How could High End audio be improved?

Another perspective: Audiophiles who have embraced a quality HT setup in their homes have been able to expose people to the soundtracks of films reproduced by quality equipment, to other forms of recorded information. People who enjoy watching movies with us will often inquire about the equipment (located out of site in a closet just outside the room), which will lead to a remark about the turntable (sitting in the main room on it's own rack on top of a two inch thick slab of stained and polished maple), which will lead to a request to hear something played on it. I allow the guest to choose what they would like to hear, and let the whole side play. Many folks I know who previously thought paying large sums of money for a "record player" as absurd, have become interested in getting more value and quality for their money than can be had from mass merchandisers. Those hard core 2 channel only (I count myself as one: I am vinyl 1st, SACD 2 channel 2nd) have to give some credit to the HT crowd for giving more people the opportunity to appreciate high quality equipment. It is easier to baptize someone with a visual image to go along with the audio, than trying to get someone to sit and listen. It gets them interested, asking questions, and perhaps becoming disciples.

Twl,

Perhaps the next step that really needs to be taken is for very successful websites like Audiogon to stimulate manufacturers to think differently about how they are marketing and delivering their product.

I think that many of the above responses are excellent and well thought out, but seem to address mechanics. In other words, as with most things in our society where we assume that if we just invent another thing, or another technique, or another structure, then the problem will be fixed. The assumption in that a re-structuring in the external relationships is the problem.

I would submit that the problem is not in a re-working of the externals, but rather, a solution directed towards the internal is what would change our predicament (of course, rather than looking "out there" for our answer, we might have to look within. And, of course, this would require an effort at self-reflection that actually might impede our focus on externals).

People are right when they say the hi-end will always be small. Why? Because those individuals who search for beauty in any given society - and that's exactly what we are doing when we sit down to listen - are always a relatively small proportion of a population (at least, so far). The question then is, is this group shrinking to a threshold where the external societal structures no longer uphold that search, our search then mutating into what the external-focused masses yearn for? And here, if you look close, you can see the big difference, the determintive difference, between what we do in the hiend and what what society is moving towards and replacing the hiend with.

When we listen to music, we do so with a receptive, non-active mind. But, the activities that are replacing the hiend are all focused on a stimulation of the active mind (video games etc are a stimulus to the thinking mind; hie-nd audio is a catalyst of the receptive mind). Presently, these two forces are opposed because the forces that are addicted/attached to the active mind are intolerant in a societal context towards activities of the receptive mind; leisure is fine if we have time, but if we have work to do, it is relegated as expendible. The assumption that a more active mind more actively making and accumulating things is better than a mind receptively experiencing beauty, is mutating into the assumption that such mind is an impediment towards that active mind.

How is this happening?

Although we know that our "leisure time" enables a space in which to appreciate beauty, the fact is that our entire culture is progressively, regressively focused on activity that shrinks this space in people's lives. Thus, there are two dynamics involved: a) an expansion of active stimulation and b) a shrinkage of the leisure time to receptively experience beauty. This is, in turn, reflective of 1) the fact that capitalism and its cycling progression favors active-external focused minds and not receptive minds (listening to music is not a money-making activity and, therefore, from a capitalistic theoretical view, a less viable activity, and 2) we assume that the active activity lends meaning and not experiences of receptivity (Luther gave us that one; labor gets you closer to God in this life, our so-called work ethic).

The result of these assumptions, cycling progressively upon themselves, is a reduction in the number of people who have the will towards receptivity, regardless of its capitalistic viability, and an increase in the number of people who are addicted to the active stimulation of their thinking minds - through the acquisition of things, the playing of video games, all externally-orientated, etc.

I know this all sounds "abstract" but its actually much simpler. These are the underlying currents of society driving us towards a greater addiction to consumption (of external things) and a marginalizing of receptive activities of the mind, or beauty perception.

And so, we see a decline in the "arts", but actually we are seeing a decline in the minds who are willing - who have the will towards - the experiencing of art.

This situation can not be addressed in a fundamental way through tinkering again at the externals. Its getting too late for that, tensions are building, people are asking more and more if "art" has a future - our question here. Ironically, the tension increases as those same people continue to focus on a external market fix imposed from the outside by society upon itself, or marketed to itself. Because, a change towards greater receptive minds in society is not accomplished by marketing from outside, but by the individual from the inside.

How you accomplish that should be your question.

Am I apocolyptic? It may appear that way, especially if you don't want to consider that this might be true - re-categorizing a person as a regressive mystic is always a good way not to look - but, actually, this is just the way its supposed to be.

The talk above, even if still on externals, is still a turn towards the solution in its own way. But we could go faster...

Nice post Asa.

Nicely put, Asa! In a similar vein, proponents of "good sound at home" (i.e. musical beauty) USED to be opinion leaders in their social group; now they (we) are geeks.

There is another consideration:
Activity & interactive "leisure" keeps our minds away from ourselves, it keeps us busy and away from being introspective. This hobby asks us to lie back and receive, and maybe come closer to our inner selves. We're not taught to do that nowadays, as Asa notes.

But unless this hobby enlists the proverbial 15yr old, its future is very uncertain (as Judith & others have noted).