Thoughts on the future of HiFi

[Ajani]

I need a bit of distraction from real life at the moment, so I figured time for a new thread (actually I may start a few others soon)....

So let me start with my thoughts on the future of HiFi:

I think the folks at Chord Electronics are possibly the most forward thinking persons in HiFi at the moment. The Chordette and a few of Chord's more expensive DACs have a feature that I truly believe will be the future of HiFi – Bluetooth (or some kind of wireless tech)... These DACs are able to access the files directly from your bluetooth enabled cellphone or portable device... Now while I think Chord is crazy to have released such tech years (maybe even a decade) before I can see it being really practical for most persons, I do think it is the logical next step in Music Sever audio... Forget iPod docks with digital outputs, music streamers, HDD music servers, etc... Imagine walking around with your entire music library on a 2TB cellphone/tablet and being able to use wireless to send that info to your home stereo or your friend's stereo (when you visit) and still have that device as the controller for your system... Right now many affordable Music Server options are rather convoluted as you need a storage device, a streamer and a remote... Imagine having your iPhone/Android/iPad/whatever as all 3...

I don't really foresee any other radical change in HiFi... CD will continue to fade out and eventually die, Vinyl will likely still remain a niche market, SS vs Tube is unlikely to be 'resolved', cable debates will continue, planar fans will remain planar fans and box fans will remain box fans... Audio Note will still be a religion (LOL – sorry I could resist a cheap shot at RGA – I'm just kidding though)... The only thing that might gain some traction is Class D amplification – because of the new tech in the NAD M2, which might revolutionize Class D (MIGHT being the operative word)... Oh and expect on-line sales both direct from manufacturers and from used/new dealers to continue to grow...

Any other thoughts? Agree? Disagree?

[audio amateur]

Yes, i think CDs are a dying species, and I don't believe that they will be a part of the next generation of selling formats. However, there are so many of them and so many CD compatible players, it may take awhile to see that medium go away.

[Ajani]

Yes, i think CDs are a dying species, and I don't believe that they will be a part of the next generation of selling formats. However, there are so many of them and so many CD compatible players, it may take awhile to see that medium go away.

I think CD players will be gone long before the actual discs are... Since many of us, music server users, buy our music on CDs and then rip it to our HDDs... Until downloads from iTunes, Amazon, etc are all lossless then CDs are likely to keep on selling...

[audio amateur]

Well that would mostly be Audiophiles then. I don't think your average listener gives a hoot whether it's lossless or not. Especially with such online music streaming options as Spotify and Deezer, music sales are inevitably falling. I really do wonder where the music industry is heading...

[Ajani]

Well that would mostly be Audiophiles then. I don't think your average listener gives a hoot whether it's lossless or not. Especially with such online music streaming options as Spotify and Deezer, music sales are inevitably falling. I really do wonder where the music industry is heading...

Lossless and high res formats will be more prevalent eventually... MP3 only gained traction as a format for space saving reasons... they are quick to download and easy to store... With 1TB drives available so cheaply and broadband Internet access common, there is less and less need for low res...

Apple's decision last year to upgrade iTunes downloads from 128K AAC to 256K AAC is a clear sign of the direction downloads are going... Even Amazon uses 256K MP3... So the next move will be lossless - which will offer Apple and Amazon a chance to "upgrade" customers purchased songs to lossless for a "small fee" per song (as Apple did with the last upgrade)...

[PDN]

Yes perhaps in the future the concept of a "disc" will be done away with but let's not discount the pleasure derived from browsing a music store, listening to a few CDs, and then making your purchase. I love doing this and have for years and look forward to it each time. I like to come home, pop in the CD or DVD, and read the liner notes. I don't see CDs and DVDs dying at all for now. Walk into an FYE or Barnes & Noble and there are still thousands of CDs and DVDs being sold. I'm building my collection of SACDs now and love the new format. The market here is for remastering older lousy sounding recorded CDs of earlier classic rock, symphony music, jazz greats, etc. I think the future of multi-channel SACDs is bright and new SACDs are being added daily. Yes I'm middle aged and perhaps when we're all not here any longer, then maybe CDs will fade away. There are still many types of audiophile CD and SACD players still being produced. I look forward to someday upgrading to a new unit but for now, my Marantz Universal multi-channel SACD player sounds fabulous. LPs have long been predicted to fade away and they have not. New turntables are being manufactured everyday. So in my humble and hopeful opinion, music on discs is here for a while yet. Blu-ray is just starting to take off and that's all on DVD disc media.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I have to agree with Ajani on one point. Music delivery for the masses absolutely will be in the form of downloads in the future, not disc. High resolution music will come in two flavors, a download, or a disc. Disc still have the advantage in this area, as there is more high resolution music on disc, than there is available for download.

