Are we are a dying breed?

[Lordie82360now]

I find it interesting that my son’s family with three children 10 and under are all tuned into Echoes, Alexa, Amazon music, PS5 and Nintendo switches with a gigantic TV screen. Even the four year old can control everything and get music on tap around the house. To them the quality doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not buzzing!
Compare that to when he and his sister were young at home my system was sacrosanct and not for little hands as far as I was concerned. It did, however, educate them to what they termed “old man’s music” which they have a good working knowledge even now. Far better than their peers!
My son thought it was a wizard wheeze when very young to eat chunks out of the foam grills on my Heybrook HB2’s and a little later stack small cars into the reflex ports. He thought it was so funny when I turned the volume up as they flew out the back and smashed into the wall!
So I agree that we are a dying breed and when they all come around to ours they are confused to have to use my iPad or iPhone to control my system or even switch things on and off. The grandkids don’t like my music - understandable - although the oldest has begun to show a penchant for some Kraftwerk tracks played loud.
There maybe hope yet!

[Geoff.R.G]

Audiophiles may be a dying breed but music certainly isn't in any danger, except from governments that see "The Arts" as a waste of money. I well remember playing records as a teenager and wanting the best sound, as I got older I could afford better but there came a point where I stopped buying equipment. The last purchase was my Quad 99 system bought largely because it could be controlled remotely and I already had a Quad 34, 306, FM4 system. My turntable is 45 years old, my tape recorder is 42. Why did I stop striving for better sound? Simple answer I got involved in live sound and discovered that what we get on recordings is rarely what we hear live.

Peter Walker's mantra was "the closest approach to the original sound" a great aspiration. Unfortunately there is a lot between the original sound and the input, mechanical or electronic, to a Hi-Fi system. Everything between the vibrating string or vocal cord has its own response curve and that immediately changes the sound. Add in the effects of the mixing desk and equalisation and what comes out of the venue speakers isn't the "original" sound. There's no way I can reproduce that sound in my living room.

Another factor is the distorted view of the industry, I don't doubt that many manufacturers are trying to produce equipment that accurately reproduces the input signal but some aren't. We don't really know what makes a speaker "good" or "bad" though we certainly know when the designer gets it wrong.

In tend to think that the younger generation have it right, they don't worry about "fidelity" they worry about the music not the hardware. Perhaps we could learn from them and enjoy the music without getting into harshness or instability. I know many young musicians and they are happy to use their phones to learn songs but they certainly know when the end result of their efforts sounds good.

I think the real problem is that too many people want a slice of the cake and that puts the price of "Hi-Fi" equipment out of the range of the young. Gone are the days when a rather decent sound could be achieved at a low cost. I won't be buying any new equipment any time soon, I won't be buying any new cameras either, I might look into going to more live music though.

[CN211276]

In tend to think that the younger generation have it right, they don't worry about "fidelity" they worry about the music not the hardware.

Fidelity is not so important with modern mastering of most of today's popular music. The situation was very different 40-50 years ago.

[Geoff.R.G]

In tend to think that the younger generation have it right, they don't worry about "fidelity" they worry about the music not the hardware.

Fidelity is not so important with modern mastering of most of today's popular music. The situation was very different 40-50 years ago.

I have found that, once you demonstrate what music can sound like without compression, young people actually appreciate dynamics.

[slinger]

When CD quality data rates can be carried over Bluetooth, then that will be a big step towards marrying quality to convenience. The 'standard' for it is currently being negotiated by the different companies involved in its development.

Once that facility is available, and reliable, NVA will make an integrated amplifier with built-in Bluetooth.

[CN211276]

https://darko.audio/2024/03/cd-quality- ... -worth-it/

I think CD quality bluetooth is a long way off.

[slinger]

This is from John Darko's site, dated March of this year...

Lossless audio over Bluetooth? It used to be a pipe dream. Now, according to Qualcomm, it’s a reality. Over the last few weeks and months, I’ve been listening to music through three sets of true wireless IEMs, all supporting Qualcomm’s latest flavour of aptX: aptX Lossless. This, in theory, adds the lossless handling of CD-quality (but not hi-res) audio to the Bluetooth headphone experience. Those TW IEMs are the Denon Perl Pro, the Bose QC Ultra and the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4. Plug ’em in your ears, hit play and let the good times roll?

Not so fast.

Before the advent of aptX Lossless, all Bluetooth audio codecs were lossy — they discarded audio data to fit the digital signal inside Bluetooth’s narrow data pipe. According to Qualcomm, over 1Mbps is required to carry CD-quality signals from smartphone (‘source’) to headphones (‘sink’) without audio data loss. The closest we could previously get was LDAC’s 990kbps. Close, but no cigar.

But there was – and still is – a gotcha. According to Sony, LDAC doesn’t always operate at 990kbps. When faced with Bluetooth congestion or a weaker Bluetooth signal, the source will drop LDAC’s transmission rate to 660kbps. In worst-case scenarios, it’ll step down to 330kbps, only scaling up again as conditions improve. In other words, the source device dynamically adjusts LDAC’s bitrate according to environmental conditions. Remember this — we’ll be coming back to it.

Qualcomm asserts that its aptX Lossless codec operates at between 1.1 and 1.2Mbps. However, a true wireless earphone manufacturer told me that Qualcomm has gone beyond the Bluetooth specification (overseen by the Bluetooth SIG) to get there: “The BT radio is configured/operated outside the BT SIG specification; it is proprietary to Qualcomm, and specified as part of their Snapdragon Sound certification.”

FULL ARTICLE

[savvypaul]

Hi-res bluetooth at home is a lot less challenging to achieve than 'on the go'.

[Vinyl-ant]

Part of the reason i havent got any bluetooth headphones is that the most reliable tidal streaming bitrate when on the move in my area without dropouts is 320kbps. Along with the limited bluetooth bitrate to a set of cans there seems no real point in buying any. The inconvenience of a wire seems to be a reasonable trade off. I have used my daughters sony wm1000 xm3 cans, and they were objectively worse sounding than the p7s i usually use. This is using ldac as the codec

In the house with quality set to max bitrate, they were more obviously worse compared to the p7s when playing high bitrate stuff, probably because they were limited by the bluetooth bitrate. At normal cd bitrate they made sense, in the house.
But in the house i use the sundaras so its largely irrelevant.

Im still a luddite, im not convinced by bluetooth yet but it will get there eventually. These consumer driven things always do, everyone wants the one that goes to 11 rather than 10

[CN211276]

With WiFi there is less need for hi res bluetooth in the home than the more challenging environment outside. I do not find a wired connection outside much of an inconvenience providing the DAC headphone amp is small. My Chord Mojo is fine for the garden and picks up the WiFi from the house. Out walking I need something smaller which fits into my pocket with the phone. After a lot of deliberation I have just pulled the trigger on the Questyle M12i. It will be interesting to see how it compares, to these ears, to the AQ ones I have used previously.