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Cultural Death of Hi-Fi


GUTB

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32 minutes ago, GUTB said:

Steorophile published and interview with a New York City dealer startup who is attempting to capture the interest of young New Yorkers by hosting many live events in their showroom spaces:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/noho-sound-intends-revolutionize-high-end-audio-retailing

 

The comments in this article are interesting. There is a lot of overt and barely-veiled skepticism about NoHo's chances at making it.

 

Here's the thing: anyone who attends audio shows knows that only middle-aged men and older attend them. If you see women they are the wives of the middle-aged men.

 

AXPONA:

13041340_1126631374047619_86090045108160

RMAF:

rocky-mountain-audio-fest-11-of-54.jpg

Munich:

high_end_munich_2016_crowds.jpg

 

If you see younger men, it's probably in the headphone section. I said "men" because women appear entirely uninterested in hi-fi.

 

Instead of hi-fi, young people are interested in turntables setups as retro-kitsch decor. These things don't sound good, and their owners will eventually grow out of it as they move, get married, etc and those collections will end up on eBay or in storage.

 

So, guys, what's going on? Is that young people are growing up with very poor spending power so they lose interest in things that they can't attain? Is it because modern pop music is so awful, that interest in hi-fi is never sparked to begin with? How does the industry and media bridge the gap -- can the gap be bridged? Is hi-fi just going to die and there's nothing anyone can do about it? Should we just be happy in our niche while it still shows a pulse?

 

 

 

 

What's going on is that, as you say, youngsters, for the most part simply aren't interested in SQ. There are many reasons for this, but among them are that few youngsters have any interest in, or knowledge of, classical music. Bringing the concert hall experience into the listener's home has always been the major goal of High-Fidelity. Today's music is all studio produced, using electronic instruments (mostly) and so the concert hall experience is pretty irrelevant. This lack of interest and knowledge in classical music, I blame on the US education system. Starting in the 1970's schools started eliminating subjects from the curricula that the bean counters considered of marginal value in "educating" our young. One of the first things to go was any form of music appreciation. Granted, 90% of all the kids who found themselves in a music appreciation class, hated it, but the point is that hated or not, these kids were, at least, exposed to classical music. The other 10% found that they liked it and a lot of them became audiophiles. I've a friend who's 19 year old son once told me that he saw no point in Hi-Fi at all! He can listen to his music on his iPhone through his ear buds and get everything out of it that he wants to hear anywhere he wants to hear it. I gather that this is a common attitude.

 

The next problem, as I see it, is that the audio hobby has a very bad reputation amongst the general population. The prices that much of this equipment carry, are off-putting enough, but the various tweaks and rituals that audiophiles are known for often seem downright nuts to the average joe. Speaker wire that costs eighty grand!!??, Lifts to keep that eighty grand worth of cable off the floor!!???, Specially treated clocks plugged into the wall to reduce noise? Mains cables costing thousands of dollars and are the size of a baby's leg? These things get out into the general population and generate a lot of tongue clicking and head shaking.

 

Finally, it's the fact that Hi-Fi is seen as a hobby for middle-aged and older men. Kids see that demographic as being something with which they simply do not want to be associated. "You're interested in Hi-Fi? That's an old man's hobby, why would you want to be associated with anything like that?"

George

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6 hours ago, robocop said:

I'd say its all about education, if you don't hear anything great you aren't going to know if anything could sound better.

 

 

This goes back to my OP in this thread. When the school systems cut out music appreciation programs as being expensively non-essential, they eliminated the chance to expose youngsters to hearing something great. Thus we have three or four generations of Americans who have never been exposed to classical music and many don't even know who Bach or Beethoven even were!. We have to blame the educational system for at least some of this state of affairs. Like I said, most kids who took music appreciation hated it, but about 10 percent became lifelong lovers of the genre. The rest actually learned something about the music, even if they didn't like it. 

Do you know that in the 1940's a song writer of popular music could include in the song a reference to Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, and the bobbysoxers actually knew what the reference meant?!! Try that today and see what happens! Huh, what? 

George

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2 hours ago, rodrigaj said:

I am the product of the inner city, South Bronx educational system of the 60's.

 

We had to take one year of music appreciation satisfied by either sitting in class, taking a musical instrument class or singing in choir. I couldn't sing and I did not want to play a musical instrument so I had to sit through music appreciation.

 

Like you said, I hated it.

 

Now I only listen to classical music and attend classical music concerts. The seed planted back in the 60's blossomed in the 80's.

 

I truly feel sorry for the kids these days.

 

That's a great story, inspirational even! I agree with you about today's kids (and several generations before them).

George

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11 minutes ago, Norton said:

Can we cut the gerontophobia?  Just because something doesn't attract young people  doesn't automatically mean it's not flourishing.

 

Huh? Gerontophobia? You're joking, right? The point is that when those geriatric classical music aficionados pass from this mortal sphere, there is NO ONE to take their place! I might add that the pop music scene is almost as bad. When the baby-boomers pass, the music to which they listen will pass into oblivion too. The music will still exist, but there won't be anyone left to listen to it. How many people do you think still listen to Rudy Valee, Al Jolsen, or Russ Columbo any more? 

George

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