When Was The Audio Golden Age?

A case could be made that it was when there were VERY affordable heathkits, hafler kits, and dynaco kits, to introduce people to the experience of HIFI.

Of cvourse there has been great technical progress since those times, but much progress has been ignored due to the likes of spotify and lossy digital encoding.

Why invest in multi-thousand $$ system if you have a lofi source and can't hear any improvement over a boombox?

Golden age = Now

For example, I used to have one of the Wilson Wamms from the 80s. Inflation adjusted price is ~100k.

My current Borresen X6 (20k ish....) kills that Wamm’s hiney on all counts....No contest, not even remotely. Heck, a X3 (10k ish) kills that Wamm, no contest.

Trashy old vinyl VS modern hires official studio masters (8 bucks a pop?!?!).....No contest.

I think of a Golden Age as a time when obstacles were overcome and a spate of innovation took the art to a higher level.  The mature vacuum tube era of Marantz 9 and McIntosh MC275 through MC2301. The application of Theil-Small filter theory to reflex speaker design.  The arrival of mature solid state designs by James Bongiorno…GAS in particular, when harshness was tamed in high power transistor amp designs.  The maturing of computer assisted design in loudspeakers, bringing KEF 105s and B&W DM6.  We may be now entering another such period, with enhanced analytic tools for speaker designers and the perfecting of new amplifier designs like Purifi and GaN FETs, and improved room correction like DIRAC.

The 50s and 60s stand out for the quality of recordings. If we define “the best era in audio” as the greatest opportunity to maximize the enjoyment of music it is now. The technology continues to advance and for those willing and able to invest in a little more than entry level gear great choices exist to suit almost any taste and any room.

What makes this era the best, however, is the unprecedented access to an endless variety of relatively well recorded music for next to nothing. A Qobuz or Tidal subscription puts the work of a seemingly endless number of artists at your fingertips. To me, there are few greater advances in the ability to enjoy critical listening than this one. When I started this journey you bought a record then maybe an 8 trac often for one or two songs you knew you liked. Unless you were fabulously wealthy ( I wasn’t) you sure weren’t going to pick up a dozen albums at the record store of unfamiliar artists just to see if they suited your taste.

 The affordable access to virtually any music out there has increased my listening enjoyment more than any other advancement. I’ve discovered artists that have brought me untold hours of listening enjoyment that I would never have experienced until relatively recently, even better, the sound quality of streamed music now rivals that of physical media- not something I would have said that long ago. And the availability of products like Roon makes it even better 

so, for the ability to immerse oneself in the joy of listening to music in a serious way- this is it IMHO

Today is the current peak with computer modeling, testing, measurements, and materials engineering plus the ability to analyze and compare results quickly has improved so many manufacturing practices.  The improvements in fuel efficiency and horsepower/weight improvements in cars is amazing.

I would expect that improvements in hifi would continue with advancements in modeling and engineering.