The death of the home stereo system

[SEAWOLF97]

.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/tech/innovation/death-stereo-system/

snippet:

"What's happened in the marketplace, the midmarket for audio has completely been obliterated," he says. "You have this high-end market that's getting smaller all the time, and then you've got the convenience market, which has taken over -- the MP3s, the Bluetooth devices, playing on laptops."

He wishes more people knew what they were missing. At its best, he says, audio reproduction has "a religious aspect."

"There's a primacy to audio," he says. "It's a form of magic."

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/tech/innovation/death-stereo-system/


Glad that my son has a heavy ass stereo system that can still make magic ;)



(in addition to his pod & laptop) ............... and me too.

[Robh3606]

The home 2 channel stereo has morphed into the home HT system.

Rob:)

[Maron Horonzakz]

SCALE MODEL TRAINS,,2 channel STEREO,,RC planes..all fallin by the wayside,,:bouncy:

[4313B]

The home 2 channel stereo has morphed into the home HT system.

Rob:)That's because 2-channel is to HT like B&W is to Color. Yeah, we can all appreciate a lovely B&W and it does things Color just flat out can't, and never will, do. But Color makes the world go round.

[Chris Brown]

I'm 10 months shy of my 30th birthday and my home Stereo is anything but dead :)

[maxwedge]

I think recording studios, and I suspect many do, should be recording music for surround sound or at least for 3 sound points up front, but then of course panning will get you a center sound out of 2 speakers so that's a moot point. So now they can raise the price for surround sound cds! :p

[Fort Knox]

.


snippet:

-- the MP3s, the Bluetooth devices, playing on laptops.


Glad that my son has a heavy ass stereo system that can still make magic[QUOTE]



actually MP3s are "old world"..streaming is the new word.....most of my Napster stuff
was zapped by "on line" erase commands" from the big boys

[SEAWOLF97]

actually MP3s are "old world"..streaming is the new word.....most of my Napster stuff
was zapped by "on line" erase commands" from the big boys

I've been in IT since '75 and have seen a lot. This is the first time that I've ever read or heard of "zapped by "on line" erase commands" from the big boys" . doesn't mean it can't happen , but ...

Being in the field so long, I have a huge distrust for most anything digital or mechanical.

Streaming ? a joke to me. Heck, most of the cell phone call I get , suck badly. my PC isn't even wireless and streaming video news (the latest and greatest for local TV stations) suck too. Maybe in the future when all copper is pulled , streaming will work like promised , but not today.

Digital ? Almost everything digital is stored on hard drives. Turn one upside down and among the electrical ratings you will find a "MTBF" number. Well what is that ??? :dont-know:

Mean Time Between Failures. ie: the expected life of the drive or when it may fail. Not IF it will fail, but when its expected to. Crazy how many iPod hard drives croak and entire digital collections are lost. IT mantra = backup, backup, backup ...

Sure, LP's wear out. Tape degrades, CD's may too. But streaming? I'll save the bandwidth for you to use.
(oh heck, I do stream Pandora sometimes. It sucks too.)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures

[Fort Knox]

I've been in IT since '75 and have seen a lot. This is the first time that I've ever read or heard of "zapped by "on line" erase commands" from the big boys" . doesn't mean it can't happen , but ...

Being in the field so long, I have a huge distrust for most anything digital or mechanical.

Streaming ? a joke to me. Heck, most of the cell phone call I get , suck badly. my PC isn't even wireless and streaming video news (the latest and greatest for local TV stations) suck too. Maybe in the future when all copper is pulled , streaming will work like promised , but not today.

Digital ? Almost everything digital is stored on hard drives. Turn one upside down and among the electrical ratings you will find a "MTBF" number. Well what is that ??? :dont-know:

Mean Time Between Failures. ie: the expected life of the drive or when it may fail. Not IF it will fail, but when its expected to. Crazy how many iPod hard drives croak and entire digital collections are lost. IT mantra = backup, backup, backup ...

