Can anyone tell me where the progress in audio went?

"The video I presented to you is not to be evaluated as a critical listening experience of the system, but to provide the viewer with some ideas and hint of what is possible to achieve with vintage drivers, transformers, capacitors etc."

Really? How were you supposed to be demonstrating that with such poor material and bad sound? I think that I have heard sound just as spectacular made by garbage collectors in alleyways...with better dynamic range.

That looked like a great system. Why wouldn't he choose a demo track with a combination of percussion, human voice. strings and brass instruments to showcase its capabilities?

Roxy54

As I mentioned prior, the demo was provide by a professional audio reviewer , who dropped  by the room, asked for his cd to be played and made a video recording of it. Later on, he posted the video on youtube. Obviously, he did like this recording or he was trying to hear a specific sound reproduction from the CD track he was familiar with. That’s all.

Judging from you posting logo of yours, you must be big on SS Mcintosh gears. If this is what makes you happy - Enjoy the music!

What does McIntosh have to do with anything? I said before that the system looked to be amazing, but the demo was bad. First you mention Best Buy, and now I suppose Mac isn’t good enough for your refined tastes. What a snob. It so happens that I have owned quite a bit of tube gear and still do. And yes, I like Mac too.

I don’t even understand your point in starting this thread. What’s your question?

"refined tastes" - I like that. "snob" - not so much. As far as my question goes, I gave you the benefit of a doubt that you are smart enough to get it. Sorry, I was wrong to assume that.  Am I crazy or the rest of them are?

Engineering at any price point is always a tradeoff. No, you "can’t have it all" most of the time - but you can have much of it. I think as others have noted that "technology" and manufacturing has reached a level people only dreamed of say in the 1950s and 1960s. As one guy mentioned this is a GREAT time to be into audio no matter what your budget is, from $1K to $1M. And you reach the point of diminishing returns pretty quickly as you go up the food chain. At some point you are paying more for the industrial design and "looks" than for a huge improvement in sound quality.

Look at digital cameras. Most DSLRs (and lenses) have reached a plateau in performance. Indeed, with mirrorless cameras pushing DSLRs into "old school" obsolescence. What more could be added? They already have more features than 99% of people will ever use, even a professional photographer. For the masses, their cell phones might be the only camera they will ever own.

And for some, it will always be (as it should) a matter of taste. Do you want the liveliness and dynamics of a horn speaker or something more refined and studio sounding. That was the answer Andrew Robinson gave on his YouTube channel when comparing the new Mission Audio 770 to the Klipsch Forte IV.