look at the pile of black boxes with a mixture of bemusement and pity. Why, they wonder, does he have all that stuff when my Sonos does all the same stuff? They may have a point.
A Sonos delivers markedly better sound than 95% of what passed for consumer "hi-fi" in my youth and as it facilitates the discovery and enjoyment of music (surely the whole point!) much better than a crusty old collection of expensive boxes and round things bought from shops then surely as a means of bringing the pleasure of music to your life a modern one-box thing is actually a "better" solution.
Who is really going to spend hours learning and obsessing over clunky and expensive collections of ugly boxes when the bar is set pretty high by a slick £500 white thing that requires almost no knowledge or setup to get going? Not many, hence the premise of this thread.
If someone like me loses interest in hi-fi there's not much hope. My previous employer, like many of their peers, has retreated upmarket to become a luxury goods purveyor. I'm sure their new DS kit sounds fantastic and finds a ready market among the very rich, but as an aspiration for a student to spend summer job money it's at least an order of magnitude too expensive.
Yes, cheaper kit is available but still comes at a considerable investment in time and space, if not money, and at the end of the day has to compete with decent enough 'premium' wireless options from B&W and the like.
I think "proper" hi-fi will always be around, and will have advocates here and elsewhere, but its time really has passed.
totally agree with all this, except the plonker bit.Now, I'm the first to attest to the 'source first' philosophy (I used to work for Linn and have tune-dem'd to death!) so I know that the MP3s I'm listening to definitely don't sound as good as they could from another source, but you know what?
I no longer care.
In my 20s it was all about the sound. I'd rent flats based on the wall/floor construction and their suitability for speaker placement. I'd obsess about placement and solidity of the stands. I'd swap cables and clean stylus, records, connections etc. far more than I probably needed to.
In short, I was a bit of a plonker
20 years, a wife and two kids later means that, while I'll never sell the kit, I now expect the hi-fi to fit round me, not the other way round. Tethering it to a PC (via a nice DAC, of course!) means I can at least leverage most of its fundamental audio qualities whilst enjoying the lazier aspects of modern playlist curation and discovery. The records/CDs are still there though...if I can be bothered.
The kit sits on an IsoBlue rack but is shoved in the corner of the room, almost behind a chair, liked an unloved elderly relative. The speakers are placed on a solid oak shelf that was 90% designed to look good with only a bit of my attention being paid to ensuring it was at least rigid/true. The listening position, such as it is, is sub-optimal but as the speakers are used for a/v playback too they have to sit either side of the telly so their position is dictated by that. The sub is in a box in the garage (completely unnecessary).
I dug out my old Thorens last year and bought a cheap NAD MC phono stage (having sold the Kairn I used to have) but have probably only played about 20 LPs since resurrecting it (the behind-the-chair placement probably hasn't helped!).
Basically, despite still getting at least 4-5 hours use per week, the 8 or so boxes that comprise my hi-fi are absolutely an anachronism. Sure, they will still make a sound that will blow just about any modern Wifi/Bluetooth capable system out of the water, but I no longer need them to do any more than sound pleasant enough to avoid me getting annoyed.
Younger folk must look at the pile of black boxes with a mixture of bemusement and pity. Why, they wonder, does he have all that stuff when my Sonos does all the same stuff? They may have a point.
A Sonos delivers markedly better sound than 95% of what passed for consumer "hi-fi" in my youth and as it facilitates the discovery and enjoyment of music (surely the whole point!) much better than a crusty old collection of expensive boxes and round things bought from shops then surely as a means of bringing the pleasure of music to your life a modern one-box thing is actually a "better" solution.
Who is really going to spend hours learning and obsessing over clunky and expensive collections of ugly boxes when the bar is set pretty high by a slick £500 white thing that requires almost no knowledge or setup to get going? Not many, hence the premise of this thread.
If someone like me loses interest in hi-fi there's not much hope. My previous employer, like many of their peers, has retreated upmarket to become a luxury goods purveyor. I'm sure their new DS kit sounds fantastic and finds a ready market among the very rich, but as an aspiration for a student to spend summer job money it's at least an order of magnitude too expensive.
Yes, cheaper kit is available but still comes at a considerable investment in time and space, if not money, and at the end of the day has to compete with decent enough 'premium' wireless options from B&W and the like.
I think "proper" hi-fi will always be around, and will have advocates here and elsewhere, but its time really has passed.
I have just sold all my 20 year old hifi and records. I'm in the process of ripping CD's before offloading them. I bought a second hand amp (remote control), speakers, and Sonos Connect. The rest of the house I have 3 Play:5's in various rooms for background listening.
The 'new' amp and speakers(which were better than what they replaced) and the connect, came in at £400 less than I sold the old kit and records for, so in effect I now have the whole house full of potential for the price of 2 play:5's.
I still occasionally 'listen' to music on the main system and its 'good enough' for where i am.
I think another issue here is the competition factor.
We didn't get our 4th television channel until I was twelve. Such video games as there were tended to be pretty rubbish. The internet and all that brings with it was, of course, a thing of science fiction. Under those circumstances, actually listening to music was a much greater part of life.
Now, however? I've got Spotify playing on my 2.1 PC speakers as background whilst I'm working at home (and for that, it's perfectly acceptable), but most of my music listening is going to be whilst I'm travelling, be it in the car, on the train or on foot. I could invest any money you want in home Hi-Fi equipment, but most of the time, it's not in the right place for me to listen to it! Even now, it would be downstairs in the lounge, whilst I'm two floors up in my study, which doesn't have room for a Hi-Fi system.
