Is hi fi dead?

NeilGabriel

http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/42662987

This links to an understandable article about digital music v. traditiona "hi-fi." As an above average stereo junky, I have never believed that digital files and miniature sound cards could play the quality of a decent stereo system. Still, I have been so tempted to just convert all the CDs to digital and play them through my amp with an mp3 player. Thoughts from the audio and sound engineers here?

Mike

phipiper10

Do both, convert them all for convenience and keep loving the hi-fi too!

There is no sin in having 5000 albums to pick from in your next roadtrip!

sucks2beme

NeilGabriel wrote: »

http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/42662987

This links to an understandable article about digital music v. traditiona "hi-fi." As an above average stereo junky, I have never believed that digital files and miniature sound cards could play the quality of a decent stereo system. Still, I have been so tempted to just convert all the CDs to digital and play them through my amp with an mp3 player. Thoughts from the audio and sound engineers here?

Mike

If you look over at head-fi, you'll see there is a large interest in better sound, and being portable. External mini amps, better quality headphones and earbuds, and lossless compression are all subjects of conversation.
I believe the end result will be a better and portable systems.
Tweeter and CC were results of bad business models. Neither carried much
in the way of higher end stuff. What Tweeter carried in the way of better stuff wasn't set up to display well, or priced to compete.
Typical article. Poorly researched with less than well thought out conclusions.
The bulk of people out there will never know or care about high end audio.

Schwingding

Traditional media is definitely on the way out the door. Sadly for many this means that music quality is also on the way out the door, and the door is about to slam shut. It started rolling out the door with the advent of the CD and has gone downhill since.

It doesn't have to be this way. As storage becomes cheaper and more robust, you'll be able to store all of your music in lossless formats in those tiny little USB type devices, and plug them into your system where they'll sound just as good as your original sources.

I'm considering adding a music server to my system at present, but haven't really begun any serious thinking on the specifics. It'll have to at least put out the same sound quality as my SACD player or there's no reason to go there. But mouseclick access to my entire library - sounds awesome.. (no pun intended)

shack

Hi-Fi as a mass market format probably is at least in its dying years. My guess is that it has many years left as a "mature" format. Until they have the ability to address the compression issue, MP3 and all the variations will be like fingernails on a blackboard to many. Maybe a better analogy (NOT from personal experience mind you!) would be like having sex with a blowup doll....it's still sex I suppose...but not like the real thing cause something is missing.

It's interesting that the "high end" audio marketplace is doing just fine. Vinyl is making a resurgence and Hi-rez still has its place. Digitized portable music may be the source for the masses and will have its place maybe even with audiophiles....but Hi-Fi will be around for a long time for those who want the "real" experience.

mulveling

A computer jukebox can be part of an excellent high-end system...but to avoid compromises you've need to encode in a lossless format, not MP3, and use a high quality external DAC. Something that's completely jitter immune like a Chord 64 DAC would be ideal; though for many systems the jitter attenuation found in a good $700+ DACs will be sufficient. Of course measures should also be taken to reduce noise from the computer fans.

MP3's are always going to be a compromise...perhaps less extreme than some would claim (a good 192kbs encoding does sound pretty damn good)...but still a compromise. With the size of hard drives these days (even in portables), there's no excuse for audiophiles to not use lossless encodings on their collections. If you go to the effort to clean your vinyl you can also make the extra effort to store lossless

Likewise, using the analog outputs from a DAP is going to be a compromise, too much of a compromise for a high end system. The really good DACs, power supply, analog output section, and jitter reduction methods just won't fit into that little case, not to mention the push to reduce costs. Not to mention the voltage output level of these DAPs is much lower than the typical CD player, which can make things harder on your preamp.

Now the thing that scares is whether the availablility of uncompressed music will diminish in the future. What if all they offer for sale is MP3? Ugh. Game over man!

dorokusai

I sure hope so.

mulveling

sucks2beme wrote: »

If you look over at head-fi, you'll see there is a large interest in better sound, and being portable. External mini amps, better quality headphones and earbuds, and lossless compression are all subjects of conversation.
I believe the end result will be a better and portable systems.
Tweeter and CC were results of bad business models. Neither carried much
in the way of higher end stuff. What Tweeter carried in the way of better stuff wasn't set up to display well, or priced to compete.
Typical article. Poorly researched with less than well thought out conclusions.
The bulk of people out there will never know or care about high end audio.

