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?
I think the 'Golden Age' was when The Absolute Sound Magazine entered the scene. There were so many discoveries being made, people finding out that there really was something beyond their table radio. Interesting personalities bringing new ideas and products to market. Today is a fantastic time to be into high end audio, but a few decades back there was an 'organic quality' and 'esoteric dimension' that causes some of us to wax nostalgic.
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I’ve been in the hi-fi retail business for well over 50 years. The golden age absolutely existed before video games and personal computers. Back then I will estimate that 70% of people that bought hi-fi equipment more into the equipment than for the music. They were hi-fi clubs all over the place. There was a Saturday radio show in the Boston area just on hi-fi. I actually hosted the Wednesday night club at my hi-fi store in Providence, Rhode Island and then video games and Commodore 64 showed up and many of the people that used to come in and bring their turntables in for a wow and flutter check or their amplifiers in for a THD check we’re not showing up anymore . With the compact disc, there was a resurgence from people that were into hi-fi for the music. CDs just made it so convenient. But then Walkmen, discman and other personal portables, including early cell phones earbuds took over nearly the entire generation for music reproduction. I believe now we are going through a small resurgence due to Covid. With folks getting government checks and having time on their hands. And retirees having time and a few extra nickels to spend on stereo equipment that they probably wanted when they were younger. Golden Age?…1965 to 1980. |
I didn’t start reading Audio magazines until the early 2000s so I can’t comment as to what their contribution was in the historical sense. I also gave up on TAS when they became a shill for MQA but that is another story . And lately I’ve stopped buying Stereophile and others unless I’ve been alerted in this Forum to an interesting article. I’ve found that after a few decades even the best written audio prose can’t really tell me what something sounds like better than non professional reviewers. However a few people here have singled out the impact of TAS in helping launch a Golden Age of Audio. I am not intending to disrespect those who state this, but I’m skeptical. Can a magazine have created an industry, as opposed to simply reporting on it? What was the peak circulation of TAS? I suspect that most people who bought systems in the sixties and seventies had never heard of it. Stereo Review,otoh, was fairly ubiquitous then. I also suspect that the relatively small number of Audio Connoisseurs that were strongly influenced in their formative years by TAS are likely to be posting on a site like this |
+1 @mahler123 I have gotten into arguments with friends who defend crap/cheap sound. It’s almost as if they are rebelling against good sound because it costs more than $150. But it’s worse than that; they do not understand that they can have good sound, or what that even means, and they do not care.
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