It’s been a Stairway, pick a step, call it Golden.
Your actual experiences, age related, count the most, reading audio history can be fascinating, but living it is/was quite another thing.
Costs: Initially a rich mans game becomes affordable for ’well off’, then everybody can buy ’it’. I suspect the ’well off’ stage is your age related Golden Era.
Economic Advancement: boom or bust cycles are very much involved. Wage growth was a steady climb up to 1973 (I graduated college 1970), then stagnated.
"A startling fact is that average real wages have grown by only 0.7 percent over the half century beginning in February 1973. In February 2022 dollars, wages have grown over this period by $0.18. There is no question that an $0.18 increase over a half century is correctly interpreted as stagnant"
Thus, did the Golden Era end in 1973?
Many members here (not all) then and now are way above average earners, much higher disposable income.
Technological Advancement: During any war, or race to space, technology advances then trickles down. Also format wars push things along: 45/33; Betamax/VHS ......
then standardization (not always ’best’, think laserdisc/beta/vhs) yields profits for manufacturers to invest in the next thing.
Speakers have been a never ending quest for manufacturers and consumers.
Mono to Stereo, in any format was each a revolution.
Reel to Reel, wire to tape, dictation to music, mono, stereo, dolby, dbx ...
Turntable/Tonearm/Cartridge/Stylus Shape/Moving Coil .... each step by step
FM radio, Multiplex Stereo FM
Cartridges: Dictaphone; 8 Track; Cassettes; VCR; VHS; SVHS
Discs, this format, this size, ours is better than theirs ....
Broadcast, Streaming
On and On it Goes.
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Recording (ignore content) also advanced by technology and affordability: think major labels, expensive recording studios; early equipment allowing garage bands, darn good garage band equipment; anybody can record anything at home, phone in tracks .....
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I think the End of the Golden Age for Me is when accessories, some/lots of ’snake oil’ entered the game. I think it coincides with when measurements became unmeasurable.
Personally, I primarily prefer Vintage, equipment that sounds as involving as current production. What is Vintage? How far down the stairway do you go?