Some of the portable systems available today are quite good (actually surprisingly good), but still not high-end. The few headphone rigs that are truly high end all use heavy, stationary headphone amps and traditional high-end sources. Still, the areas of portable-fi & head-fi will make crucial contributions to preserving the high-end IMO. They'll do a lot (and are already doing a lot) to bring young people into the fold of interest in high quality audio reproduction; some of these guys will go from there to hifi 2ch, vinyl, etc. In return they'll demand lossless media. As long as we got young folks getting into the hobby, all sould be OK

zombie boy 2000

dorokusai wrote: »

I sure hope so.

Too funny, yet my sentiments exactly.

RuSsMaN

I couldn't agree more Shack. It may not be mainstream, but there are always niche markets - and as you said, vinyl is huge, tubes are back AND affordable (the transistor / integrated circuit was supposed to be end of the tube, remember?).

The problem with the digital movement is there is no movement. There is a mechanicalness (is that a word?) to audio. That's why it's mainly a mans hobby, just like hotrods, fishing, woodworking etc.

You open your cd case, place the cd in the tray, press play, hear it spin up, remove and read through liner and production notes,etc. Pull the record from it's sleeve, blow on it, look at it, set it on the platter and let it spin, run the brush back and forth on it, drop the needle, etc etc.

Wheels are turning, things are happening, you can SEE it happen and be in control of it. Right clicking, or thumbing over a selection just isn't the same.

There is a romance of sorts, an involvement a listener has in the experience. The digital world cannot offer that, and that's why it will NEVER completely wipe out media formats like vinyl and cd. You don't need to even mention sound quality. HiFi is here to stay.

Cheers,
Russ

NeilGabriel

I have never had the money to be into really high end equipment and have lacked the patience to understand as much about the electronics as I would like. I have read a lot about lossless compression formats and download music that way from time to time. I just added a 250gig external hard drive to store music on and have been exploring the various ways to wireless connect with my audio system. My son, who is 17, thinks music/stereo is all about playing his digitized music on his computer. We both use Napster and that has been fun for us (he doesnt live with me). But, I just gave him a bunch of vintage components including some Polk 5 jrs and 7s and a Yamaha int. amp so he could appreciate med fi/hi fi. He seems impressed.

MLZ

I think the fact that Sterophile Magazine http://www.stereophile.com/computeraudio/http://www.stereophile.com/computeraudio/ has been reviewing network players (Slim Device's Squeeze Box, Roku's SoundBridge, etc.) to play music ripped to "music servers" shows that these devices are coming of age for both quality of sound and usability.

FYI: I am quite satisfied with the sound quality, love the way I can organize my music collection and that I boxed up my 500+ CDs and put them in a closet.

The main problem I see is one now has to now understand networking, computer operating systems, pros and cons of music formats to be ripped to, etc.

Ricardo

Is hi fi dead?

No.

sucks2beme

Now they have to worry about a virus wiping out their music library!

jakelm

Is there a difference in Mp3's? I have seen many times Mp3 in 128, 190, up to 320. When ripping my CD's to Mp3, I try to go with the highest bitrate. Am I wasting my time? I am not familiar with FLAC that I hear time and time again. If comparing Mp3 with FLAC, what are some differences? I understand that FLAC does take up much more space than Mp3 (at a low bitrate). I know iPod has lossless compresion, where you can still get pretty close to original and able to play it from an iPod, but what about a high bitrate Mp3, or what would some of you do to copy songs for Mp3 and not loose "alot" of Sq?

I appologize if I'm highjacking this thread and the stupid questions, but with the subject of Hi-Fi brought up and myself just stepping in the lossless digital world, I thought this would be a good place to ask.

madmax

I think archiving music in anything less than lossless is silly. A friend and I sat down one evening and figured out we could put his whole CD collection of 300 CD's on 6 DVD's in the lossless format. At todays prices you could put it all on a hard drive, re-copy at a reduced rate (for very low memory players or whatever) and also copy to DVD as a backup for less than $100.
madmax

mhardy6647

Wheels are turning, things are happening, you can SEE it happen and be in control of it. Right clicking, or thumbing over a selection just isn't the same.