We didn't get our 4th television channel until I was twelve. Such video games as there were tended to be pretty rubbish. The internet and all that brings with it was, of course, a thing of science fiction. Under those circumstances, actually listening to music was a much greater part of life.
Now, however? I've got Spotify playing on my 2.1 PC speakers as background whilst I'm working at home (and for that, it's perfectly acceptable), but most of my music listening is going to be whilst I'm travelling, be it in the car, on the train or on foot. I could invest any money you want in home Hi-Fi equipment, but most of the time, it's not in the right place for me to listen to it! Even now, it would be downstairs in the lounge, whilst I'm two floors up in my study, which doesn't have room for a Hi-Fi system.
Kermit power said:
I think another issue here is the competition factor.
We didn't get our 4th television channel until I was twelve. Such video games as there were tended to be pretty rubbish. The internet and all that brings with it was, of course, a thing of science fiction. Under those circumstances, actually listening to music was a much greater part of life.
Now, however? I've got Spotify playing on my 2.1 PC speakers as background whilst I'm working at home (and for that, it's perfectly acceptable), but most of my music listening is going to be whilst I'm travelling, be it in the car, on the train or on foot. I could invest any money you want in home Hi-Fi equipment, but most of the time, it's not in the right place for me to listen to it! Even now, it would be downstairs in the lounge, whilst I'm two floors up in my study, which doesn't have room for a Hi-Fi system.
Same here. I reckon 80% of my listening is via headphones on the move, 10% Sonos and other small speakers around the house and 10% Hi-Fi. The only reason that it is still 10% is that I can occasionally carve out an hour or so to listen 'properly'.We didn't get our 4th television channel until I was twelve. Such video games as there were tended to be pretty rubbish. The internet and all that brings with it was, of course, a thing of science fiction. Under those circumstances, actually listening to music was a much greater part of life.
Now, however? I've got Spotify playing on my 2.1 PC speakers as background whilst I'm working at home (and for that, it's perfectly acceptable), but most of my music listening is going to be whilst I'm travelling, be it in the car, on the train or on foot. I could invest any money you want in home Hi-Fi equipment, but most of the time, it's not in the right place for me to listen to it! Even now, it would be downstairs in the lounge, whilst I'm two floors up in my study, which doesn't have room for a Hi-Fi system.
Whilst I enjoy doing that very much, I can only see the opportunities to do it decreasing going forward rather than increasing. Even as it stands, it is not a very good use of the space/money tied up in it. I definitely won't sell, but I doubt I'd start again.
qube_TA said:
Albums are now play-lists, you just click a bunch of tracks and it'll provide that instant gratification, there's no reason to care where the tracks came from, who made them, when, if they're apart of something backwards like an 'album'! You can Spotify anything to any device now, at home, on the loo, in the car, on a train, whatever then all your playlists and tunes are there piped in as a background distraction.
Music has become almost ubiquitous to the point where over exposure quickly relegates great / favourite pieces of music to mere, as you say, background distraction. The sound quality of the constant background music is often poor and its easy to forget just how much more convincing and enjoyable Hi-Fi can sound. Music is an important part of my life but judging by the number of comments posted, more PHers care about watches than they do about music; if people aren't particularly interested in music then they're also unlikely to care too much about fidelity.
qube_TA said:
I still buy albums, I play them in order, start to finish. if I'm having a BBQ I might put together a general 'mixtape' play-list but then that's for the background so is less important.
I still buy albums too and play them in order, start to finish.
. I've kept all my old vinyl and CD albums, so that my 10 year old son, who's just beginning to get into music, can check them out if he wants. With the original discs he can check out the sleeve notes, lyrics, artwork etc etc; streaming and downloading doesn't engage you the same way. qube_TA said:
Fast forward 20 years or so then I think hi-fi, albums and that sort of thing will be dead, you'd have a generation that has grown up with streaming and broadband and a noise-cancelled universe, they'll have no concept of anything different.
In 20 years time active speakers will be the norm fed by APT X gen 10 or whatever the state of the art codec is in 2035. The drivers or cabinets that they use will probably be very similar to today's but they're likely to sound better because impulse response / auto room correction ( Dirac Live or similar ) is likely to be built in. Edited by Crackie on Saturday 27th June 19:45
I don't honestly understand this whole notion of listening to an album in order.
Sure, classical symphonies, and various modern things (most of Pink Floyd's albums as a starter) do spring to mind, but by and large I never get the feeling that the artists have put too much thought into track order, so why would I?
Equally, the artist, when recording the album, didn't do it for the exact mood I'm in when I want to listen to music (which obviously is an individual thing to me, and will vary wildly from one day to another), so why would I want to constrain myself to what seemed right to the artist when recording, even if it's not what feels right to me when listening?
I do get times when I want to listen to an entire album, but they're a definite rarity, and albums which don't have at least one track that doesn't do it for me are even rarer.
Sure, classical symphonies, and various modern things (most of Pink Floyd's albums as a starter) do spring to mind, but by and large I never get the feeling that the artists have put too much thought into track order, so why would I?
Equally, the artist, when recording the album, didn't do it for the exact mood I'm in when I want to listen to music (which obviously is an individual thing to me, and will vary wildly from one day to another), so why would I want to constrain myself to what seemed right to the artist when recording, even if it's not what feels right to me when listening?
I do get times when I want to listen to an entire album, but they're a definite rarity, and albums which don't have at least one track that doesn't do it for me are even rarer.
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