The Death of Audiophilia

Today I went to my local Barnes & Noble, about the only place left around here with a reasonable news stand. The entire rack where they kept all the hifi and home theater rags was instead filled with Rap Music magazines. There was one issue of HiFi+ still there. And up with the guitar and music magazines, there was a stack of the latest issue of AudioExpress. And that's it. No more Stereophile, Absolute Sound, Hi Fi News, Hi Fi Choice, or any of the other titles they've sold there for years. I take that as a sign of something.

 

Nah, it's just that print mags are having a rough time.

 

I does not necessary mean that people are not interested in audiophile hardware and news. They get their info online, for free. The same problem that haunts the general press.

 

The collective knowledge and wisdom of websites like SHF, AA and AK make those audio rags obsolete. Plus there's (usually) no hidden agenda here, like keeping manufacturers and current and potential advertisers happy.

 

I'm reminded of what the great J. Gordon Holt (founder of Stereophile magazine) said in an interview two years ago:

Do you see any signs of future vitality in high-end audio?

Vitality? Don't make me laugh. Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel. For the record: I never, ever claimed that measurements don't matter. What I said (and very often, at that) was, they don't always tell the whole story. Not quite the same thing.

Remember those loudspeaker shoot-outs we used to have during our annual writer gatherings in Santa Fe? The frequent occasions when various reviewers would repeatedly choose the same loudspeaker as their favorite (or least-favorite) model? That was all the proof needed that [blind] testing does work, aside from the fact that it's (still) the only honest kind. It also suggested that simple ear training, with DBT confirmation, could have built the kind of listening confidence among talented reviewers that might have made a world of difference in the outcome of high-end audio.

So this is what Gordon, who had more than 50 years of experience as an audiophile, an engineer, and a writer, the guy who arguably helped popularize the entire audiophile movement, had to say a year or two before his untimely death.

He also told me several times in conversations at past CES shows that he was convinced that audiophile stores would ultimately be sublimated by home theater stores -- and he predicted this 15 years ago. Very prescient comments.

I gave up on Stereophile and TAS a long time ago, as far as covering audio-only products. Hell, they're covering boomboxes, iPods, and car stereo now -- anything for which they can carry ads. It's absolutely ridiculous. High-end audio is less than 10% of what they do today.

 

How many people are there that can re-invest in new equipment every year?

How many people are there that wish to read about such and such mono block or speakers even if they are not going to be buying them, even if convinced they are theee best?

How much improvement has been made in Hi-Fi in the last decade requiring the need to keep up with the latest?

 

+1

I'm still all for high fidelity, but am embarrassed about audiophilia & what it has done to one of my favorite hobbies.

 

It might be something more simple. Most of the audio mags came out about two weeks ago. Most bookstores like Barnes & Noble, get five or six copies each of those magazines and they probably sold out right away...

Don't know what version of TAS or Stereophile you're reading, but both of them are still doing what they've always done. A little bit of car stereo is interesting when it's being done by a high end mfr, it's not like they are writing about Alpine....

And iPods with uncompressed and lossless files have become part of high end audio now.

Back when all they did was cover unaffordable stuff, all you guys did was complain that they didn't cover gear you could afford, then when they broaden their scope a little bit, your complaining that they aren't covering enough high end audio...

 

IMHO Audiophilia may or may not be dying, but it appears that there is a resurgence in the amount of people that are actually enjoying music. No matter what format they use, they are listening to music and that's a very good thing. Additionally, those magazines are starting to become a very boring read for me. The first thing that I do when I'm reading an article in any of them is to look for the cost of the item under review, if it's over $10,000.00 I don't even bother to read it. But I do like scouring the music reviews to check new artist's and new music in general.

M~

 

That is why I finally burned out in the mid-1990s.

That and all the overpriced snake oil such as magic wooden pucks, $10K speaker wires, $1.5K IEC power cables, and such.

 

Around here the more exotic titles remain in half-filled stacks until the next month's issues arrive. And like I said, their spaces had been filled with rap music magazines.

 

Please note that discussing politics and the validity of double blind testing are against forum rules. Posts have been deleted and we would like to keep this thread open.

Thanks.

 

Which ones have you tried to arrive at this?

I kind of lost interest in audio mags after Stereo Review bit the dust. I've found a lot more useful audio info. here and on other audio forums than magazines of today seem to offer.

 

the largest problem is entry... If you are a college kid, how on earth can you get into it? There isn't anything to buy.

 

Start the way many of us started. Used, vintage, thrift/garage sale. Work your way up as you can afford it. I don't know many people that started out at the high end and had their dream system from the get-go.

Eric

 

Why can't you listen to rap and be an audiophile? It isn't mutually exclusive. I thought being an audiophile meant you loved music, or is one an audiophile only if you listen to what *ahem* audiophiles are stereotypically supposed to listen to? The only thing killing audiophilia are people who refuse to acknowledge music beyond classical, jazz and "classic rock", i.e. what they like only.

Also, Stereophile, TAS etc are junk imo. Pick up 10 issues of any one of them and read all the reviews. Try to find one that isn't a good review. By magazine standards, everything they review or come across is awesome and worthy of a purchase. There is never a stinker.

 

I thought about the same thing when I went to Borders the other day. Only 1 that's right - ONE hi-fi magazine. I figured they were having a tough time.

However, when I asked, an employee told me that they had sold them all. They had not discontinued them or anything. They actually sold them all.

 

I also disagree with this notion. I think many college kids are BIGGER audiophiles than people give them credit for. They just aren't of the same variety of the stereotypical audiophile. I work near a college, I talk to young people all the time, and I myself am in my late 20s. Many of them are well aware of ALAC, FLAC, WAV etc and fully embrace the digital side of high fidelity. Media monkey, foobar etc are things they know about that the average 50 year old audiophile doesn't. In turn, they might not have the intimate knowledge of vinyl the older gentleman has. It's just a generation thing. While their Dads are listening to Louis Armstrong lps, they are listening to a FLAC rip of The Dead Weather.

 

I think you need to read the articles as much for what they don't say as what they do say. You can tell when a reviewer is less than smitten with a product by the way he describes its attributes.

I find many reviewed products that aren't "highly recommended" or are recommended with reservations.

Eric

 

Fair enough, but have you seen a reviewed product not recommended at all?

 

Who said anything about the relative merits of Rap Music? Not I. It was merely an observation that the physical space that had been occupied by an assortment of domestic and UK hifi magazines had been supplanted by a display of Rap and Hiphop magazines. Don't try to read anything more into it than that, or put words in my mouth, thank you.

I'm not going to argue that point either. I seldom ever buy any of those titles anymore, but occasionally I like to thumb through one at the news stand just to vainly attempt to sort of keep my foot in the door, see what's going on with a hobby I used to love. Quite frankly I always preferred the English magazines such as Hi Fi News and Hifi Choice, where subjective evaluations were tempered by technical analysis.

But still, the absence of the entire range of hifi and HT magazines seemed forboding to me, whether they were replaced by Rap magazines, Out Magazine, Architectural Digest or Off Road Trucker.

 

How far back can we go?

When Stereophile and TAS were subscriber-supported, negative reviews were quite common. When advertising appeared, that mostly stopped.

 

Got ya. Read and understood.

Do you think Geography has anything to do with it. I'm in NYC. These mags are everywhere from bookstores to vendors on the streets. Definitely no shortage here.

 

How long ago was that though?