Comments on: Is the 'I can't hear the difference' myth killing the speaker business?

Don't be so sure you "can't hear the difference" between the cheap stuff and high end speakers.

[jbuberel]

The essential point is not the ability of people to discern differences in the quality of the sound output, but in the role that music now plays in their lives. When I was in grad school and early post-grad, I would listen to music as a primary activity where all of my attention was focused on the music itself.

But lifestyles being what they are today, for me it is no longer the case that music listening is a foreground task. Instead, music has become more of an ever present filler or background. In this listening mode, my brain can probably no longer appreciate the differences between high fidelity sound reproduction and lower end output.

Secretly, that is why I think that portable video devices will never overtake portable audio devices in the market: Video forces itself to be a foreground activity, and people just will not make the time for as much of that as they do background activities in which music can play a role.

-jason

[minimalist]

"Most consumers are stupid."

"...the unfortunate people who confine themselves to listening to compressed digital music, on an MP3 player."

"I too often have remarked that Americans not are only musically illiterate, but aurally deficient."

Condescension and snobbery aren't going to win anybody over to the cause. Sometimes I wonder if audiophiles REALLY want to be advocates of great sound or if they just want to maintain an exclusive little club that allows them to sneer at all the common people who buy their equipment at Best Buy.

Part of the reason for this problem of low quality and low expectations is that high end audio manufacturers sell their products exclusively through stores most people don't even know exist. Heck in my city of 350,000 there is only ONE hi-fi store. They have no stock to speak of and very little equipment to demo. Even though I've been in there a few times, I couldn't even begin to tell you what brands they carry. This store, like others I have seen in other towns) pretty much exists to do custom installations for doctors and lawyers who have money to burn and just don't want to deal with it. I'm sure it pays the bills but it means this business is all but invisible to anybody but the already initiated or the extremely rich. Its certainly not helping the industry as a whole.

I know the rise of big box retailing doesn't make things easier for the small manufacturer. But big boxes are the reality and they pretty much all offer the same limited selection of equipment.. So audio manufacturers need to get creative. Use the lack of choice and service at big boxes to their advantage. Use the internet to level the playing field and help control costs. Why do almost all of the audio manufacturers hold on so tightly to the specialty reseller model and refuse to embrace modern retailing methods? Sell factory direct with a 60 day audition period. Introduce product lines that aren't such a huge step up from cheaper systems.

[GRobLewis]

Um, Cambridge SoundWorks? I don't know how they're doing since Creative Labs acquired them, but they used to offer great products mail-order at reasonable prices.

[acardes]

I agree with minimalist ... when did it ever become a good thing to be irresponsible with money buying speakers with highly-suspect price tags?

What, exactly, makes a speaker worth $5000 more than another? Can I build a speaker for $800 and sell it to you for $25,000, just because it cost $25,000?

Why do professional studio monitor speakers cost ~$1k or less? Perhaps you hear more than the artist, the producer, and the engineer... or maybe you are getting scammed.

[74roadrunner]

Well, some of those "professional monitors" sound pretty bad actually, especially when used in a home setting. There are overpriced items in every hobby, from cars to radios, to about anything else. Is any speaker worth $25000 to me, no, I can't really see spending car money on speakers, even if I thought they were great sounding. But there are a lot of speakers around the 5K level I would buy if I could afford to.

With regards to MP3's, it amazes me when people say that they can't tell the difference between sample rates. The same people think Sirius and XM sat radio sounds "great" too. I don't know what is wrong with them.

[rockstarstatus]

I once went to a high end audio store and gave some gear a good listen. I listened to songs that I would normally listen to in the car or on the garage radio. It was a very eye opening experience. I actually came away from it not liking some of the songs because I heard too much. As an example, the cover of American Woman by Lenny Kravitz was enjoyable to me till I heard what I was missing. The overall mix sounded good but the kick drum was overwhelmingly bad. The bass response of the system was very nice and smooth but that kick drum drove me insane in a bad way. I'd much rather hear an articulate sound system and not like certain mixes than have music EVER be just background noise. It's too important to me.

[Walt French]

By the specs, and in my listening experience, today's "crap" equipment produces sound that's head and shoulders above what the best hi-fi gear could produce just a couple of decades ago. (E.g., my 256kb/s AAC files produce much better sound than FM ever did, and the sound stays good even thru the mass-market parts the iPod uses.)

