Well, I do think that audiophiles have become a rare breed indeed and have to admit that if my system had not been given to me I would not be dabbling in it now.
Having been exposed to hi-fi I have now become less tolerant of low end systems and very intolerant of poor recordings. Which is probably a a shame since I was fairly happy with my lower end system.
I do not know what the answer is but I think, from an audiophile standpoint this is a big problem. With hi-fi constricting in market share and the sound quality of recorded music going down it seems like a death spiral.
Two thoughts come to mind:
1) Can audiophiles do anything about poorly produced music? I know that in general the answer is no. I understand garbage-in-garbage-out. But with tech available I have to wonder if maybe decent equalizers and such might need to make a comeback. I know there is only so much you can do....but "better" is still better than nothing even if "better" does not rise to audiophile quality. I'm considering a Schiit Loki to put between my DAC and pre-amp. I know it won't work miracles but even the equalizer in iTunes helps some with this high loudness/low DR music.
2) There needs to be a robust mid-fi market. Let's face it, the market for $10k systems (which any of you would consider mid-fi) is pretty narrow. And let's face it, the extremes that serious audiophiles go to are not going to endear this hobby to many people. This is not a market segment that anyone is going to pay attention to. But let's say you could get a good-to-very good system for $2000 that was enough to expose the SQ of today's recordings. That is a market that might emerge and drive SQ gains. After all, some of the same kids listening to iTunes on ear buds will also drop $350 for a set of Beats headphones. So $2000-$3000 might be attainable to a new market of consumers if it could be demonstrated to sound good.
Of course, the corollary to that is that audiophiles might need to stop panning such systems and turning their noses up at speaker cables that cost less than a grand in order for such a mid-fi market to take off.
Having been exposed to hi-fi I have now become less tolerant of low end systems and very intolerant of poor recordings. Which is probably a a shame since I was fairly happy with my lower end system.
I do not know what the answer is but I think, from an audiophile standpoint this is a big problem. With hi-fi constricting in market share and the sound quality of recorded music going down it seems like a death spiral.
Two thoughts come to mind:
1) Can audiophiles do anything about poorly produced music? I know that in general the answer is no. I understand garbage-in-garbage-out. But with tech available I have to wonder if maybe decent equalizers and such might need to make a comeback. I know there is only so much you can do....but "better" is still better than nothing even if "better" does not rise to audiophile quality. I'm considering a Schiit Loki to put between my DAC and pre-amp. I know it won't work miracles but even the equalizer in iTunes helps some with this high loudness/low DR music.
2) There needs to be a robust mid-fi market. Let's face it, the market for $10k systems (which any of you would consider mid-fi) is pretty narrow. And let's face it, the extremes that serious audiophiles go to are not going to endear this hobby to many people. This is not a market segment that anyone is going to pay attention to. But let's say you could get a good-to-very good system for $2000 that was enough to expose the SQ of today's recordings. That is a market that might emerge and drive SQ gains. After all, some of the same kids listening to iTunes on ear buds will also drop $350 for a set of Beats headphones. So $2000-$3000 might be attainable to a new market of consumers if it could be demonstrated to sound good.
Of course, the corollary to that is that audiophiles might need to stop panning such systems and turning their noses up at speaker cables that cost less than a grand in order for such a mid-fi market to take off.
