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Where have all the stereos gone?


Parrot

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Just some idle thoughts here...I have been a music / hi-fi lover since I was about 15 or so(about 30 years ago). As my wife and I had kids we accidentally introduced our kids to music by just having the stereo on around the house a lot. As the kids grew up, my stereo budget grew and my "vintage" equipment gradually moved piece by piece into their stereos. Eventually, we started explaining to them who was who in classic rock bands, who had played in what band etc, and they got hooked I guess. Today, both teenage sons love music and would rather listen to an album (actual vinyl in the case of one son)and read the paper or a book at the same time than watch a movie. They have developed their own tastes; blues, classic rock, some jazz, ska, emo and metal. Neither have any use for pop. Interestingly, their friends for the most part do not have anything other than boom boxes (if any sort of stereo) and have no appreciation of the history of music or any knowledge of rock, jazz or even some of today's pop. At a barbeque last summer, one of my employees came up to me and said he had been talking to one of my sons and that my son knew more about the history of rock and roll than he did. I had to stop and think about it a minute and then I realized my son probably knows more about it than I do. I think my point of this rant is that our generation grew up listening to music more and it became much more a part of our lives than our parents. The good news is, we also seem to relate to our kids better than our parents generation did. I think music may be a reason for that on some level. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

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On 3/1/2004 9:44:30 PM GRB wrote:

The good news is, we also seem to relate to our kids better than our parents generation did. I think music may be a reason for that on some level. That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

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It's a good opinion.

My son is very interested in music and in learning to play an instrument (at age 5) - he's developed likes and dislikes already on music styles (he won't let my wife play Eric Clapton, but he's OK with Three Dog Night, for example) and he wants to learn to play the drums (which I intend to oblige him on his 6th birthday, with a set of drums)

The only guess I can offer to this is that both I and my wife are music aficiandos and both of us play instruments (she plays flute, I play guitar, bass, and keys)

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Griffinator,

When I questioned the Hifi store about giving up on tubes this is what I was told (don't mean its true)...

1) the tube gear in question had too high of a failure rate (and we are talking ARC gear!) I thought it was B.S. at the time and still do...

2) at the time the only stereo demonstration speakers hooked up were the big Magnepans. There was a couple of $9K per pair things with the bolted on aluminum sides but they weren't hooked up. No horns anywhere even in the HT.

3) the HT room was truly awesome, seated a dozen or so.

No horns. No tubes to be found.

Asked "price", told $100k for remodel alone, sans equipt.

So go for it, dude!

DM

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Griff,

Interesting isn't it. Developing his own style at his age. Gotta be a good thing I think. Both of my sons play intstuments (drums and guitar). Both love to watch their dvd concerts on the "old man's" HT with their friends over. Cracks me up when we walk thru BB looking for cd's and they laugh about the low-fi stuff for sale.

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Of course, I realize already that my prices for labor are not in line with what this new breed of HT jerks considers "fair wages"

Even here in B.F.E., I charge $69 an hour for my services - the nearest "competitor" - whose top-of-the-line equipment is low-to-mid-end HK amps and JBL Studio speakers - charges $95 an hour for installation.

Maybe I need to readjust my personal feelings about labor? I've always felt that charging what my time is worth to me is the fair thing to do. Only reason I was able to justify $69/hr is because I knew that I'd be paying another person to work with me on any given job...

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Here is my opinion on this whole thing.

In alot of cases, I've seen stereos become full-fledged HT systems, such as mine has, as well as my oldest brother. In other cases, as was mentioned, people just don't want to bother, instead opting for boom-boxes and the like. Bose does not seem to be helping either with those commercials were they say "Wouldn't it be nice if you can replace all this (big-a$$ rack full of equipment), with this (a Bose Wave radio)?" My parents ended up doing that - replacing thier rack system with a Bose Wave.

Also, with the current idea of of "small, unobtrusive speakers" seems to be the big trend. There was numerous times while I was at the local dealer only to over hear somebody, usually the wife, say something to the effect of, "I don't want those big, huge speakers all over my room." to the salesman. Again, this is were Bose seems to be pushing that trend more than the others. Other manufactuerers, including Klipsch, now have to produce the smaller satallite speakers, in order to compete in the market.

And as was pointed at the beginning of the thread, it seems interior designers have a phobia with speakers and electronics. They are always hiding them inside of some type of cabinet or flat out removing them from the room. I would be afraid of what something like on Trading Spaces would do with my room, with these huge Klipsch towers and large stack of A/V gear. I can bet they will remove it from the room (and I'll be putting it right back in after the show's over). Of course, this goes back to the "smaller is better" mentality that seems to be the norm.

The issue with the car stereos does have my head shaking. As that one poster pointed out, it seems to be more of a DSW type situation as to "My car can get louder than yours", although the sound quality is complete and utter crap. It is always funny as hell to go into the car audio section of the local dealer, and always having to turn down the bass gain on the head-units. I wanted to audition some car audio, only to insert my CD and get blasted by some seriously nasty bass! I am quickly trying to find the right button to press to flatten out the tone controls, usually resulting in chasing down a salesman to fix it for me. Those kids will go in there and crank up the bass to ridiculous levels. Just on Saturday, I went in there and witness a couple of kids crank up the bass to full max, while turning down the treble all the way. They had that thing cranked up so loud that the friggan magnet structures in the subs was slapping the back of the voice coil - making a loud "popping" sound. Of course, one of the sales staff immediatly went in there and told them not to do that again or be asked to leave. I made the mistake of going in that same room to listen to one of the system, only to be assulted by that horrible sound - I couldn't press the "off" button fast enough! They salesman came back in and asked what the heck I was doing! I told them I just wanted to listen to a CD on that system, and some kids apparently got this all screwed up! We gotten it straighted back out, and the system turned out to be an awesome sounding.

