Hi-fi execs know that massive change is coming

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by hoffmanuser2020, Apr 14, 2021.

  1. mishima's dog

    mishima's dog Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glasgow, Scotland
    I hope you’re wrong too but nobody seems to be putting a counter argument.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  2. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    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.
     
  3. jeddy

    jeddy Forum Resident

    not all progress is improvement
     
    silverhead, mozz, sturgus and 2 others like this.
  4. Razakoz

    Razakoz Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah
    Exactly, progress seems to be moving in the direction of cheaper/worse/throwaway crap.
     
    klockwerk, McLover and ericscho like this.
  5. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member


    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.
     
    Thorensman, Ingenieur and Tim 2 like this.
  6. timind

    timind phorum rezident

    I didn't use the word "progress."
     
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  7. jeddy

    jeddy Forum Resident

    no you're right
    I did
     
    timind likes this.
  8. hoffmanuser2020

    hoffmanuser2020 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    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

    [​IMG]


    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

    [​IMG]



    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

    [​IMG]

    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


    [​IMG]
     
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  9. hoffmanuser2020

    hoffmanuser2020 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
  10. hoffmanuser2020

    hoffmanuser2020 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
  11. hoffmanuser2020

    hoffmanuser2020 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
  12. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    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...
     
    OldSoul, klockwerk, Sterling1 and 3 others like this.
  13. Ilusndweller

    Ilusndweller S.H.M.F.=>Reely kewl.

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    Like I said in #9. Phone+digispeakers= future (present) of best sound.

    Most companies are fumbling around...
     
    klockwerk likes this.
  14. CDV

    CDV Forum Resident

    Bad grammar and punctuation is a sure sign to stay away.
     
  15. CDV

    CDV Forum Resident

    At these prices each of these should have at least a 100 TB worth of disk space.
     
    OldSoul, timind and mantis4tons like this.
  16. AP1

    AP1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    TX
    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.
     
  17. Ilusndweller

    Ilusndweller S.H.M.F.=>Reely kewl.

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    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.
     
  18. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    I've been a "streaming-first" listener for decades now. It's called the radio.
     
  19. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    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.
     
    CDV, trd, timind and 2 others like this.
  20. Kristofferabild

    Kristofferabild Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denmark
    I stream High Res from Qoubuz with my Node 2i on wifi with absolutely no problems.
     
    timind and Sterling1 like this.
  21. Sterling1

    Sterling1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    My crystal ball shows me multi-channel music and movies delivered by iPhone wirelessly to active speaker arrays.
     
  22. Retro Music Man

    Retro Music Man Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    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.
     
  23. SKBubba

    SKBubba Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tennessee
    What are these "tuners" you speak of?
     
  24. wmb44

    wmb44 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida
    [​IMG]
    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.
     
    sunspot42, Sterling1 and timind like this.
  25. Joel S

    Joel S Forum Resident

    Good. More used vinyl for me.
     

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