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?
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- 75 posts total
@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.
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@gbmcleod +1 |
- 75 posts total