Do you think Audiophiles are going the way of the Dinosaur or do you think there is a healthy future for well reproduced music and the manufacturers and suppliers that support our hobby .
If you think there is no long term hope please give your opinion why , or if you think there is no cause for alarm explain why.
All opinions count so go on have your say, it should be fun !
Hi electro. yes there is a future, and no reason for alarm. The real players are out there to improve matters, unfortunately there are many on 'the side lines' out to kid you, but that should not detract from the general trend of improving one's listening pleasure. However there are also many cons out there, often dressed up as pseudo science that can catch us all out. There are so many aspects of hearing that are so subliminal and that we are not aware of. Decisions are extremely difficult as we will never be aware of these subliminal inputs. Now tonight I really looked at Mr Townsend's site and he offers many detailed and in depth discussions about design and they all make sense, particularly his turntable design, in fact everything offered has a sound engineering background and good 'common sense' design, but I do wonder how many can really hear the difference.
Now in answer to the question, yes I think there is a healthy future for well reproduced music. But the improvements will come from new technology, new materials, new techniques and new ideas not from 'fine tweaking' the old ones, personally I think amplifiers will all converge to class 'D' type designs and speakers will progress to 'non reflex' designs, maybe room acoustics will become a major player in listening pleasure and maybe the gramophone record of 100 years ago will finally be displaced... John...
I agree we need new blood and new technology in the HiFi arena and more people with open minds willing to explore new ideas , we also need younger people firstly to appreciate music then to want to hear it on a good HiFi system , if we all ignore this then I fear our hobby will be severely damaged or even expire.
"But the improvements will come from new technology, new materials, new techniques and new ideas not from 'fine tweaking' the old ones, personally I think amplifiers will all converge to class 'D' type designs and speakers will progress to 'non reflex' designs, maybe room acoustics will become a major player in listening pleasure and maybe the gramophone record of 100 years ago will finally be displaced... John... "
...and there you have it my friends....a freely given admission that vinyl is hard to displace !
Looking at the shops the last 20 years you can definately see a change in hifi - more surround sound, midi systems, large televisions, less 2 channel stereo, turntables etc.
However I have read and seen the valve coming back at at good prices, the turntable is resurgging, some of the high end like Krell are making good quality surround, more good stereo in one box (Arcams, Meridans, Consonance), DACS for their computers etc.
So I think their will still be audiophiles but perhaps with slightly different equipment to what we would of seen 20-30 years ago. Maybe a mix of 2 channel and surround, with their blueray players.
he he.
