During much of recent history, there has been a organization or group that was kind of the standard bearer - which kind of influenced the immediate future of high-end audio: hardware, attitudes, evaluation techniques, etc.

I wonder if this is no longer true - that we as a culture, and especially we as a hobby, have been fractured so much that we are just composed of a lot of different groups, based on some [I would say fantasy] of shared interests - and I ponder if most or all of these are just cul-de-sacs, and lot of niche dead-ends.

In the past [and correct / assist me if need be] we had:

Stereo magazine - Measurements are king

Stereophile - Measurements are still king, but the king is wearing shorts

The Absolute Sound/HP - subjective listening is King

Audiogon - pluralism and shills are king

Audio Asylum - pluralism and nastiness are king

Audio Circle - Discounts, pluralism and disinformation shills are king

…

Lately though, I think none of these sites is any longer dominant. HP reviews and Stereophile reviews and Audiogon and Audio Circle pumps no longer sell that much product. They are no longer guiding the industry.

Perhaps that is because the economy and politics are so dominating the culture these days [the middle class is too poor to buy anything and the wealthy are buying things left and right when they are not scared out of their wits]. So we have lots of very expensive gear and lots of very cheap gear - not much in-between.

And, somehow, the social networks got people hearing lots and lots of opinions, often believing and valuing what a complete stranger tells them.

The only way I have seen out of this mess, this tower of Babble [but better than the old days of a single dominant player!] is to rate things based on many different aspects. Not sure if this would work for Yelp or other rating sites - but we got whole spectrums of lean < --- > warm, dynamic < --- > closed-in, accurate versus non-accurate, etc. etc. and many more which we have talked about and listed on this blog and website many times.

That way instead of ‘it sucks’ we can get ‘it is warm sounding’ and instead of ‘its the best’ we can get them to say ‘it has good dynamic bass’. This would result in the neutering the shills [and the rest of the hyperbole-generating hordes ] because, although their goals is to convince everyone that a products is the best for everyone on this and every other planet, all they can now say is, for example, is that it has ‘great dynamics’ - letting all the people who like a more laid back presentation know that this is not for them.

Anyway, our hobby/industry is getting swept up along with all the other more modern industries by what is happening outside the listening room. Sure is fun to watch

Got this in our email box. Kind of hard to read there… so hopefully easier here:

… and it is. For me anyway.

This whole idea that people can say “XXX mixed on XYZ equipment and therefore - how did they put it - playing the music on their equipment is ‘exactly how it was intended to be heard’” is really kind of BS. Don’t you agree?

I mean lots of music gets mixed with EmmLabs A to D equipment. Great bragging rights but IMHO the music produced with their equipment is intended to sound good. Period.

Play it back on better equipment it is going to sound… better. Period.

I mean, they mix using Genelec speakers? What then? What about old Watt Puppy 5’s? From my conversations mixing engineers use speakers that they feel comfortable with, that they can stand listening to for many hours at a time, and that they feel reveals nuances that they believe they need to hear in order to conjure the best results - i.e. it needs enough bass, for example, so they can make sure the bass is not too soft or too overwhelming.

This has nothing to do with enjoyment, or accuracy, or drug-like effects or anything that we who are playing back music are concerned about [in general. for some people making it sound like it did in the studio, no matter how good or bad, is what they want. It is like wanting the original lighting that a painting was painted with, as opposed to optimum lighting to highlight the overall viewing pleasures]

Anyway - curious to see how these sound in surround sound - all but abandoned by the audiophile world and a goodly amount of the home theater world, if the show setups and economy are any indication . I mean, Wish You Were Here *is* my 5th fave Pink Floyd album … or so [ which is one of my top 5 Rock and Roll bands, so, yeah, I like it OK ]

I was listening to our Audio Note Kegon amplifiers, which use a 300B tube.

Now, in general, I prefer the sound of the 211 tubes, found in the Ongaku and Gaku On, and now the Jinro, amplifiers.

But there was something about the 300B sound that really appeals to me.

It *seems* like it reminds me of the sound and feelings I get when I think of the 60s. Nostalgia is an interesting emotion - and hard to describe and hard to know how other people relate to their own nostalgic feelings. And a lot of it is probably just ‘lost youth’.

