2016 Dead pool

[esldude]

As the current crop of audiophiles ages out of the market, the upcoming batch (the head-fi crowd) will take over. Their M.O. is to audition gear at local meetups, not stuffy dealers that profile younger people as having no money. This will lead to the dealers all going under. It may not be in 2016 but soon.

 

Nah, that is so over already. At least where I live. Dealers of good gear had to close up years ago. I think the nearest dealers are right about 120 miles away in a couple of directions. Even then the number left are perhaps 1/4th of what once was.

 

I do remember being in a dealer in college and wishing he would think I had no money. He decided to convince me some big expensive speakers with all McIntosh gear were easily in my reach as a college student. I mean, yeah, get a part time job (don't waste any of that income on tuition), put it all toward this system (they might even finance 3 yrs he said), and it could all be mine. I am shortening the 25 minute sales pitch here. Of course I finally ended it asking where it would all go. I was living in an 8 ft x 13 ft dorm room which had a desk, closet, bed and bookshelf taking from that space before putting in a big stereo. At least they didn't ignore me.

 

Then of course years later when I had some money and space, the dealers in my new locale did indeed ignore me. Quite strange thing life is sometimes. Saved me lots of money though. Their active ignoring caused me to buy 90% of my gear second hand.

[crenca]

...

 

I'm pretty sure they will go out fast if they begin to close down the system. Using closed system like MQA worries me.

 

MQA is dead already, and it would be silly for Tidal to stay onboard now:

 

"It is unfortunately that MQA has decided to pull back the integration on ARIES/ARIES LE during CES as they have decided to make it an 'end to end' technology which means it will always requests a MQA certificatedDAC to work.

 

ARIES ARIES LE, will be able to playback or stream music contains MQA format but will not listed MQA certificated device, to benefit from MQA, you will need a MQA certificated DAC and this is the only way.

 

We are sorry about the decision made by MQA."

[NOMBEDES]

Dead Pool. (The Longer View or Audio End Times)

 

Most of the baby boomers will be gone in 25 years, and with our demise, so goes traditional high end audio. The days of "big iron", multiple boxes (amps, pre-amps, phono-stages, cables, servers, computers, DACs) will be the realm of the DYI and the hobby crowd (the tube and vinyl heads will always be with us)

 

I count hundreds if not thousands of mid to high end audio companies. The majority of these companies will not survive much longer than the boomers.

 

The companies that make it into the second half of C21 will be involved in the downloading/streaming of music files into one iPhone-like box + speakers/headphones/implants.

 

The younger population does not now and will not have the money, space or the interest in what I call traditional audio. There is nothing wrong with this future. (aside from certain economic and political factors which concentrate wealth into increasingly smaller groups).

 

I believe technology will provide outstanding sound quality to the masses, maybe the boomers would not want to listen to the music of the future (see Jay-Z, supra) but it will be there and in sufficient resolution.

 

And why not this brave new world? 50% of our hobby, no matter how much we protest, is visual. We like looking at our shinny boxes just as much as we enjoy the music.