High End Audio-Gaining Higher Ground?

I too echo Response34.

On the other hand, if you want to really feel like a duck out of water you've got to check out 1-2-3-4 GO Records (mostly LPs) on 40th Street in Oakland CA, They sell mostly Heavy Metal, Punk, and other genre I'd rather not dis because I've stopped keeping up. They've recently moved to a larger location because their business is growing.

It seems their customers priorities for purchasing vinyl has more to do with supporting the artist because the download industry is what it currently is and because owning the LP is a more tactile fruit of that art. The sound quality is often mentioned but it's not the primary reason for owning the LP.

Those stalwarts of brick and mortar new and used LP sales, Amoeba and Rasputin, are not jumping into this direction with both feet.

The owner of 1-2-3-4 GO suggested some selections an old fud like me might enjoy and I was pleasantly surprised. Not only by the contemporary-ness of the music but that I still had some attitude left in me to enjoy it. As a Draft dodging anarchist I've been back twice, your results may vary! Interestingly, because of this current state of the music industry and its unchecked digititus, many of these contemporary LPs were recorded digitally. I know what your thinking, "this music doesn't need to be recorded well." I'm a working Musician and I say it does qualify for the full treatment.

After listening to the recent testimony by recording artist before Congress about the issues that surround the run away download industry, it seems this is another contributing element to the increase in low quality production and an uncontrollable drain on artist royalties.

So, where are we going?

I feel it's incredibly important that the high end community (analog and digital) make this issue more than reminiscing the way it was because that's just not going to happen. We need to discuss the beginnings of a solution that benefits the artists so they receive their royalties. The producers to get back into the studio environment, and to somehow fairly regulate the distribution of the art.

So, if you must reminisce, reminisce about what our part had to do the resurgence of the LP and every time you told a mass market loved one, "yeah, the difference is amazing!"

It's an interesting paradox that commercialism is generally considered a bad thing for music, yet that is how a musician would get paid for making music.

On the flip side, a true artist and music lover does it because that is what they like to do. They might make some money playing live on the side still, but how many can make a living just being a musician? Not many, ever!

Music/record companies are becoming almost irrelevant these days, except as a way to make money by hyping lowest common denominator pop stars that are more about sex appeal, visuals and pop culture as they are about anything having to do with serious music.

I think we are too caught up in our ideas of what good sound means and thus what the high end is about. I think audio is being repositioned in the minds of many consumers, especially young people. Its why Apple bought Beats. They see the opportunity in a way other companies don't. Check out vox.com and look for the article on the music industry written in response to an op eds piece in the WSJ by Taylor Swift (yes, that Taylor Swift). I read it today. Embedded in it is a video with Jimmy Iovine and Ed Cue from Apple... Between the lines you can figure out why this deal happened. Its fascinating to me as a marketing guy who started out selling audio 40 years ago. I am not sure the opportunity is truly for a high end user base yet...but most consumer markets segment out ultimately to have a 10-20% component that is premium oriented whether that means luxury,performance etc. Why couldn't that be the NEW Hugh end uuser? Check out the discussion. Its not just about streaming music...there is more there. Apple has lots of consumer analytics data. I think they are looking to disrupt audio more. After all, that's what the iPod did...now maybe they will fix or alter more if what they broke!

Children are more qualitatively than quantitatively driven. Recognition of quality comes into thinking and evaluation as an individual evolves from child to adult. It is wrong to believe that adulthood is met at a scheduled time threshold like age 21. Some individuals are precocious enough to perceive a qualitative hierarchy early in life and most (Americans, at least) never seem to develop this ability.
All of this leads to the fact that the majority of us just don't comprehend differences in quality. The much heralded "dumbing down" that I see taking place is demonstrated by reality TV, movie quality and theming, rap, and numerous other social indicators. We are devolving through compromised education and over-control of the marketplace and media. As a result, education which used to develop the individual into a fully functioning mature person, now reaches very few effectively. And since an ever fewer number of us can perceive genuine quality any longer, the marketers are taking over and obsoleting the engineers. The product offerings contain less material and more fantasy all the time. We are forsaking substance for appearances as a society and our buying habits are slowly being altered to satisfy ever larger profit margins. This will not end well. The products are ephemera in both utility and durability and the landfills are topping out with this gradue. But we are dumb, fat and happy, fa la la la la la la.
Please see a film called Idiocracy.

Are we any more dumbed down really these days than say our parents were back in the post war 1950's?.

I agree that we are, but not that its anything new.

The difference is today there are many outlets for one to get information from if one only chooses to find it.

Used to be we were spoon fed whatever gov. and corporations of the day wanted to feed us with little recourse. Now at least there is. My kids for example get it I think and are not dumb.

Flip side is one still has to sort through all the noise to detect the real information. Not always an easy task.