When Was The Audio Golden Age?

The Golden Age is right now. Very high-quality equipment is available for pennies-on-the-dollar compared to to just 10 or 15 years ago. And the information about hi-end is just a click away. Not to mention, there are probably more smaller companies offering more intriguing products than any other time in history. The only downside is many smaller boutique hi-fi dealers are long gone, but still, even in their prime, most had a very limited offering.

If you think the past held the golden age, I believe you're hearing it through rose-colored headphones.

The Golden Age of Audio could be today - that is, if we combined in a sense past and present; what was lacking then we have now, and what we lack now they had then. The good news is that, if we really wanted to, we could attain both in our present day world, but the sad part is that, pragmatically speaking, we don't really see the era of the past merged with the technology of today, and by that I mean the more uninhibited physics of mainly pro horn speakers of yore in tandem with the tech advances in the digital domain (incl. DSP), active configuration and developments in SS amplification.

We see advances in horn and waveguide geometry design aided through sophisticated CAD simulations, but at least in the domestic market those designs are typically stunted physically to cater to interior decoration demands - for aesthetic reasons, that is, not acoustic ones - and as such are not followed through to be and sound their best. The large pro horns of yesterday however, even as older designs, can really come out the other side with the best of both worlds when configured actively via DSP and more modern SS amps. 

What we, crudely put, see today of the domestic old is often just that as a vintage, niche segment with analog source(s) - heralded as such, and often very pricey - and on the other hand we have all the modern stuff, which is to say largely inefficient and smaller speaker designs with a combo of higher power SS and (to a lesser extent) tube amp designs, and both digital and analog sources - with prices ranging into stratospheric heights as well. You could say the latter, modern camp is the more diverse one, but by and large the physics of speakers have been thrown out window. 

Attaining that merger of old and new requires of one to very deliberately seek out the former, because it isn't readily available, if at all in stores today. Walking into many a contemporary hifi store is being met with the sight of endless rectangular speaker boxes - slim and deep, with the typical dome tweeter and array of smaller woofers - differentiated more or less only in size, i.e.. height and driver count. What those designs generally sound like, to my ears, is hardly anything mimicking live acoustic or amplified sound. The main focus of modern, low efficiency speakers appears to be soundstaging/imaging and to some degree tonality, but whatever happened to dynamics, proper size of presentation, ease, physicality and presence, all of which are core pillars emulating a live sound imprinting? Going further: what happened to the feel of music? What we hear today, to my ears, is mostly about the think of it. 

@phusis 

Well said. 👍

@whart, I agree. But I believe there to be a difference between "good sound" and "true to life," not that you are not saying this. I just see people confusing advances in "sound" as "better." I suppose they are better if that is all that is required as a measurement, but to advance actual sound towards a lifelike facsimile? That does not happen as much as people believe it, unless they listen to less complex music such as pop or rock, which are highly manipulated in the mixing process and therefore will not reveal that which is truly likelike.

The "Golden Age" seems to have lasted into the 80s - maybe even 90s. At that time, the readers of Stereophile and The Absolute Sound were mostly classical and jazz music lovers (singers, too, of course!) and the designers were designing with this in mind. I don’t hear that as much when I listen to components that are touted as "top drawer." I hear them as technically correct, but a living, breathe facsimile of the concert hall (symphonic, not articially enhanced concerts such as rock or pop) experience, they are not. But I don’t think it matters that much if what  people are listening to are synthesizers, drums and other electronically-generated instruments. 

It’s possible to have a "Golden Age" that won’t mean the same thing to everyone. Frankly, I think it helps to be older because there was a time when any grade school student heard the school band at least 3 or 4 times a year, and went to parades (more acoustic music), and usually heard a symphony or something unamplified at least a dozen times while going K-12. That is not the case anymore. It stopped in the 80s in schools (most of my family were educators, so I know this to be true). People can get thru their entire education without once hearing a flute or a violin. If one doesn’t know what the "real thing" sounds like, then the Golden Age that some speak of is simply more features, more "tech" which, as I have said, does not lead to truly better sound. So, for some, the Golden Age is now. For me, it’s been gone for at least 25 years, but there are still developments going on for the younger listeners.

@gbmcleod  +1