Music servers will also be big, when they can get the prices down so the average Joe can afford it. In the mean time, there is a poor man's server consisting of 1-2TB of storage, and a media player. I currently have 3 2TB drives daisy chained that I have losslessly downloaded all of my music to, 3 TB of actual storage, and 3TB of backup.

High quality USB DAC are also becoming the rage, which is great for the Ipod and any other portable music device.

Vinyl will remain niche, and CD disc will soon be also if it exists at all.

[Feanor]

I have to agree with Ajani on one point. Music delivery for the masses absolutely will be in the form of downloads in the future, not disc. High resolution music will come in two flavors, a download, or a disc. Disc still have the advantage in this area, as there is more high resolution music on disc, than there is available for download.

Music servers will also be big, when they can get the prices down so the average Joe can afford it. In the mean time, there is a poor man's server consisting of 1-2TB of storage, and a media player. I currently have 3 2TB drives daisy chained that I have losslessly downloaded all of my music to, 3 TB of actual storage, and 3TB of backup.

High quality USB DAC are also becoming the rage, which is great for the Ipod and any other portable music device.

Vinyl will remain niche, and CD disc will soon be also if it exists at all.

As for downloads, they won't work for me 'till I get a lot better Internet speeds from my ISP than at present; I'm rarely faster than 1.5 Mbps even though I'm supposed to get "up to 5 Mbps". Rogers, (one of two major providers where I am), offers "up to 25 Mbps" but that costs $100/mo. which is over my limit for a luxury.

I would like to see more multi-channel however distributed. SACD or Blu-ray disc would be fine with me provided I can legally rip at least RBCD quality to hard disc. Hybrid SACDs are fine in this regard -- what about Blu-ray?????

As a Classical listener 95% of what I want to buy is still on CD; the rest is available on SACD which option I choose of the performance is acceptable.

[poppachubby]

As for downloads, they won't work for me 'till I get a lot better Internet speeds from my ISP than at present; I'm rarely faster than 1.5 Mbps even though I'm supposed to get "up to 5 Mbps". Rogers, (one of two major providers where I am), offers "up to 25 Mbps" but that costs $100/mo. which is over my limit for a luxury.

I would like to see more multi-channel however distributed. SACD or Blu-ray disc would be fine with me provided I can legally rip at least RBCD quality to hard disc. Hybrid SACDs are fine in this regard -- what about Blu-ray?????

As a Classical listener 95% of what I want to buy is still on CD; the rest is available on SACD which option I choose of the performance is acceptable.

Bill are you kidding?!? 1.5 Mbps is like lightning speed. A typical torrent would come in under a minute I bet. A full discography in ten. I think that's great!! I only have 350 kbps but I am happy with it. My buddy has the package you have and it's stupid fast.

I am making some major moves here at the homestead. My computer will be moving upstairs, to merge with my H/T. I plan on upgrading to a capable BR and CD player, whether that's seperate or not I'm not sure.

Basically I will slowly upgrade my H/T. My 2 channel is approaching a level I can live with. I want to finish retubing the SE40 and then will begin saving for a +$1K TT.

I'm actually excited about it. Lately I have REALLY been enjoying my digital in the H/T. My Jazz DVDs are super fun and sound great. It will mean more time spent enjoying my hobby on the main level of the house. In the summertime, that's important. Sorry about the rambling.

I'll be looking for help from all of you futuristic, sci fi audio types.

[Feanor]

Bill are you kidding?!? 1.5 Mbps is like lightning speed. A typical torrent would come in under a minute I bet. A full discography in ten. I think that's great!! I only have 350 kbps but I am happy with it. My buddy has the package you have and it's stupid fast.

...

Would I kid you, Chad? No, but I guess I lied: today I'm getting more like 2.4 Mbps. Here's my speed result from from Speedtest.net ...



Note that I'm using Odynet in London, here. Their price for "up to 5 Mbps" is C$35/mo; this is no better than Rogers or Bell, but I have the satisfaction of not dealing with either of the corporate gougers.

Tisk, tisk!! What are you Torrentling? Don't you know that most of that stuff is pirated? (If I torrented anything, I won't admit it. )

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

As for downloads, they won't work for me 'till I get a lot better Internet speeds from my ISP than at present; I'm rarely faster than 1.5 Mbps even though I'm supposed to get "up to 5 Mbps". Rogers, (one of two major providers where I am), offers "up to 25 Mbps" but that costs $100/mo. which is over my limit for a luxury.

