It doesn't look good. The remaining players really need to come up with wireless interoperability standards, but I don't see that happening. I think the DLNA council or whatever has already been disbanded, bizarrely enough. If every manufacturer goes down a proprietary path - which seems to be what's happening - or only supports direct streaming from your phone or whatever to their speaker, it'll essentially doom the separates industry.
Of course that doesn't reflect the whole market for music. On an inflation adjusted basis according to the RIAA, music industry retail value revenue in 1973 was $11.8 billion for all formats, in 2020 it was $12.2 billion for all formats including streaming. Physical media is a tiny part of the US record industry today, under 9% of annual revenue for CD and vinyl combined. The substantial music industry revenue growth of course comes after a huge spike up to a peak of $22.7 billion in 1999 and a trough of $7.3 billion in 2015, but last year the music industry had its best year in the US since 2007 and on an inflation adjusted basis did better than it did in 1973. Consumers are actually spending more money on music than they were at any time in the last 14 years (all that growth in record industry streaming back up from the trough has basically come in growth of paid streaming subscriptions). So it's possible that some portion of them will be interested in accessing that on playback gear other than just a cellphone and earbuds. Hi-fi has always been a niche within the home entertainment electronics universe. I suspect it will continue to be. But we might really be talking about music servers and streamers and wireless power speakers, as, really, the industry already is.
Did you blink? Because in the last month, there have been four new Hi-Fi component releases that cater to the current and next generation of streaming-first listeners. 1. Cambridge Audio Evo 150 ($3000): Integrated amp with a 150WPC class-D Hypex NCore amplifier, a giant 6.8" touchscreen, analog and digital inputs, DAC, and streaming. Evo 150 Cambridge readies Evo75, Evo150 super-integrateds | Darko.Audio 2. Auralic Altair G2.1 ($5,489.00): Update to their previous Altair G1. DAC, streamer, server. This unit is Auralic's most versatile component. Has space for an SSD. Press Release - ALTAIR G2.1 Digital Audio Streamer AURALiC introduces Altair G2.1 | Darko.Audio 3. BlueSound Node ($549) streamer and PowerNode ($899) integrated amp with 80 WPC class-D amp and streaming. Updates to previous generation 2.1 models. NODE Bluesound introduces (3rd gen) NODE & POWERNODE | Darko.Audio 4. Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition ($3290). Headphone amp with streaming. Balanced XLR and Pentaconn headphone outputs. Uniti Atom Headphone Edition Naim announces Uniti Atom Headphone Edition | Darko.Audio
These high-priced streaming gadgets strike me as a dead end. There's no interoperability standard between manufacturers and their tiny sales figures represent a niche of a niche. And if you want to use them more like a traditional receiver you're still dumped back into cable hell. Ditto all the speaker cables. They all have a Blackberry Storm feeling about them, like the manufacturers are finally reacting to an obvious massive threat to their market, but it's all way too little and way too late, without the convenience of playing Spotify off my iPhone...
Like I said in #9. Phone+digispeakers= future (present) of best sound. Most companies are fumbling around...
Anything wireless only works reliably in rural environment. In modern cities and suburbs even full HD video with surround sound, or stereo 24/192 PCM music only is not fully reliable via WiFi. Cable is still what keeps sound and video clear and free of glitches. Thus the only function for phone is to be advanced remote control for fully wired audio system. But there is no standard remote control protocol exist today and every vendor uses their own.
I have yet to stream, let alone wirelessly stream. I figured they got the kinks (even with wireless HD streaming) worked out by now, but apparently that is not the case except in rural environments? If wireless HD streaming is not yet robust in city environments, I would think this problem should be solved in the future.
Definitely phone/tablets are where the primary UI needs to live. And I think logically the speakers should be where the amps live. Beyond that, there needs to be some kind of universal interoperability standard that allows you to add wireless components to your system on the fly - turntables, tuners, etc. And there need to be standards for room correction, to support multichannel / Atmos / etc. But I'm not holding my breath. Rubbish. Sonos worked this out 15 years ago with their wireless mesh. I can stream wirelessly here in the middle of San Francisco without any issues.
My crystal ball shows me multi-channel music and movies delivered by iPhone wirelessly to active speaker arrays.
I've always enjoyed the 'surprise factor' of radio - eg. you never know what's coming next. Unfortunately, market researched 'safe' playlists and concentrated ownership have made most stations very predictable And that's where Spotify playlists come in.
Seeing these fancy new streamers reminds me of my first foray into digital music. An attractive unit that is now only useful as a paper weight.