Sure, LP's wear out. Tape degrades, CD's may too. But streaming? I'll save the bandwidth for you to use. (oh heck, I do stream Pandora sometimes. It sucks too.)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_time_between_failures

I bought a computer in the fall of 99 for the sole purpose of napster file sharing ...and playing 5-9k songs thru my main system....
was pretty cool.....but as the copyright cry babies won their court cases the peer to peer system was reprogramed to delete select
files video and audio ...vanished overnight off your machines ..in large numbers..and not to be recovered either:crying:
I lost all but a couple videos

[SEAWOLF97]

I bought a computer in the fall of 99 for the sole purpose of napster file sharing ...and playing 5-9k songs thru my main system....
was pretty cool.....but as the copyright cry babies won their court cases the peer to peer system was reprogramed to delete select
files video and audio ...vanished overnight off your machines ..in large numbers..and not to be recovered either:crying:
I lost all but a couple videos


OK, I'm not going to doubt you , but if true ... I'd sure configure the router better, set up a firewall , backup files , activate an AntiVirus system. etc.

[SEAWOLF97]

That's because 2-channel is to HT like B&W is to Color. Yeah, we can all appreciate a lovely B&W and it does things Color just flat out can't, and never will, do. But Color makes the world go round.

I read most of your posts as most are "right on" , but do disagree on the B&W vs Color and 2 channel to HT analogy. Esp. the "But Color makes the world go round" statement.

I started in photography in B&W and did it for a long time and loved it. It takes skill to use the 255 shades of gray to advantage. Generally it makes much more dramatic pix and forces the viewer to delve deeper and use some imagination , just as 2 channel can do. Any moron with a camera phone can shoot color and declare themselves photographers. No skill needed. Color has come to the masses but they really don't know what to do with it.

Compounding the whole mess is Photoshop on computers ... you can now make color pictures that can't exist in reality. They are cool and striking, but certainly don't make my world go round.

Most audio centric people that I know regard HT music as a gimmick and for serious listening use 2 channel only.

When mono was morphing into stereo, there were lots of "ping pong" special effects records to show off the new 2 channel. It was just as bad when Quad came in and HT seems to follow the trend. That doesn't make it real , or good.

HT doesn't "make the world go round" either , at least not for me, not yet.

[honkytonkwillie]

That's because 2-channel is to HT like B&W is to Color. Yeah, we can all appreciate a lovely B&W and it does things Color just flat out can't, and never will, do. But Color makes the world go round.

I don't think the analogy fits well beyond the superifcial recognition that 2-channel and HT are very different things for very different purposes. I also think many people mistakenly believe 2-channel evolved into multichannel/HT which is completely not the case.

HT evolved on it's own, alongside each new format to put pictures on the screen. What began as a single little paper cone next to the 10" B+W CRT, became stereo outputs on the TV and VCR to play through the (existing) stereo system; to all the variants of multichannel that come with DVD, Blu-Ray and HDTV today. Whatever notion of 2-channel and HT being part of the same continuum stems from the (rather brief) overlap in the second step above, where audio gear was also used for HT.

Starting at least as far back as Quad, recorded music could have widely adopted any of the multichannel formats along the way. In the Darwinian sense, for music, multichannel has yet to demonstrate better fitness and outcompete 2-channel.

Far be it from dead, I often wonder just how it will evolve

[4313B]

Ok. I had just finished listening to Roxy Music's Avalon SACD when I posted.

I am not going to back off the two-channel versus multi-channel statement.


Most audio centric people that I know regard HT music as a gimmick and for serious listening use 2 channel only.I'm aware of that. I used to get serious and listen to music too. Now it's just plain fun. I like the total immersion thing and usually watch a movie when I have time rather than just listen to music. Maybe it is a gimmick. Time will tell. With buying power dropping though I think people would rather put the money into a decent multi-channel than settle for just two-channel. The HT rig will just have to do double duty as a two-channel source if two-channel is desired.

Two-channel is still the most popular; Ear buds, iPhones and iPods are everywhere. Do they even make a multi-channel docking station? I haven't looked.

[SEAWOLF97]

With buying power dropping though I think people would rather put the money into a decent multi-channel than settle for just two-channel.

The HT rig will just have to do double duty as a two-channel source if two-channel is desired.

completely agree , except out here in Appalachia West most don't get a decent multichannel, they get those "HT in a box" all-in-one evil Bose copy thingies from WallyMart and think they're in Heaven. :crying:

I don't have room for big speakers for HT and for 2 channel in the same room, so the rears and center are wired directly to the AVR, but the mains go to a switch box that also takes the mains output from the stereo gear ....so either system can share the one pair of large speakers ... the big a/d/s 's are doing the double duty.

