"using horn speakers might well point to a trend"

[wpines]

Quoted from the July issue of Stereophile magazine, page 17, Paul Messenger review of The High Fidelity Show, London UK

"The biggest surprise was the number of exhibits of horn-loaded speakers. With few honorable exceptions from such classic brands as Klipsch, Lowther, Tannoy, and JBL, horns virtually dissapeared nearly 40 years ago, when powerful solid-state amps appeared and hi-fi went mass-market. To find no fewer than five exhibitors (of a total of 40-odd) using horn speakers might well point to a trend. Doubtless this is partly a consequence of the growing popularity of low powered tube amps, but it might also be a symptom of the hi-fi market reverting to its pre-mass-market, enthusiast state, when compact convenience took second place to absolute sound quality."

We have seen the future and it is Us []

[oldbuckster]

What goes around, comes around.............Just got a copy of Rolling Stone magazine....Full page ad for Klipsch iPod dock..yuk!..I think they should be advertising their speaker line instead..........but, I am smart enough to know that iPod docks fit in better today than big old ugly speakers, and today's youth movement are tomorrows big spenders........Us boomers are thinning out...and the world has changed...so have tastes.....Damn it's tough being a Dinosaur.............

[barrynsue]

Our listening is a ritual brought on by many fond memories of how it was. Now we can afford to play with better equipment (not necessarily new) that we could not afford in our youth. What does the ipod generation aspire to? How many songs they can download so they can be self absorbed for who knows how long?

Glad to see the manufacturers going back to what most of us here already know. Mass marketing is a necessity in ordr to stay in business but they also realize there are enough folks like us who are out there and willing to buy more than convenience.

[oldbuckster]

I think iPods suck.....just my point of view.....doesn't mean I'm right, but I hate it when people tell their iPods and docking stations sound as good as my stereo........maybe my ears are that bad.....................I doubt it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wpines]

I see things somewhat differently. Take the sentence "Doubtless this is partly a consequence of the growing popularity of low powered tube amps, but it might also be a symptom of the hi-fi market reverting to its pre-mass-market, enthusiast state, when compact convenience took second place to absolute sound quality." Now insert the word affordable before the word absolute.

I believe that the ipod and the Chinese have caused an abrupt about face in the world of audio, a turn for the better for consumers of audio. The ipod and the chinese tubed products are high tech (high tech clones in the case of the chinese products), low cost/high value products. Gen x and gen y have at their disposal high technology at an affordable price point where they can afford to start out their audio lives with beginner audiophile grade equipment. My generation's only affordable choice in audio gear was that of packaged, retail, low quality solid state gear and lousy speakers. The "good stuff" was priced beyond our means. So we went off into the world of audio with what we could afford; Technics receivers and Sansui speakers. The ipod brings the music of their choicemusic into their lives on a daily basis in a convenient format! This is GOOD for the audio world! The chinese clones, have created a new class of audio gear and it's taking the market by storm, that is a class of true "audiophile" grade gear that's affordable! Time for the manufacturers of audio gear to sit up and pay attention, before the chinese steal the whole industry. For too long, audiophile grade gear meant tens of thousands of dollars. Just look at what has been popular here. A couple of savvy "boutique" guys are offering high value/low cost gear. For $3,500 you can dip your toes into the pool of hugh end gear. An $800 peach from Mark Deneen, a $2,000 VRD45ST from Craig Ostby and a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls for $600 or a pair of new Klipsch Synergy series........plug in your ipod with some lossless files and you're hearing sound that's not that far removed from a $20,000 system sold by the brick and mortar "High End Audio" stores. Most manufacturers forgot about the concept of high value/low cost. Mark, Craig, and Klipsch didn't.

......IMHO

[oldbuckster]

Let me change the word suck, to I don't care for the sound, the compressed sound, of a iPod. Now I will crawl back in my cave...oh yes, one more before I return to the darkness, let's wait and see 20 years from now if the new wave chinese products are thought of as vintage, or disposable !!!

[John Potis]

"let's wait and see 20 years from now if the new wave chinese products are thought of as vintage, or disposable !!!"

... or still affordable. If you guys haven't noticed, the price of the Chinese gear is escalating. The combined greed of the Chinese manufacturers and distributors is, very soon, going to deprive Chinese gear of its price advantage.

[ClaudeJ1]

Let me change the word suck, to I don't care for the sound, the compressed sound, of a iPod. Now I will crawl back in my cave...oh yes, one more before I return to the darkness, let's wait and see 20 years from now if the new wave chinese products are thought of as vintage, or disposable !!!

Independent tests have confirmed that Apple's AAC compression CODEC is inferior to MP3's Variable Bit Rate, which when done right, should be indistinguishable from uncompressed PCM of CD. Apples AAC was designed for FAST Download, NOT high fidelity, since they make their billions from the iTunes, not the iPods. If a $300 iPod can hold 10,000 songs, and you pay 99 cents each for them, it's easy to see where the real money goes. It ain't about Hi Fi in that camp of 14-year olds.

When I got my Khorns in 1977, I was appalled at the crap quality of vinyl at the time. Warped, noisy (ticks and pops) because they were not using Virgin vinyl and cranking out the Pop stuff as fast as they could, beating the heck out of the "master mothers."

MP3's when using the latest flavor of the LAME tools in hight VBR are very good, indeed.....................but, Apple is the marketing giant, now. Hi Fi has always taken a back seat to popular notions for sure. Even at it's worst, iTunes sound a lot better than my non-Dolby cassettes of the late sixties or the Dolby Cassettes of the 70's, which was the only option in a car.

All of it is much better than the big Koss headphones I attached to my Zenith AM radio when I did my paper route, so we shoudn't really complain. Acceptable sound today is much better than it was 30 years ago, except for a few choice high end vinyl recordings, like the Sheffield Labs stuff.