all talk and no action
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Hi-fi's low point
Over at Alphabet Scoop, Rob Mead has written a good piece about the sorry state of the British hi-fi industry.
I went to my first hi-fi show last year, and was expecting it to be a lot of fun, filled as it would be with the POWER OF ROCK. But instead I was treated to beard-stroking conversations about audio reproduction and why vinyl is still the only way to listen to music ("music" meaning The Eagles and Yes, as Rob says in his post). Asking how the equipment performed with an iPod felt like asking for a bacon sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah.
No doubt vinyl does sound better than CDs, and I'm sure it's very important to situate your speakers correctly rather than sticking them in the bookcase, but as Rob points out, while the industry is obsessing over high-end kit with high-end prices, the rest of the world is happily downloading low quality MP3s and sticking them on their iPods to listen to on the bus.
I went to my first hi-fi show last year, and was expecting it to be a lot of fun, filled as it would be with the POWER OF ROCK. But instead I was treated to beard-stroking conversations about audio reproduction and why vinyl is still the only way to listen to music ("music" meaning The Eagles and Yes, as Rob says in his post). Asking how the equipment performed with an iPod felt like asking for a bacon sandwich at a Bar Mitzvah.
No doubt vinyl does sound better than CDs, and I'm sure it's very important to situate your speakers correctly rather than sticking them in the bookcase, but as Rob points out, while the industry is obsessing over high-end kit with high-end prices, the rest of the world is happily downloading low quality MP3s and sticking them on their iPods to listen to on the bus.
posted by paul, 11:59 AM
5 Comments:
Yeah, they've missed the whole concept of "good enough" - which is what the kids want. Hi-fi shops don't help, either: I remember visiting a suitably snooty place when Oasis first came out and the assistant enthused about how X system showed just how shoddily recorded Definitely Maybe was. By way of comparison he played some beautifully recorded jazz-funk fusion. So I killed him.
Sorry, meant to add this bit: in a typical domestic situation, even cranked up loud, an iPod is a perfectly adequate sound source for any stereo. If you go for reasonable bitrate (192kbps, vbr) I defy the average person to spot that they're not listening to a CD.
Vinyl does sound better, though :)
Vinyl does sound better, though :)
Hi-Fi shops can be intimidating places. There's one near here that I occasionally peer through the window into, only to be met with a hostile stare from the owner/salesperson. I think he can sense I listen to MP3s.
In a typical domestic situation, even cranked up loud, an iPod is a perfectly adequate sound source for any stereo
Plus, something else the hi-fi purists forget: often when we're listening to music, the washing machine is on spin in the next room, there's traffic and car alarms going off outside and we're doing a hundred other things at once. In which case, audio quality really isn't that big a deal.
Plus, something else the hi-fi purists forget: often when we're listening to music, the washing machine is on spin in the next room, there's traffic and car alarms going off outside and we're doing a hundred other things at once. In which case, audio quality really isn't that big a deal.
Definitely. Back in the walkman days, I was quite happy with relatively crappy sound.