Not to mention... not owing a physical copy of the content you've paid for just isn't the same, either.

treitz3

As long as there are HI-FI fanatics [like me] out there, no, HI-FI is not dead. IMO it will revive, but it may take twenty or thirty years to make a real comback.:eek:

I am not alone.

steveinaz

I've had sex with a blow-up doll, Shack is right, it ain't the same as the real thing.

cfrizz

As long as there is music, hi fi will not die. Change yes, but die no.

madmax

steveinaz wrote: »

I've had sex with a blow-up doll, Shack is right, it ain't the same as the real thing.

ABX comparison at the next polkfest?
madmax

fatchowmein

If you own CD's, why not archive them in lossless format? Fry's been advertising 400 and 500GB drives for $99-$120. Buy 2 and mirror them. Do not load the operating system on them and you "should" be fine most of the time.

I currently have a raid 5 setup with four 400GB drives. My music is ripped using EAC but as wave files instead of mp3. With .wav I can always throw in a cd and burn a cd copy instead of having to search through a large box of archived music cd's.

I use MediaMonkey to tag. It's free except when you want to use it to convert to mp3. If you want to do that there's a bunch of sofware out there. I like razerlame. It's free.

If you don't like the size of wave files, you could use flac or ape or have itunes convert the songs to Apple Lossless even though I dislike proprietory formats. I use wave files because it's universal and I can pipe it out to my Xbox 360 and directly to my system using the optical cable. One day, when I stop pouring money into my computers, I may have some change left to buy a good DAC.

Of course, since I'm using wave files and an Xbox 360, everything has to go through Windows Media Player 11 meaning I have to make sure the tags are updating correctly even after I've used MediaMonkey.

Is it all a big pain in the rear (time consuming)? You bet! But it's beautiful when my wife can search cd covers and find what she wants to play.

There's still alot that can be improved when it comes to digital music recording, playback, and storage but things have improved so no, I don't think hi-fi is dead.

Just please let's get the masses off 128bit mp3's and get rid of DRM so I can rip a cd, sacd, dvd-a to a future cell phone/portable music player/blackberry that I can attach to my car audio system.

fatchowmein

Sorry, that was a rambling, hodge-podge of drivel I wrote. My point is as convenience becomes easily affordable and attainable to the masses without jumping through hoops and tweaking to the nth degree (like my system), the masses will then go for quality as it becomes affordable.

hearingimpared

All this is very interesting and I believe that Hi-Fi is alive and well the problem is what it is morphing into. My son bought me the LP set of Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Stadium Arcadium." This is great music but the music is so compressed even on the LPs that it looses that excitement that I get from great music.

My son was here a couple of weeks ago and I was demonstrating how emotion provoking vinyl can be with numberous recordings. When we got to the RHCPs he, the guy who has an 80Gb iPod in his ears all the time, said that it sounded flat and compressed. That is a huge dilema in my opinion.

George Grand

Dead as a doornail. Has been for years. The tiny fraction of music listeners that actually SIT DOWN AND LISTEN (not to be confused with the people who buy cost-no-object-systems and then walk around doing other things while the music is playing), and the even tinier fraction of the worlds population that even cares remotely about something even close to accurate reproduction, do not constitute life. Maybe more like a body that is being kept alive by machines, than actual life. Maybe even something like a vegetative state. Not really life again.

I have enough spares to last me the rest of my life. They'll have to discontinue the use of electricity or something before I have to get worried. As for promoting it (accurate sound and SITTING DOWN AND LISTENING TO IT), why should I give a rats **** if anybody else does it or not? It's my hobby, and if I wanted to share it, there'd be two chairs in my listening room. There isn't.