I understand your boggle. I am very very luck though. I live right across the street from the switch box, and when I had DSL I was getting 6.0mbps, exactly what I was paying for in spite of a lot of people in my area having it. Now I have the 24.5mbps package with fibre optics all the way up to the house, and nobody in the neighborhood has it. I am now getting speeds up to 35mbps, so downloads and streaming are quite a hit in my place.

$100 buck for 24.5mbps?? That is insane. I am paying $45 bucks for that!

I would like to see more multi-channel however distributed. SACD or Blu-ray disc would be fine with me provided I can legally rip at least RBCD quality to hard disc. Hybrid SACDs are fine in this regard -- what about Blu-ray?????

Managed copy has been implemented on Blu ray, but nobody has encoded it on disk yet.

As a Classical listener 95% of what I want to buy is still on CD; the rest is available on SACD which option I choose of the performance is acceptable.

My collection is mostly classical as well, but I have a fair amount of Jazz and Gospel in the mix. I am on the screeners list for Surround Records and 2L, so all of my new music has been in the form of Blu ray disc. CD is still the biggest part of my collection, and most of it has been ripped and stored on a 2TB drive that I can access anywhere in the house.

[pixelthis]

there will always be a place for "HI-FI", but the equipment will change.
AS LONG AS there are old farts there will be big honkin amps and speakers,
and antique input sources like records and CD's.
But it will gradually fade, the big explosion of HI FI that got started in
the fifties will eventually disapear.
End of an era, and very sad, really.

[Feanor]

...

$100 buck for 24.5mbps?? That is insane. I am paying $45 bucks for that!

...

Ain't that the truth. It's really just competition or, more precisely, lack of it.

Two outfits dominate the ISP business around here: Rogers, as mentioned, and Bell Canada. Rogers, which is cable-based, seems to have the technical advantage and can offer much higher speeds than Bell which is DSL. Rogers only just matches Bell's price for similar capacity, (as do a few minor players). But Rogers is the only one with the infrastructure to deliver above 10 Mbps and they charge whatever they like above that level.

[frenchmon]

Yes perhaps in the future the concept of a "disc" will be done away with but let's not discount the pleasure derived from browsing a music store, listening to a few CDs, and then making your purchase. I love doing this and have for years and look forward to it each time. I like to come home, pop in the CD or DVD, and read the liner notes. I don't see CDs and DVDs dying at all for now. Walk into an FYE or Barnes & Noble and there are still thousands of CDs and DVDs being sold. I'm building my collection of SACDs now and love the new format. The market here is for remastering older lousy sounding recorded CDs of earlier classic rock, symphony music, jazz greats, etc. I think the future of multi-channel SACDs is bright and new SACDs are being added daily. Yes I'm middle aged and perhaps when we're all not here any longer, then maybe CDs will fade away. There are still many types of audiophile CD and SACD players still being produced. I look forward to someday upgrading to a new unit but for now, my Marantz Universal multi-channel SACD player sounds fabulous. LPs have long been predicted to fade away and they have not. New turntables are being manufactured everyday. So in my humble and hopeful opinion, music on discs is here for a while yet. Blu-ray is just starting to take off and that's all on DVD disc media.

I totally feel you in this posting.

[poppachubby]

NIche me.

[audio amateur]

Check out the upload speed
I know this doesn't count, I'm using a computer at school...

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Check out the upload speed
I know this doesn't count, I'm using a computer at school...

I must admit, I have never seen a situation where the upload speed is faster than the download speed. That is really new and unique.....

[E-Stat]

I must admit, I have never seen a situation where the upload speed is faster than the download speed. That is really new and unique.....

The IT department gets all the fun toys.

rw

[YBArcam]

I know it's just a budget amp, but nothing has given me the tightness in bass that the Audiolab 8000S has. Dynamic, really tight, great visceral impact - and great for rock. My Exposure 2010s2 and my old YBA YA201 couldn't give the same effect. Now that might be down to the 8000S's high damping factor and high peak current, and perhaps other aspects of the sound are similar to those other SS amps (I haven't compared closely enough to know for sure). But in my mind there is no doubt it sounds very different to those other two amps because of it's low end performance. That part of the sound really jumps out at me when I'm listening.

And as discussed, negative feedback can be either increased or decreased. And if it has such a large effect on perceived sound quality then surely this ability to tailor it will also lead to different sounding SS amps.

I think there are some definite sonic differences, but perhaps not to the extent that there are with tubes. I'll stick with SS for now, but I definitely look forward to trying out some tube amps.

