Audiophiles: Dead or Dying?

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25 minutes ago, fas42 said:

My impression is that passionate enthusiasm for the specialness of listening to recordings replay has moved to another part of the world, specifically, Asia.

 

https://www.vinyloftheday.com/japan-listening-bars-for-audiophiles/

 

https://mixmag.asia/read/take-a-look-at-hong-kongs-stunning-new-vinyl-only-library-and-listening-space-local

 

Oh to be able to visit Japan!

"Japan is well known for being the home to various listening bars and audiophile venues. Discovering music and listening to it in the most appropriate environment is embedded deeply within their culture."

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22 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

It has been this way for as long as I remember and I will wager that it will continue to be that way and that the audiophile hobby is not dead or dying. There is breathtakingly beautiful sound quality in high-end gear these days that far surpasses previous generations of high-end gear, and there will always be those seeking beautiful sound in the service of beautiful music.

But where are the numbers? When I was in my 20's it was a cultural phenomenon to sit around with friends listening to and sharing albums on 2 speaker systems. We sought out where the good systems were and got ourselves invited round. My daughter who is in her 20's (and her friends from what I have seen) has 1 speaker in the corner and listens to music in the background. Her generation, that I know of does not get together to sit and listen only and definitely not to stereo. Sure she has ear buds and appreciates great music from her phone, but the culture has changed as it does.

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22 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

There IS a law of diminishing returns, and spending much more than a few $K is starting to be very wasteful for MOST commercial recordings. 

Agreed!

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1 minute ago, John Dyson said:

...now it is almost a quaint 'odd fellows' society of sorts.

good grief are there still some alive?  !

 

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8 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

I don't think people have fundamentally changed, technology has.

I agree with most of what you say and of course every generation listens to music through different media except that I do think technology has and does change 'people'. My point was that the culture of sitting around listening to 2 speaker systems is over if not greatly reduced and this is because of how music (and culture in general) is consumed and the channels through which it is consumed today. You seem to think this isn't true - you may be right and maybe I just don't get out enough!  but I certainly don't look back longing for any good old days - the good days are here or they are nowhere.

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9 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

uphill... both there and back..

A classic indeed that has gone down in history, even 'bloody young people of today' know this one  !

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5 hours ago, Rexp said:

I don't think the potential number of Audiophiles has changed. It was always maybe 1 or 2% of the population. If you played your system to 100 of your daughters piers, one might appreciate it and seek to become an Audiophile. 

we need a rigorous double blind test on the numbers...

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8 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Is this system listed below "a waste" and who is to say

No way! You are definitely one of those guys to get invited round to.

 

I think the point was that a system of a few K is more than enough for 'commercial' quality music. I presume with your ultra system you spend as much time and effort on the quality of the recordings too?

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5 hours ago, Rexp said:

I don't think the potential number of Audiophiles has changed. It was always maybe 1 or 2% of the population. If you played your system to 100 of your daughters piers, one might appreciate it and seek to become an Audiophile. 

We will have to agree to differ on this. In my 20's I wouldn't have needed to look for the 1 in a hundred...

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5 hours ago, charlesphoto said:

 A hifi setup usually consisted of a Japanese receiver of some sort, Technics turntable (maybe a Dual or equivalent as well) and Advent or Speakerlab speakers. 

 

So in a nutshell, we cared deeply and passionately about music, but I and most of my peers gave little thought to the actual delivery of it, and I suppose this is much like the youth of today. 

Hmm sounds like a stereo system to me, and folks gathering to listening to music - not so different to what I was saying...

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8 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

 

I would say if the commercially produced music is garbage quality I wouldn't listen to it on any system other than a car radio and only if I loved the music e.g. Rolling Stones. There are a number of tracks, using the Rolling Stones as an example, that I like to listen to on a high-end system. They are far from perfect but there is enough sound quality there that really good equipment can release. For me, the better the playback system the more it gets out of the road and if there is something great on the recording it will shine through in spades

Yes hopefully it's about the music first . I sometimes listen to some terrible (in terms of recording quality) punk music because I love the energy. Plus I was part of that era and went to the gigs when i was a student. Mayhem but thrilling! Music is much more that recording quality but when both go together the satisfaction is multiplied.

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On 8/28/2020 at 6:08 AM, ricko01 said:

Audiophiles: Dead or Dying?

Social media killed the audiophile.

Agreed!  all those pops and clicks I'm hearing are boomers brains imploding under the pressure of technology and social media

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

The way I see it, pseudoscience and rationalisations abound on both sides of the fence. It would appear both these things increase in proportion to agenda being pushed or as a way to justify decisions. This site is a self-proclaimed audiophile site so it makes little sense to me when people start using the term audiophile in the pejorative.One of the reasons I like this site is that it fosters tolerance and acceptance of different approaches.

I enjoy reading your posts as they are always refreshing. Real intelligence unites (or tries to) as there are enough smarts around being used in the service of division.

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17 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

Thanks for the kind words. I have however been guilty of divisive comments. We all get a bit passionate sometimes and it's never nice when someone wants to poo on your belief system. The thing is we choose to be here, it's not like so many other things we have no control over.

Why choose to be in a battleground. If someone chooses a Rasberry Pi over a Taiko extreme, or vice versa, who the hell should thumb their noses at the other?

Exactly - It is indeed a mystery to me why certain battles go on and get repeated endlessly in some of the threads here. Without each other there would be no discussion. Death of the audiophile? is it not in the abstraction of the other through desperation to further ones own agenda? 

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33 minutes ago, John Dyson said:

I do believe that being an audiophile alone has little to do with wanting to talk about some of the audiophile subjects.  However, being an audiophile and interest in talking about it does enable some of the competency to discuss certain things.   The big problem is the good old syndrome that says that people sometimes don't understand the limits of their knowledge -- that is when there are sometimes arguments that are impossible to resolve.

 

22 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

The problem with that syndrome is that it always applies to somebody else😁

...in that case they would be audioheels

 

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2 hours ago, botrytis said:

 

I think the issue is people don't want the big boxes around any more. Most people like their phones and headsets and that is where it is going. I went to ah headgear meet up once and it was an eye opener. I mean mostly college age people with 1-8 pairs of expensive headphones (between 500 to 2500 USD a pair) and DAC/headphone amps. Yes, they were listening to high res files (mostly) some still used MP3's but heck it is what it is. It was a neat meet.

I asked my daughter and partner who are in their 20's about this and how people in their circles listen to music - so that would have been up to 150 people or more. They said nearly all had headphones, many had good quality and it was common to have £300+ headsets.

 

They knew only 2 people who had more serious stereo setups - one because they were a gamer and one who they thought had the best stereo system. They were in the music business and didn't buy their own equipment. Small survey but supports the headphone trend.