When Was The Audio Golden Age?


I looked at the Vintage section here for the first time.  It made me speculate on what other forum users would view as the best era in Audio.  For me it is the present.  The level of quality is just so high, and the choice is there.  Tube fanciers, for example, are able to indulge in a way that was impossible 3 decades ago, and analog lovers are very well set.  And even my mid Fi secondary systems probably outshine most high end systems from decades agoHowever when one hears a well restored tube based system, play one speaker from the mid to late 1940s it can dazzle and seduce.  So what do others think?  Are we at the summit now, or did we hit the top in past and have we taken a few steps down?

mahler123

Modern analog equipment based on old design. Great selection of cartridges, tubes, and passive speakers available today. 

When a depressingly high number of people think they’re “listening to music” on a f**king cell phone speaker the size of an M&M, or think, “ok, now I’m really listening to music when I stream data over the internet through a Bluetooth speaker the size of a golf ball,” we are definitely not in the Golden Age of audio today.

How is this any different than the vast majority of people listening to music over AM/FM radio in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s? Or listening to radio/vinyl on their Zenith console system with a stacking turntable and $5 stylus in the living room? 95% of people enjoyed their music during the "Golden Age" in social settings like soda shops, get-togethers, and swinger parties. Not everyone had the Hugh Hefner bachelor pad setup or the Don Draper penthouse built-in system. 

The Hi-Fi people claiming the late '60s through early '80s were the Golden age of Hi-Fi are nostalgic for a time they fondly and foggily remember. It's like watching Mad Men and getting swept up in the nostalgia of the era, thinking wouldn't it be great if we could all teleport back in time to relive 1968 to 1975? 

I've always only been able to afford mid-fi. 98% of my friends, family, and acquaintances don't have dedicated hi-fi systems. Many never did or will. I went through a brief period in grad school listening to music on either headphones or crappy computer speakers via a laptop. Since the early 00's, it has taken time for me to rebuild a system up over the last 20 years. Having listened to better quality audio components to enjoy my CD and vinyl collection, I could never return to listening to music on a $50 Bluetooth speaker or even laptop speakers. But, I also know that I wouldn't build a system from 70s and 80s components either. That era holds no nostalgia for me with regard to equipment. The quality and technology of that era lacks in so many ways compared to what I have now.  Even my wi-fi powered speakers I use for multi-room listening are far superior to what my 80s Boston Acoustics could put out. 

I have a vintage Adcom GFA-1 amp that I keep for sentimental reasons and not because it sounds better than my Marantz unit. The Adcom still sounds good but it also has that vintage hum that can become bothersome over time compared to the cleaner sound I get on my modern integrated. When I'm on vacation I have a decent, Bluetooth speaker I bring for beach or pool-side background music. But I don't expect that to be hi-fi because, for all intents and purposes, it is a radio. 

 

 

Recordings were crystal clear. Folks sat around and listened together. Music was awesome.

Small market recordings beg to differ on being crystal clear. I have some 50s and 60s jazz and blues recordings from local New Orleans labels and the SQ is OK and few are just bad when it comes to clarity of recording. 

Maybe if you focu only on big label recordings and certain 1st/2nd pressings would the statement that records from the 50s and 60s were crystal clear be true. And only if you were listening to that vinyl on a high-end system from that time. The majority of people were listening to music on console systems and cheap set-ups, not high-end or DIY setups.