And yes, I shoot mostly in color .. sometimes you have to follow conventions whether you want to or not. :o:

[dr_gallup]

I bought a computer in the fall of 99 for the sole purpose of napster file sharing ...and playing 5-9k songs thru my main system....
was pretty cool.....but as the copyright cry babies won their court cases the peer to peer system was reprogramed to delete select
files video and audio ...vanished overnight off your machines ..in large numbers..and not to be recovered either:crying:
I lost all but a couple videos

You're not wearing your tin foil hat right.

I downloaded a hundred or more mp3's from Napster, still have them all. Don't play them, they do not sound good. There is an entire generation who must think all music sounds bad, listening to their iPods with Dr Dre ear buds. No wonder they don't buy music, all the "music" they hear has been processed to death. I would not like cheese either if the only cheese I could get was processed American cheese food.

As far as photography goes, I have yet to see a B&W digital camera. :blink:

[NickH]

Hey Maron,


Ive got a kick ass stereo and a vintage lionel train set. But I am 34. I grew up with trains around the tree at Christmas time. Built models too. RC planes, got a box in my closet waiting to be built. Too many damn hobbies, too little time.

[SEAWOLF97]

No wonder they don't buy music, all the "music" they hear has been processed to death. I would not like cheese either if the only cheese I could get was processed American cheese food.

I was shopping where the store was playing a mix of POP & Modern Country .... it all sounded the same except the lyrics. No Zeppelin there ....:crying:

Some time back, HJ brought up the topic of "Auto Tuning" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune If you dare to listen to "Today's Music" , it's flat , no mistakes , uninteresting. They've killed the spontaneity and dynamics of music .... :eek:

from Wiki:
Opponents of the plug-in have argued that Auto-Tune has a negative effect on society's perception and consumption of music. In 2004, UK's The Daily Telegraph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph) music critic Neil McCormick called Auto-Tune a "particularly sinister invention that has been putting extra shine on pop vocals since the 1990s" by taking "a poorly sung note and transpos it, placing it dead centre of where it was meant to be".[29] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-TheAge-29)
In 2009, Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_(magazine)) magazine quoted an unnamed Grammy-winning recording engineer as saying, "Let's just say I've had Auto-Tune save vocals on everything from Britney Spears (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears) to Bollywood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood) cast albums. And every singer now presumes that you'll just run their voice through the box." The same article expressed "hope that pop's fetish for uniform perfect pitch will fade", speculating that pop-music songs have become harder to differentiate from one another, as "track after track has perfect pitch."[30] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-30) According to Tom Lord-Alge the device is used on nearly every record these days.[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-Milner-9)
In 2010, the British television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_television) reality TV show The X Factor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X_Factor_(UK)) admitted to using Auto-Tune to improve the voices of contestants.[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-31)[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-32) Simon Cowell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Cowell), one of the show's bosses, ordered a ban on Auto-Tune for future episodes.[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-33) Also in 2010, [I]Time magazine included Auto-Tune in their list of
"The 50 Worst Inventions".[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-34)

[Fort Knox]

."[30] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-30).[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-31)[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-32) Simon Cowell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Cowell), one of the show's bosses, ordered a ban on Auto-Tune for future episodes.[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-33) 34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune#cite_note-34)


I can see where Auto-Tune could interfere with voice judges.
But as for songs in general...You either like a song or you don't..
Every single thing on You Tube is mixed a little differant..as the name
implies "produce it your way"...

[Dave_72]

I'm 10 months shy of my 30th birthday and my home Stereo is anything but dead :)

That's cool, hopefully you can inspire others your age and younger. :)

[hjames]

I can see where Auto-Tune could interfere with voice judges.
But as for songs in general...You either like a song or you don't..
Every single thing on You Tube is mixed a little differant..as the name
implies "produce it your way"...

yeah, but the point with Autotune is - you can make a no-talent someone sound in-tune, like they know what they are doing ...
Used heavily in a show like Glee - or that movie Rock of Ages ... and in many many pop albums ...