schwarcw

Oh George, look at history. Everything is cyclical. As soon as the IPod generation becomes 40 or 50 with some disposable income the world of Hi Fi will open up their ears to all that they have been missing. It will become a whirlwind of demand for high quality electronics. ****, this happended to our own generation. What was your first music source? A transistor radio? It was for me! I battery operated Motorola 7 transistor with an ear plug. I loved that thing. I listened to it in bed, I fell in love with the Righteous Brothers sining you lost that Loving Feeling, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, Ronny and the Daytona's the 4 tops, Supremes, Mavelettes, on and on. It was for ten years that i realized to benefits of sterophonic sound from two speakers, a separate amp and turntable. The world of sound opened up for me. I will go on record and venture to say that our IPod kids will experience a similiar hi fi mutation. Different music, different equipment, different formats, but definately high fi sound, better than we know it now!

markmarc

HiFi isn't dead, but it is evolving, much of it for the worse because it is pandering to the lowest sonic standard. This trend can be reversed, starting with the end of DRM. Secondly, the return of sanity to the final mastering in limiting the compression and the volume boosting to distortion levels. Third, the demise of big box shops, which will continue and the march to internet-direct model, and quite possibly the reincarnation of mom and pop shops in large markets.

treitz3

NeilGabriel wrote:

As an above average stereo junky, I have never believed that digital files and miniature sound cards could play the quality of a decent stereo system.

You have just graduated in my book.;)

cfrizz

You got it Carl! Right now the kids want to take their music with them while they are on the go. Once they start slowing down, have more money & time, they will still want their music with them in the house...Audio shopping time!!!

schwarcw wrote: »

Oh George, look at history. Everything is cyclical. As soon as the IPod generation becomes 40 or 50 with some disposable income the world of Hi Fi will open up their ears to all that they have been missing. It will become a whirlwind of demand for high quality electronics. ****, this happended to our own generation. What was your first music source? A transistor radio? It was for me! I battery operated Motorola 7 transistor with an ear plug. I loved that thing. I listened to it in bed, I fell in love with the Righteous Brothers sining you lost that Loving Feeling, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, Ronny and the Daytona's the 4 tops, Supremes, Mavelettes, on and on. It was for ten years that i realized to benefits of sterophonic sound from two speakers, a separate amp and turntable. The world of sound opened up for me. I will go on record and venture to say that our IPod kids will experience a similiar hi fi mutation. Different music, different equipment, different formats, but definately high fi sound, better than we know it now!

TroyD

Well, it really depends on what you consider hifi.

The high end is probably as healthy, if not moreso, than ever.

The fact is, the general population couldn't give a rats **** about what we would consider high fidelity. The kicker is, they never have.

Sure, year ago, everyone had LP's and a turntable, but that wasn't hifi. It was the iPod of today. Go to a thrift or good will and look at the LP's. The vast majority are monuments to the ignorance of how to care for an LP. Then people migrated to the cassette, because it was EASIER and more convenient. Which is also why the CD caught on. The supposed 'perfect sound forever' thing was ancilliary. Even more convenient than casette.

The market that IS shrinking is the midfi stereo crowd. The crowd that would buy a decent stereo receiver or entry level separates. A decent (technics, garrard, dual) turntable and a good pair of speakers (think Polk Monitor 7's, 10's)

THIS is the market I see in decline. HT has taken it's bite and lower cost alternatives (everything to iPods to the lack of decent hifi shops) have seductively lured this crowd away.

However, OUR particular flavor of hifi (upper midfi) from a software stand point is as healthy as ever. The availability of good recordings is probably as good now as ever. There is a glaring lack of new material worthy of good recording but that's another subject.

From a hardware standpoint, we are in pretty good shape too. Quality turntables are probably as cheap as they ever have been. There is decent gear available and it's reasonably priced. There is GREAT (ASL, Rogue etc) tube gear that is VERY reasonable.

Fear not lasses and lads, we are doing ok.

BDT

zombie boy 2000

TroyD wrote: »

There is a glaring lack of new material worthy of good recording but that's another subject.
BDT

I think this only seems to be the case simply because so many great musicians have been leaning toward a lo-fi aesthetic for quite some time. Sonic Youth comes off as a perfect example. Whether or not this was in response to the overly produced bombast of many artists in the late '70's or simply a lack of funds in the studio is up for debate.... I personally think it's a combination of the two.

The material is out there in spades. But it is hindered by DIY marketing and the general population's inability to know a well-crafted song when they hear one.

But as you said.... another subject for another day.