Only for loudspeakers has the march of progress been a bit slower, and a couple of hundred dollars difference can make for a superior listen.

But the real reason people don't care about ultra-hi-fi is that most people don't want to listen to how good the equipment is; they want to remember the time they saw the Dead live in concert, or the chill of hearing ******* Brew the first time, or whatever. There's next to no emotional content from hi-fi snobbery.

Just the same as for wine snobs: the huge majority of people simply want to enjoy a glass every now and then, and know they'll never be expert on the various vineyards in the Côte Rôtie appelation, even if they could afford the multi-hundred dollar bottles. Yeah, the stuff is intense and maybe even fascinating, but you can get 95% of the pleasure from a bottle costing less than $20.

[Billtheguy]

I am just about to discard my $500 Sony Suround Sound receiver because its so damned bothersome to program. Hundreds of adjustments, a truly deficient instruction booklet, and tiny print above the buttons, buttons marked with acronyms instead of words, and buttons that are black and tiny on a black case, a subwoofer that will only work on certain configurations, plus pretty shoddy output from the final transistors. Ugh. Give me a two channel device with simple controls. Do they work at making things hard to use ??

[GRobLewis]

The black-on-black cosmetics drive me nuts. I literally have to use a flashlight to adjust my system. OK, it was "hip" and "professional-looking" 20 years go. Get over it already.

[GRobLewis]

The records being made today, and the MP3s made from them, sound so awful that a better sound system merely makes them hurt your ears worse. Rolling Stone has a must-read report on this:
<http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity>

[slemenda]

After reading all of the previous comments, I' m almost scared to add mine. There seems to be a Iot of posturing going on.

I agree with Steve Guttenberg 100%, though. He's not talking about having expensive esoteric equipment but just decent equipment playing non-compressed music. The digitizing process used to make CDs has already caused some slight damage to the music, although usually it's not audible. Compressing it into MP3 format decimates it. (And, yes, I do know the real meaning of decimate. It fits pretty well in this context.) I do have an Ipod, and I think it's great for audiobooks. Compressed spoken voice with an occasional short music interlude is handled well by the MP3 process. I just hate to listen to any good music, especially that with which I'm familiar, after compression, even as background. I find myself suddenly hearing something that shouldn't be there or listening for something that's missing. It's like reading a newspaper story and finding a mispelled word. I tend to forget about the article's subject and concentrate on the error. It grabs my attention. Defective music, even in the background, grabs my attention and makes it hard for me to concentrate on whatever else I'm doing. A video analogy would be the way a 4:3 TV picture looks when shown at 16:9, or vice versa. Watching distorted video long enough actually makes me queasy. Anyway, if I'm at home I can find out what's wrong with the sound and correct it. When I'm somewhere else I either can live with it or leave the area. Normally the people supplying the music aren't deliberately using it as a tool to get you to leave.

As an example, I was in Nashville on vacation back in September, and my wife and I stopped in at Tootsie's, a rather touristy spot now, but they still have good artists play there. After a few minutes of trying to sort out the loud, but pretty good music, I realized that one of the speakers on the stage was blown, and the buzzing distortion was crushing the efforts of the musicians. It was actually hurting my aging ears, so we left after one quick drink. Loud I can handle, but not distorted and loud. I was amazed at all the people sitting there apparently happy as clams.

[catfather]

I passionately love classical music -- esp. opera and choral, but orchestral and solo instruments as well. But I also am on fixed income. Nonetheless, during a time when I had a part-time job, I bought a Surround Sound home theater. I spent as much as I could. I got a sytem which plays SACD as well as DVD-Audio CDs, and DVD videos (of operas or choral works) in (where availble on the discs or broadcasts) Dolby Digital 2, Dolby Digital 5.1, and DTS. Probably has a few other features, but I am no technocrat. The next year, I bought a 34-inch CRT HDTV -- because that is all I could afford. But, between the two systems I can watch DVD movies but also listen to gorgeous music on a fairly good system which gives me really good sound. I'm sure it could be better if I had more to spend; but I got the best I could afford. To me, music in this case isn't background; it is the reason I'm in my chair, with lights dim (often with one or both cats on my lap). If the disc also has a picture -- an opera performance or just musicians playing/chorus singing before a live audience -- I also can watch. But few things match the glory of, say, the Berlioz Requiem, where four brass ensembles are located at the corners of the auditorium -- as I have heard it performed at the Cincinnati Music Hall; I am surrounded by music, at times encircled by it as the four ensembles play in succession and the sound whirls around me. When I buy an SACD, DVD-Audio or DVD-Video of a concert or opera, I look first for the quality of the performance; then, the quality of recording. No sense in buying a magnificent performance that's badly recorded. I want as much as I can get from both. Here, Netflix is a joy; it makes available for rent many relatively new recordings which allows me to judge whether the disc is worth buying on a meager budget. If it's not available from Netflix, there are reviewers who judgment I trust. In this case, one of the best is Arkivmusic.com -- when they recommend a disc, they discuss both performance AND recording. I rarely have been disappointed in their recommendations. This Christmas, both the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the choral groups at St. Olaf College were broadcast on PBS in HD and Dolby Digital; on my system, the sound was sumptuous. That is what I am after; the system I have gives me close to what I could dream to have.