[RGA]

And as discussed, negative feedback can be either increased or decreased. And if it has such a large effect on perceived sound quality then surely this ability to tailor it will also lead to different sounding SS amps.

I think there are some definite sonic differences, but perhaps not to the extent that there are with tubes. I'll stick with SS for now, but I definitely look forward to trying out some tube amps.

For those familiar with the magazine UHF in Canada they wrote two books - one of them was a technical book covering each aspect of the audio chain. They had a technical guru at the time on their staff, not sure if he is still there, but they also compared amps they reviewed and their technical results and recommended that amps with damping factors above 40 be avoided. Though they still recommend the odd ones that are clearly more than that. I Myself and "impressed" with numerous high power amps. I think though that these discussions tend to be impossible unless we are all actually sitting in the same room and then after the session discuss what it is we heard. There are simply too many products, with different associated gear to wade through. I do however think that people will hear things very similarly when biases are out of the picture.

I recently chose my best 5 rooms above and below $10k at CES and what was interesting was that I chose rooms Like King Sound and Teresonic and Acapella - Three loudspeakers and it so happens that three of our writers own those speakers. They obviously were highly impressed - got them in their home and then said wow - and bought em. The amp or cd player that works best for each of those speakers may not work best for mine. One reason I am not a fan of component reviewing and I find them somewhat awkward to write because while something may sound great in my system it may sound atrocious in yours. I rather system reviews so that the total experience is more transferable to the reader. Dynaudio and Octave are being matched a lot - my dealer picked up both - so if I reviewed an Octave Dyandio system chances are the reader has a good shot at also getting hold of the gear. Bryston/PMC and B&W/Classe are also popular matches.

[YBArcam]

For those familiar with the magazine UHF in Canada they wrote two books - one of them was a technical book covering each aspect of the audio chain. They had a technical guru at the time on their staff, not sure if he is still there, but they also compared amps they reviewed and their technical results and recommended that amps with damping factors above 40 be avoided. Though they still recommend the odd ones that are clearly more than that. I Myself and "impressed" with numerous high power amps. I think though that these discussions tend to be impossible unless we are all actually sitting in the same room and then after the session discuss what it is we heard. There are simply too many products, with different associated gear to wade through. I do however think that people will hear things very similarly when biases are out of the picture.

I recently chose my best 5 rooms above and below $10k at CES and what was interesting was that I chose rooms Like King Sound and Teresonic and Acapella - Three loudspeakers and it so happens that three of our writers own those speakers. They obviously were highly impressed - got them in their home and then said wow - and bought em. The amp or cd player that works best for each of those speakers may not work best for mine. One reason I am not a fan of component reviewing and I find them somewhat awkward to write because while something may sound great in my system it may sound atrocious in yours. I rather system reviews so that the total experience is more transferable to the reader. Dynaudio and Octave are being matched a lot - my dealer picked up both - so if I reviewed an Octave Dyandio system chances are the reader has a good shot at also getting hold of the gear. Bryston/PMC and B&W/Classe are also popular matches.

I am just discovering UHF. Your comments a few days ago made me check them out. I took advantage of their offer and bought those two books, along with one copy of their magazine (not the current version) for something like $30. Got it yesterday and I'm reading the magazine now. I'm really enjoying their (his?) approach so far, and it is definitely a more interesting read than most audio mags I've come across to date. Very accessible but informative at the same time.

I think Audiolab sounds similar to Bryston (clean, powerful, neutral) but on a budget. I used the 8000S with PMC TB2i speakers - maybe that's why there was synergy. I loved the sound. But it sounded awesome with my Tannoy F2's as well. I only had the 8000S for a couple of days last year, but I bought a new one just maybe a week or two ago for $550. Tough to beat at that price I think. Great build quality, it feels like it weighs four times more than my 2010s2. I'll be comparing it to my Exposure amp this coming weekend, which has a low damping factor. I think I read it's something like 15 or so. The winner will stay, the loser will go. I'll probably start a thread with my impressions. I'll also be auditioning a few speakers. I'm kind of overhauling everything now, but trying to do this the right way...lots of listening to various matches before I make a call. I might even stick with what I've got, though that is doubtful.

[poppachubby]

My local record shop has a full rig with headphones ready for anyone who wishes to listen to the LP they are considering.

[audio amateur]

That was a post and a half Maybe more!

[Ajani]

That was a post and a half Maybe more!

So your post would be like a thirtieth of a post?

[audio amateur]

So your post would be like a thirtieth of a post?

Certainly! Maybe even less...