My car is in the shop right now as I am typing this, getting outfitted with a really nice car audio system. Keep in mind, this is after I spend good money on my home system, and decided I wanted to be able to get something nice sounding for the road (this is definitly not a case of loud/expensive car stereo, then coming home to a crappy system). I made it very clear to the salesman that I was not interested in thumping the neighborhood (not only that, doing that is just inviting to get your system ripped-off). I wanted something that sounded very good across the entire audio spectrum, with enough volume to get over the road-noise. The sub, a single twelve inch JL Audio WS-3 sub, is being mounted in a sealed box, since I want a nice tight clean bass - not that loud flabby sounding "boom-boom-boom" type bass. They showed me all the gear that is going in when I dropped my car off earlier this evening after work, including what the sub box looks like. They know full well what I want, after all, they know about the large expenditure I made in the past there with the Klipsch and the B&K gear. Now, when the install is complete, they are all like - oh man, we gotta go and hear this car system! Apparently, it is not very often they get somebody installing a car audio system purely for quality. They usually get the "how loud can you get this" type customer, who is more concerned about how much bass he can get, instead of the quality of the music as a whole.

Yes, it is sad that the big old stereo, which was just as much, if not more, of a centerpiece as the TV now is, is going away. I am hoping that as more people decide they want a good HT setup, they will realize that it can be used for listening to music as well as watching movies. The better ones will do music just fine. I came from a generation where just as much time was spent listening to music as it was watching TV, especially when there was hardly ever anything on TV (when you got only 3 channels). In those cases, it was time to get out the records and warm-up the amps.

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On 3/1/2004 9:30:22 PM Griffinator wrote:

I understand that, but what he said was "HT systems that cost more than my house" - so we're talking about people who have the money.

When people have that kind of money already (based on my own experiences with such people) they basically look at you and go "Whatever I need, get it, and tell me how much the bill is when you're done."

They don't want to hear lengthy explanations, they just want it done and over with so they can enjoy it.

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you are SO right. i have caught myself over-explaining,all they want to do is use and enjoy it.

btw-can you send ME some of those customers?2.gif

avman.

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You guys are both lucky. I get to sell a console TV (that's right, a console), only to get a phone later that day from the blue-hair whining, "There's a little blue box on the screen that says 'Video'! I think I got a lemon! Come pick this thing up!.... What do mean press 'SOURCE'?"

Ah... retail.

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The percentage of folks pursuing excellence has always been small, no matter the chosen path.

My brother Hollis' stereo, a Pioneer SX-??? and KLH speakers, (1974) was my first introduction to audio, and I was intoxicated. He was the minority in his group of friends, most of whom went after cars with their extra spending cash. His pursuit was quality sound, and it was something he cared passionately about. He ran sound commercially for a number of years and went on to do recording engineering in Nashville, TN, and has credits on many albums. He currently owns his own music production company. But the point is, he is a rarity just as those folks (many here on this forum included) who pursue excellence in sound are a rarity.

Very few have heard a symphony orchestra, a quality choral group, a well honed jazz ensemble, a piano trio, string quartet, etc. Most want LOUD, and if LOUD is delivered, fine with them.

Last night I went to a performance of our excellent chamber orchestra and chorale in one of the huge mega churches here (Six Flags Over Jesus), and the chorus was miked for sound. It was HORRID. the sound engineer had all the tools at his disposal to do the job correctly (Great equipment) but he stood around and didn't appear to notice the grating quality. So some don't care or don't know, and it has been and will always be that way.

forrest

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  • 6 years later...

I just came across this thread and read through it and thought........man its even worse now 6 years later!

NONE of my friends are into quality stereo, they just don't care. iPods rule. The ONLY stores left where I live are Best Buys, and I've noticed that in Best Buy they hardly carry any real speakers any more. Now it seems that thinner, and lighter, and thinner, and 3d, and brighter, and thinner HDTV's are ALL anyone cares about. Maybe some cute little satellite speakers to make it into a "home theater" if they have speakers at all.

Think it'll ever come back? Or do people just not care anymore?

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I wish it would so I could have a chance to hear more equipment.

I'm in the minority amoung my friends and family, with the exception of my Father in Law.

I spend what ever money and time I have in audio, I'm 25 and have a house full of speakers, my wife is OK with it so far, she realizes that it's something I really care about.

And as much as she thinks she doesn't care, she's always complaining about her dads system, as well as the local theatres when we go.

Atleast she understands what things are suppose to sound like and when the differ much she notices and that all I really ask for is she understand/hear the difference.

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I didn't notice this thread back in '04, but I have noted the same while watching these programs with the Mrs. I think I have seen one or two instance of large displays, and virtually no stereo systems.

I started building my own shortly after getting married in 1984; with the advent of home theater, one 17' wall in my living room is dedicated...

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