[Martiat]

All what I have read so far maybe relevant according to the way one listens to music: as a background or as a unique moment of enjoyment, during which one does not anything else, but listening. In the latter case, there is now way around. It is not a matter of specification, it is a matter of emotion. Do I feel like I had the musicion in front of me when I close my eyes, does the saxophone or the violin sound as when I heard it in a concert ? Does it move me ?
Even with rock music, if a concert is well recorded, a Gibson Les Paul should sound differently from, say, a Fender Stratocaster. If the bass or the kick drum is too boomy, it is a matter of good recording first, then of having some good gear from the player to the speaker, which needs months or year to match with the amplifier and cables. I love music, and it would even be difficult to listen to it, with a few people talking around me. Of course, it took me years of saving money and listening to come close to what I really wanted, and I had to go through several step by step upgrades (since I could not afford to buy mys system at once). Finally, it is important to build a good relationship with the dealer, in order for him to let you hear in his store first, then to lend you some material for a trial at home until you find a good match between your component. Trying to correct the acoustics of your listening room also helps, and there are some cheap ways to do it, but it takes time. After a few years, I have a system worth a good BMW. Simply I enjoy it more in a day, than if I were driving a top car for a few dozen of minutes every day, possibly in traffic jam, it pollutes less and does not swallow money in gas and insurance. You need not to be rich to have a system allowing you to enjoy music. It is a matter of patience and priority.

[MichaelTiemann]

It took 3 pages of comments, but finally I found comments I agreed with: GRobLewis and slemenda both make a point that match my pet peeves: (1) music production values have gone to hell, and (2) most live music venues are themselves now a version of hell, with volume levels that are literally destroying our hearing. Lacking any valid reference points from either recorded music or live music, it is little wonder that an early commentator said "Americans are not only musically illiterate, but aurally deficient." It is not unlike the way that high fructose corn syrup and ubiquitous transfats have made the average American not only the laughing stock of other cullinary cultures, but also an increasingly obese embodiment of the moniker "The Ugly American".

Now that I've got that off my chest, I will say that there are some in the audio engineering profession who are passionate about reversing the trends of the past 20 years, and some of them are American. One such is Bob Katz, who has both worked and advocated tirelessly against "The Loudness Wars". Here's an excellent resource on the subject:

http://www.turnmeup.org/

And for those Americans who don't have the attention span to actually read, the video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

Excessive loudness and bad production values really are a disease of the art, and I believe that when the source material (as represented by the CD) returns to the quality that we had on vinyl 30 years ago (not because vinyl is better than CD as a medium, but because those masters were better than the masters we're creating for CDs today), we'll be back on track and looking for speakers worthy of our music. I hope that day comes sooner rather than later, and some day rather then never at all.

[rockstarstatus]

Wow! If Americans are so horrible why the hell are you posting here? I thought personal attacks were prohibited? I can laugh off a couple of punches but I think you went too far. Maybe it's my short attention span or my constant diet of Doritos, Coke and frozen pizza-rolls but I'm still confused as to how my culinary choices effect my sound system? Maybe if I DIDN'T buy the pizza-rolls I could afford better components. Or maybe if I just say NO to that can of Coke I can eventually get that pre-amp I've been craving.
I'd planned on a visit to Europe and the UK, maybe I should use THAT money for my sound system. I'd heard that beautiful places and kind, conscientious people existed all over this little blue marble we call Earth but it seems I was wrong. Why subject myself to anti-American Eurotrash rantings when I can listen to pristine audio?

