JBL's Hear the Truth Artists

[SEAWOLF97]

I cruise the CL ads often ....a couple of phrases come up often:

"moving, must downsize"
"Dad left this gear for me..too big"

for the mobile generation, even bookshelf speakers are too much, and their
expectations are for smaller & smaller, better & better and cheaper & cheaper.

small imported, cheaper cars are now the norm , its a cheapening of the older American
way of life, brought on by circumstance, but has spread worldwide

I don't think that the idea of high quality plays as heavy with them as with the olders.
Disposable,Disposable,Disposable

That's all fine for us, we snag gear that was unobtainable at one time in our lives for
"pennies on the dollar" now. We are mostly "recyclers"

to have larger, better gear, you need a semi-stable lifestyle ...its just not conducive to
constant movement as I see with today's "under 30's"

I do have some 1954 Audio magazines...the level of pioneering excitement and discovery is
evident on every page ...they thought those were the "Golden Days"

[DavidF]

Possibly... there is no debate about the fact that we as a group are the odd balls... "normal" people really don't care, and as for this being the true golden age, I suppose that depends on how you define it. Certainly many manufacturers are producing their very best products of all times. There are really well designed and built turntables, digital sounds better than it ever has, electronics have continued to evolve and today we have uber simple and relatively high quality units from people like Peachtree Audio and of course crazy high end gear that is truly fantastic... and speakers? JBL has never made better speakers than they are selling right now, Revel and B+W have great speakers, and a few dozen other companies are producing speakers that exceed every parameter of a decade or two ago... if you are into high sensitivity systems there are even a few companies that cater to that market.

I think what has changed is the popular focus... during the '60s and well into the '70s home HiFi was growing in popularity and most people with any amount of disposable income felt compelled to buy into it... since then home computing and more recently computer based and internet based gaming has replaced it along with numerous other distractions.

Today most people are happy with a mp3 player based boom box and a decent car stereo... more than that feels like an intrusion to them... too bad for them, but it has freed up lots of fine vintage audio gear that has been made available to those of us interested in it at a really affordable price. If that wasn't the case, just as vintage muscle cars are going for a fortune, our beloved vintage JBL monitors would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Widget

It is perhaps ironic that the push in this swell of technical evolution and popularity of hardware in the 60s and 70s was driven by the explosion of pop music sales. Most of that music could be analogous to pulp fiction in the book market. Content contrived and produced to promote higher sales in priority to higher quality. Like it or not this did provide much more access to music and varied artists at lower prices. Along with it came the electronics industry and a host of players in the market.

Maybe the majority of consumers caught on and realized you didn’t need the best of equipment to listen to mainstream music industry product. That idea is still in play except for a few of us.

[Mr. Widget]

Maybe the majority of consumers caught on and realized you didn’t need the best of equipment to listen to mainstream music industry product. That idea is still in play except for a few of us.

I doubt it is that sophisticated a market response. I vote for fashion trends... HiFi was cool... now it is the bastion of the "geek squad".


Widget

[DavidF]

I doubt it is that sophisticated a market response. I vote for fashion trends... HiFi was cool... now it is the bastion of the "geek squad".


Widget

Other possible factors in play, maybe. Four or five TV channels, crapola for programing, the world wide vistas on our laptops an unimagined dream, a lot of us did not have much entertainment choice but to get together for some tunes at someone's crib.

Still, the software industry and computer hardware makers have been in constant ying and yang pressure to improve the standard of computer performance. Not a fair analogy, perhaps, but I would have liked to seen the music industry strive far more to raise the bar rather than fall into complacency with digital and their 'perfect' medium the CD.

[Titanium Dome]

JBl (Harman) may not be raising the bar very much, but I do believe the bar is being raised in these "Hear the Truth" initiatives. At least they're trying to use identifiable musicians to make the connection. It was Stan Kenton, Dave Brubeck, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and The Who that got me to graduate from transistor radios and self-contained monaural turntables to real stereos with JBL speakers.

[svollmer]

I doubt it is that sophisticated a market response. I vote for fashion trends... HiFi was cool... now it is the bastion of the "geek squad".


Widget

I have a friend who has a pretty nice stereo and truly loves (and regularly purchases) music. When I told him about the recent Capital Audiofest and suggested he might enjoy attending, his responded that he imagined the people who attend such events are the same as those who attend Comic-con conventions or play Dungeons and Dragons. Seriously!

It surprised me that someone who was so into music thought that about us. But, I'm still proud to be an audionut.

[Titanium Dome]

Thanks to Smarty-pants over at AVS, here's a link to an interesting Hear the Truth piece. There's a lot of footage of the Mexico operation, and some of the video of actual production is fun to see. In addition, there's some Northridge footage and several JBL talking heads.

http://www.uniquesquared.com/blog/pr...truth-trailer/

BTW, I bought my LSR308s from Unique Squared.

[Mctwins]

Thanks to Smarty-pants over at AVS, here's a link to an interesting Hear the Truth piece. There's a lot of footage of the Mexico operation, and some of the video of actual production is fun to see. In addition, there's some Northridge footage and several JBL talking heads.

http://www.uniquesquared.com/blog/pr...truth-trailer/

BTW, I bought my LSR308s from Unique Squared.

Cool

Seems to be good quality with those transducer coming from Mexico

I like the comparison with ordinary car and racing car.

[organeu]

Jbl hear the truth