High End is Dead?

You describe the situation perfectly as age and generational-based. Am in my mid-60s and went to a professional orchestra concert recently. Was the youngest person there by a large margin.

There are few or no young orchestral lovers coming up and wonder if the HEA landscape is similar.

I am not here to dispute your feelings or opinions but assuming you are describing the survival of orchestral music being dependent on age, concert attendance and/or generational-based population, I prefer to believe the opposite of your concert experience is more the reality.

The Banff International String Quartet Competition held annually is but one example that would absolutely change your mind set with regards to the numbers of younger classical based listeners, enthusiasts and musicians that are present in the music scene.

I’m a fan of the Dover Quartet where their audiences consistently include people of all ages and nationalities. We would be happy to provide a few more symphonies and/or concerts you could attend to verify there are young as well as the young at heart audiences present and involved in classical settings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6j3lmyNjNU

In addition, with age comes experience where some musical tastes change and widen over periods of time. At 17 years I was weaned on the Blues, dug Big Band Music and earned a good living working in Rock & Roll. As I grew older, along came the classically trained cellist who opened my soul to a sound I once thought to be boring.

The point being classical music and live presentations will outlive us all. This music has survived generation after generation and on a global scale. I cannot fathom the music style or live symphony performances ever dying off or losing out to a single generation.

Anyone can dispute the future of High End Audio. Some here prefer to use their clients and stories of the past as examples of industry direction in order to validate their opinions or more so promote their products and business; instead should take out a paid advertisement. Whether Industry growth depends on the old “Cool” Guys or the next gen gaming generation or whatever generation you so desire to focus on, there will always be high end audio offerings. Some say HEA will no longer be the main stream of audio. Will someone please tell me when HEA was ever considered in the mainstream?  

Remember when High End Car Audio died in the late 90’s? Out of curiosity I recently walked into a few car audio dealers in Wilmington and Newark DE to see how they are surviving and to my shock, business is utterly booming once again… point being audio never dies, just evolves.

The Audio Industry will always provide high end equipment offerings. According to some people high end products are going away, too expensive and bulky, already classified as dead or are those same people just drumming up more negative support for their own aspirations. No matter how anyone storyboards it, the future of audio reproduction will remain steadfast.

Today, the Audio Industry “as we know it” is healthy and strong so I prefer to reside in the here and now and let the future of the next generation be answered when that time arrives.

Remember this:

“A strong and successful audio company will always adapt their technology and products to meet the demands for whatever the future brings”.

@nkoner

Your Chicago Show post is a joke, right?. Obviously you missed or overlooked younger people in attendance and how about all those ‘much younger trade associates’ working for the vendors selling ‘you’ their products? Next show you attend, park yourself in the Cans portion of the venue where there you can easily add younger listeners to your list. More importantly, please tell your buddy that there were a lot more people there than just old middle class white guys. "Not only do we tend to see what we expect to see, we also tend to experience what we expect to experience." As Hitchcock proved, this can make all the difference.

In closing: My reply concerning whether HEA is dying, dead or going by the wayside is exemplified in one word - “Rubbish”!

Audio will forever evolve and before I write something concerning all the naysayers which will really lead to trouble...

I’m putting some Stevie Ray in the car system, taking a trip up to Double Decker Records, where there is always a large group of the younger gen in house, and buy more music. On the return leg I’ll stop off in Philly and see a concert or recital or two while they last - or better yet, while I last  ⌣ .

As Always - Good Listening!

Robert

60’s-80’s HEA was very much in the mainstream. The market was progressively balance top to entry level. Marantz, Mac, Pioneer, Technics, AR, Advent, Hitachi, JVC, Klipsch, Altec Lansing, Quad and several hundred other brands, all being part of a united audiophile world. It’s when the Stereophile type Magazines teamed up with cottage industry manufacturers, that the divide began to take place and the Stereophile & TAS club separated itself from the mainstream. For those of us who lived through it, the sides taking was very clear (Harry & J Gordon never denied this). The formative brands of home audio were pushed aside with these 100,000-250,000 listeners being told they (mainstream brands) were now inferior to the smaller bench based companies. Of course it wasn’t true, but the magazines found their market and the split happened. So the millions of clients that were shared before, went on their marry way while the HEA success would eventually fade with age. And that’s exactly what has happened. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just reality. When HEA removed itself from the mainstream, within a couple of years the HEA started to decline. Everyone could see it here in Vegas when we were at the Convention center and Sahara. As soon as that location split happened further away from the convention center the crowd size was cut 75% that very first year. It was like the new blood vanished, and excuses started being made from then on, plus false growth.

it’s like this

Walk up to someone on the street and say do you know who Toyota and Lexus is, and they will tell you of course. Now ask that same person if they know who Sony and Rogue Audio (just using you guys as a name example, you make great products). They’re going to know Sony, but will say "who is Rogue". HEA took itself out of the mainstream, and from that moment forward limited itself to a smaller crowd, with a few of the companies breaking through, but most of the HEA brands we see at these trade shows are never going to grow beyond that because they have no sustaining interest built up. And as I said earlier now that they have all but left the main CEA (CES) arena it will even be harder for the HEA to be noticed.

Don’t get me wrong, the audiophile world is exploding with hobbyist including in home listening clients. They are just still so so about the HEA or don’t even know it exist. I don’t see how that can grow if all there is is HEA trade shows and not tied to the innovative electronic shows. Plus, picture younger home entertainment buffs looking at gigantic amps sitting in the middle of their living rooms. There might be a thousand or two of these guys out there, but that’s about it.

The home entertainment hobby is changing and it is exciting to be a part of it, but it is quickly taking on a new face.

nkoner, I would say your chart is pretty much on the money

And as Geoff says "Coming back down to reality" that’s what I see as well. Where ever that reality ends up at, I don’t see it being what we saw 15 years ago in HEA with these super complicated systems that only provided one sound. Music is far more variable than a guy sitting there with a huge system with simply a volume control to get them to accurate sound.

If I wasn't going to use my room and system as a tuning device, why wouldn't I go with headphones? The whole idea is to use your in room system as a tool to dial in the conditions of the recording. Where HEA lost this is and always has been very strange to me. If I was only going to go as far as plug & play I'd be using my cans.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net