Dominant Players in High-end Audio

During much of recent history, there has been a organization or group that was kind of the standard bearer – which kind of influenced the immediate future of high-end audio: hardware, attitudes, evaluation techniques, etc.

I wonder if this is no longer true – that we as a culture, and especially we as a hobby, have been fractured so much that we are just composed of a lot of different groups, based on some [I would say fantasy] of shared interests – and I ponder if most or all of these are just cul-de-sacs, and lot of niche dead-ends.

In the past [and correct / assist me if need be] we had:

Stereo magazine – Measurements are king

Stereophile – Measurements are still king, but the king is wearing shorts

The Absolute Sound/HP – subjective listening is King

Audiogon – pluralism and shills are king

Audio Asylum – pluralism and nastiness are king

Audio Circle – Discounts, pluralism and disinformation shills are king

…

Lately though, I think none of these sites is any longer dominant. HP reviews and Stereophile reviews and Audiogon and Audio Circle pumps no longer sell that much product. They are no longer guiding the industry.

Perhaps that is because the economy and politics are so dominating the culture these days [the middle class is too poor to buy anything and the wealthy are buying things left and right when they are not scared out of their wits]. So we have lots of very expensive gear and lots of very cheap gear – not much in-between.

And, somehow, the social networks got people hearing lots and lots of opinions, often believing and valuing what a complete stranger tells them.

The only way I have seen out of this mess, this tower of Babble [but better than the old days of a single dominant player!] is to rate things based on many different aspects. Not sure if this would work for Yelp or other rating sites – but we got whole spectrums of lean < --- > warm, dynamic < --- > closed-in, accurate versus non-accurate, etc. etc. and many more which we have talked about and listed on this blog and website many times.

That way instead of ‘it sucks’ we can get ‘it is warm sounding’ and instead of ‘its the best’ we can get them to say ‘it has good dynamic bass’. This would result in the neutering the shills [and the rest of the hyperbole-generating hordes :-)] because, although their goals is to convince everyone that a products is the best for everyone on this and every other planet, all they can now say is, for example, is that it has ‘great dynamics’ – letting all the people who like a more laid back presentation know that this is not for them.

Anyway, our hobby/industry is getting swept up along with all the other more modern industries by what is happening outside the listening room. Sure is fun to watch 🙂