But this particular 300B sound - and all 300B amps will be sound different, and very few will have the kick-ass control these amps have over the speakers [making for tighter, more accurate dynamics] - but this sound reminds me of old James Bond movies [which seemed luxurious and futuristic back-in-the day], and people who smiled on the street [in Boulder, people walk around in this preoccupied, politely apathetic state-of-mind], bright colors [what happened to all the colors, anyway?], and endless possibilities [they are still endless, but I am too tired to consider all of them realistic anymore].

Of course, this nostalgia giving rise to enjoyment of the 300B is not limited to ’sound’, but to music genres as well [classic rock anyone?]. Even Jazz leaves me nostalgic - for the time 10-15 years ago when we were just starting out on this audiophile journey.

And, check this out… if you want to like Rap, or Opera [and don’t already]. Just play it for awhile, the wait a few years, and then play it again. The nostalgia you will feel THEN for the music you play TODAY will make the music much more enjoyable. Weird but true, huh?

… to all sorts of pleasant and annoying noises in our environment?

Is traffic noise getting louder and louder and getting more and more resolution? Kind of a pisser this is.

Are you able to identify the many missing frequencies in the music they play at the gym or at Whole Foods [just fill in the places where YOU experience ambient music]. Kind of shocking that music can still be identified and sometimes even enjoyable in all its sparseness.

Do you find yourself hearing the various resonances in peoples voices and comparing their subtle differences to the singers you listen to most often? Cool huh?

… etc.

We are not X-Men (or Alphas) but we do enjoy a degree of extra sensory hearing power. Lovin’ it.

As you all may remember, the Rocky Mountain Audiofest is coming right up on the 14th, 15th and 16th of October:

RMAF

T.H.E. Show also just put out a newsletter:

The Show Las Vegas mostly about the Newport Show and lots of rumors [but Home Theater? I personally enjoy home theater but I think the bubble has burst on that front. Try something like ‘Tablet-driven Audio/Video systems’ and we might actually get some ordinary people to these shows]

We will have a 100% Audio Note room at RMAF and maybe even two of them

Seeing some of the promotional material for these shows… *sigh*. It’s not getting any more honest and ethical out there, is it?

Most of the rags give out several hundred variations on an ‘Award’ each year - pretty much to everything they review or want to review or see or have heard of. And then the more desperate? clueless? market-savvy??? manufacturers display these awards as if they meant something real.

Maybe our next magazine should be called “Serious F*cking Audio”? Or maybe “Not Your Average Pandering Crap High-end Audio”? [Nah. Too long ].

There is a reason the ‘Academy Awards’ (Oscars) have some significance in the motion picture industry [besides affecting consumer buying behavior]. They don’t give out 100 Best Actor awards and 50 Best Picture awards.

I am going to make a prediction here…

Most of my predictions are pretty good, but my timing is usually way, WAY off. Just sayin’.

I predict that most of the music and movies we have known will sometime in the not-to-distant future be… persona-non-Grata. Unwelcome to the average listener.

The logic goes like this. Many of you may know that Netflix had to raise their prices by 60% yesterday. Why? Because the Recording Industry is charging them much more than a year ago. Think: 10 times as much.

But we can all watch YouTube for free [maybe a commercial].

The idea is that there will be a time when there are so many bands and movie makers making content for free - AND that they will be so easy to find - that listening to someone LIKE Miles Davis for free will beat paying $100/month to corporations that sue little old ladies for downloading music and blind guys for downloading porn.

I think artists will make money not by selling content but by selling tickets to shows - and other methods by which they work with the music/movie lover instead of suing them. What a concept huh?

I think this could happen at any time - but is most likely in the next 5 to 10 years.

Before that we will probably see micro-payments where you pay a few cents per minute and can listen/see anything you want [Do you realize that at $1/song itunes is - if each song is 3 minutes long, they make $20/hour off of someone who is just exploring new music? -This is where.how we have always been kind of ripped off. Buying an album, hoping it will be good because you heard of one of the artists before or because of the cool cover…. been there, done that 1000s of times. Gets expensive and is usually unsatisfactory.]