Yesterday I visited a friend’s house after I was invited to check out his new TV. The price tag was staggering, less than $800.00. The picture was gorgeous and I could stand way off to the side without any distortion (or very little). 72" screen I think he said, or was it 65", anyway it was big.
We started talking about screens and price tags only a couple years back. Audio of course came up as he owns one of my systems and we talked about how audio has made huge changes as well. A little over a year ago he dumped his big high end system for my simple designing and the improvement was not small. In fact just one of his components paid for his whole new setup including his home theatre. He has made the comment, more then once, of how listening has become so less expensive then a few short years ago.
Sometimes when I read here, it feels like the guy hanging on to his old tube 32" tv weighing back breaking amounts, that no one wants to help him remove, and he can barely give it away. The mentality behind hanging on to the heavy tv is very similar what HEA is going through today. Huge space heaters taking up floor space are going to continue to decrease no matter how much sentimental value our generation places on the good ole days of plug and play.
In the future there is still going to be dedicated rooms, especially outside of the US where they take the time to dedicate and aren’t trying to living room-ize their audio system (which never really made sense). Here in the US though the path is clear and will remain steady on it’s course.
Also let me say this. Picture yourselves being 25 years old now, in todays world. Your dedicated room is going to be a lot different from the way it was way back when. There are more dedicated rooms now then back when we were doing our thing. The major difference is, now they are called "dedicated gaming rooms". I have no doubt listening rooms are on the rise. But this is different from equipment collection rooms.
Michael Green