[minimalist]

"Just the same as for wine snobs: the huge majority of people simply want to enjoy a glass every now and then, and know they'll never be expert on the various vineyards in the Côte Rôtie appelation, even if they could afford the multi-hundred dollar bottles. Yeah, the stuff is intense and maybe even fascinating, but you can get 95% of the pleasure from a bottle costing less than $20."

Amen!

So where are the companies making the audio equivalent of the 10-20 dollar bottles of wine? And why is it so hard to find? If affordable wine was sold only in specialty shops that were all but hidden from the general public I doubt winemaking would be the huge industry it has become.

[GoodTimeCharlie]

In the 70s the key to a sound system was to match the components. It did no good to have great speakers with a bad turntable or amp. The same is true now.

What is the point of $300 cables for $500 "systems" or $1,000 Bose speakers for $200 MP3 players/iPods ... yet this is what advertisers/sales staff try to sell all the time now.

Of course the other big variable often overlooked (and/or poo-poo'ed by sales staff/audiophiles) is the listening environment itself: Outside sounds(airport/expressway)? TV blasting in next room? Where am I/the wife verses position of the speakers (which chair at the moment verses room-equipment layout)? What kind of drapes, carpet, etc., are in the room?

Expensive equipment poorly matched or a bad listening environment equals wasted money ... for an audiophile or frat house college guy.

Buy some good headphones ... can sound great no matter where you sit and on top of that the neighbors, spouse, parents, kids, roommates, etc., won't complain about the volume a bit.

Add some $10-30 wine (or good beer) and after a couple of glasses (bottles), I can take off the headphones & fall asleep just fine.

[CBS Orchestra]

Unfortunately, most of today's music seems to be recorded with all the inputs pushed up to 11, and then crushed to death during mastering. The excessive clipping, distortion and lack of dynamic range in the end product make investing in top quality speaker systems much less worthwhile today than back in the analog days.

[standto]

Causes: Speaker industry hucksterism (why shld I pay $10K for home speakers when professional studio monitors do not cost this much?) - electronic instruments lower the bar for reproduction fidelity - crap music. There are plenty of causes.
Once I walked into a high end audio store and heard the strangest thing, small speakers which had an unreal depth of field. It sounded like the speaker was a doorway, i.e. you could walk through the speaker into another room. I had not heard such depth in so-called professional studio installations where the speakers cost $$$.

[standto]

Listeners no longer are familiar with live instrument reference points. Consumers rarely listen to live, unamplified, acoustical instruments. Why should consumers want anything other than what they have heard (amplification)?

[moretroops]

Same point, but slighly different:

I was at a NYE party monday night in Miami, and the dj's -- while playing perfectly good selections -- blew the whole deal with ear-piercing, tinny sound, and hopelessly distorted bass. I actually had to tell them to take it easy on the highs. And I do this all the time! But the thing is, the people at the party didn't seem to care. They were oblivious to sound that, to me, was unbearable. They stood directly in front of the undersized, underpowered, overburdened speakers and danced like it was a live band.

It truly hurt my ears.

Sadly, this happens in clubs and bars all the time. Loudness for loudness sake. It's an assault on the ears that -- I swear -- was not nearly as prevalent 10 years ago.

It seems that people are aurally deficient these days. While our tv screens have gotten better and better, our sound (and our ability to appreciate good sound) has degraded.

This annoys me, in case you can't tell.

[minimalist]

Good grief! Take a step back in actually listen to how many of these posts sound.

All this luddite whining and moaning about "these kids today" and "stupid Americans" and "all this modern music is crap" or "it all sounds like noise these days anyway". One might get the idea that audiophiles are all bitter and cranky old men.

You can be sad all you want for the Golden Days of hi-fi (personally, I'm not convinced they ever really existed because I remember audiophiles in the 80's bemoaning the growing popularity of the CD ands how it was destroying music as well). But lashing out in judgement against people who don't agree (i.e. anybody but an audiophile) by claiming they are stupid or lazy isn't helping the matter at all.

[mightymike2]

I think alot of the response that people have to this issue is that in todays world, folks just don't sit down and take the time to listen!
Yea, if your only thinking of background sounds, you can get by very easy on 3 inch woofers, but if you really want to experience the music you have to treat yourself to the sound that only a good quality system can give you, and that good system does not have to break your bank account. There is no way that I could watch a movie or listen to a great album on a small cheap system and say that I am satisfied!

[cbamity]

how about the "I can hear the difference myth" especially with things like speaker wire