Audio 2004: Dark Ages or Age of Enlightenment?

[RobMacki]

I've been thinking about this since reading a post on the DSD thread.
Is Audio for the masses (the consumer) regressing? Is the population perfectly happy w/ MP3 as the new standard? Apple sold 1Mil. tracks in the first week.
Does this upcoming generation just want easy, mass storage, swapable, tunes to download? If this is the case then we are going to the Dark Ages of Audio.
Does the consumer care about SACD? How can they know if they never hear it?
I could go on more but just wanted to open my thoughts up for discussion.

[AUDIOSFX]

Easy is the statement that makes the most sense to me.. beyond that I would imagine portable. 100 cds on a cigarette lighter... Hi Def audio is killing itself. Compared to DVD V -Sacd and DVD A are not even in the ball game... Bad marketing and competeing formats are likely culprits. I would also assume that folks could realy give a rats ass on a format they cant copy share or upload hhhmm.

Its a sad day in HD world

[analog8]

It's the age of enlightenment. Consumers aren't willing to accept the questionable improvements in new technologies like SACD just to satisfy the demands of corporate giants like Sony.

There is no way I'm buying new SACD hardware and content and then have to manually move SACD's around when I want to listen to music. That idea is so last century...

Not to mention the selection of titles on SACD isn't compelling at all.

[RobMacki]

But where does this leave us Audiophiles?
Or better yet how do we, who advocate the 'purest' fit into what to me seems like a step back from CD quality?
If a generation grows up thinking mp3 is the "standard" we regress.

[AUDIOSFX]

Audiophiles will always be around they just wont be the mass consumer. At some point maybe we will have a hi def wireless or streaming source.

I agree that the portability of HD audio is bogus. And ''so last century" but the car has a huge noise floor unless your going to exceed 100db fs. And sat radio is less resolution than mp3 audio go figure. There is no easy answer.. I do love DVD A and I really appreciate being able to mix film and music in 5.1 its just new ...only time will tell...

My issue with dsd is the lack of source reference and limited hardware for encoding. It may be a great format sonicly but not very engineer friendly...

Im rambeling..It must be late....

[David Schober]

Rob, I hate to say it, but I think the genie is out of the bottle and there's no getting him back in. The record companies and the RIAA have allowed two whole generations of listeners to grow up getting their music from downloads and if it's not being played back on their computer speakers, it's either in a car or on cheap headphones. (I'm calling a generation a four or five year span. That's two whole groups of kids graduation from high school, where musical taste and spending habits on music are generally formed) We've now had two entire groups of kids go thru high school getting and listening to their music this way.

I have three teenagers and the few friends of theirs who have a stereo system bought it from Costco. Gone are the days of going out and buying a midline hi-fi stereo that sounded decent. $300 now gets you the overgrown boom box that people call their stereo. The resolution of these systems will hardly show the difference between an mp3 and a CD. If they can hear the difference, they don't see that different and hardly worth paying of CDs. I recently chaparoned a high school ski trip and found that of all the CDs that were taken on the trip, maybe 10% were purchased. The rest were copies...some from CDs they owned, but most were 3 and 4 generations down from their friends.

I say the record companies and the RIAA allowed this because, whether the tactics are right or not, the word is finally getting out that downloading is illegal. It should have been addressed years ago, but the record companies were too behind the curve to see what was happening until now and it's too late.

Combine that with what kind of music is popular today. Just look at the current Grammy nominations. Most of it is music that can be done in a bedroom and doesn't need a good studio.

The labels are blindly hoping they can get consumers to buy a CD if they put "extra value" to it by adding videos of the bands or a game on the CD. The kids don't care they don't have artwork...and for that matter, how many times will anyone want to watch a thrown together video of the band recording? Music is for listening, not watching. We listen to it while at home doing whatever we do, driving in the car, etc. Expecting a listener to want to sit and watch a video off a CD won't save the music business.

As for real hi-fi systems like SACD, it seems the labels at least know kids won't go for that. If they won't spend $13-18 for a CD already, why would they buy new gear and SACD? So the hope seems to be on the boomers. Stephen King has a great article in the back of the current "Entertainment Weekly" (Dec. 5) where he talks about this very thing. The fact is, at least for now, boomers are slowing down their purchases of pop culture. Yeah they'll fork over a few hundred bucks on the Simon and Garfunkel tour, but their not buy as many albums or books.

I know I've rambled a bit off subject, but I think it all applies to your original post. I think the Dark Ages are upon us already. We'll still do our best, and occasionally it will make a difference. But unless something changes and quick, it will be very hard to turn the ship around. We're heading for the falls and everything I see looks like we're gaining speed.

A number of years ago, a very well respected engineer friend of mine predicted that one of these days we'll stumble across a great sounding recording from the past and be shocked at how much better it sounds than anything we're currently doing. That day may be coming sooner than he expected.

[analog8]

Sorry, but when I see the word 'audiophiles' I don't think of audio professionals who work in the industry. I think of overpaid middle aged office workers who pay $1000 for an IEC power cord because they read in an audiophile magazine that it will improve the sound of their system.

I'm constantly amazed at the number of 'audiophile' experts who wouldn't know a blind a/b test if it bit them in the ass, and the snake oil vendors who are only too happy to take their money.

Just look at what real scientists like Lip****z say about the technical limitations of DSD (posted in the other thread on this topic) and you can see that even Sony could be accused of having ingested a fair dose of Kool Aid with respect to the sonic superiority of SACD.

[Jules]

Wise words from David Schober above...

Find, develop new talent & bring it forwards

Everyone here with a Mix + / 001 / 002 / HD + basic studio equipment has a the tech capability

Be your own A&R man in the year 2,004

Turn this thing around...

"It's time to decide if you are going to be a part of the problem or be a part of the solution" - MC5 Kick Out The Jams

[clarpark]

I'm more sorry to hear all the crap music these days, innovation is extinct with a few exceptions. You might as well listen to it on a boom box. The most important thing that could happen at this point, imo, would be better software for summing multichannel audio.

[johnnyreno]

Reading this thread has me wondering if if couldn't just have easily been written years ago when 8 tracks or cassettes were "threatening" to take the purity from music. I don't disagree, MP3 is a lousy option for listening but marketing and ease of use are what drive our economy and our technology. One door closes and another opens. I believe something will come along that will make this argument/thread moot, just like it has happened so many times in the past. Peace.