Photos of Neli and Hermann Winters of Acapella at CES 2015. The featured photo is the one Neli likes the most (she liked #3 and #4 the best) and below is the one I liked the most (I liked #1 and #2). That’s right, we were both completely, perfectly, not-in-agreement [usually we do better than this :-)].
Never got around to posting these photos but we got a question about how big the Acapella Cellini speakers were – and I thought that these photos might help put these modestly-sized speakers (for Acapella) into perspective
Oh man or man oh man…. And I’m pretty sure Neli’s dream house looks like this too. Someday… and probably this will be worse than clothes or dishes.. you know, when she puts something somewhere where it is not supposed to be and I can’t find it when I NEED IT!…. 😉
“Sweetie, where did you put the Mahavishnu John albums? Rock? Fusion? Psychedelia?”
7. You thumb through every single record bin in every shop because you never know what you might find.
I try to fight the urge. I try to optimize my time, going through bins that are most likely to be fruitful… But I always wonder about those other bins….
11. Looking at a photo like this makes you quietly freak out – THAT’S NOT HOW YOU STORE A RECORD! YOU’RE GOING TO RUIN IT!!!
Well, actually, it is already ruined. There is usually a bin or two like this in most thrift shops. Just have to turn your head and move away….
Not at all interested in:
18. You are ready and willing to argue about the superiority of vinyl over CDs at any given moment.
This is for all youse who have a lot of time on your hands… 😉
Microsoft HoloLens
Imagine Dragons sure has become a successful band..
This is where we recreate the performance not only aurally but visually… Pinpoint imaging will be our friend….
Well, at least there won’t be a big flat screen to mess with the sound. But seriously, it would be nice if our industry did not shun this technology like it does video in the listening room.
That’s hi-fi for now folks. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
“Over the past couple of years, I’ve been to all of the wildly successful Southern California Head-Fi Meets organized by third_eye (Ethan) and warrenpchi (Warren). Witnessing the growing scale and quality of their meets, the three of us met to explore the idea of turning next year’s Spring SoCal Head-Fi Meet into a full-blown annual CanJam event.
And so, on March 28-29, 2015–at the Westin South Coast Plaza Hotel–CanJam will return to California, as a standalone event, bigger and better than ever!”
SACD is Going Bye Bye
This is kind of like taking BOTH the red and blue pills.
For those of you with large SACD collections, now would be a good time to buy your ‘last, best’ SACD player.
Those would be the players from EMM Labs… if you want the best at comparatively a reasonable price… or from those ‘other manufacturers’ for some of you other types :-), or, at the low end, the last few remaining Sony Blu-ray players that still support SACD. Over on Steve Hoffman Forums they like picking up some of these sub $150 players before they all disappear completely:
We have about 80 to 100 SACDs, mostly dual layer luckily [90% of the single-layer, pure SACDs, were bought from the Sony website itself many years ago for fairly cheap. I guess that was a clue :-)].
One has to wonder how long Blu-ray will be with us… I guess as long as it is used as a back-up medium for PCs, for however long THEY are with us. :-0
Anyway, it certainly has been a long time coming, and it has been a long time since player manufacturers have touted how well they do SACD as Redbook CDs continue to get better, and better, both the media itself and the playback hardware. And recently, of course, there are the various flavors of DSD formats – similar to SACD but not physical-media-centric and not controlled by Sony.
Easy DIY digital active speakers
This guy runs digital music out the HDMI port of his laptop into a multi-channel $200 Sony amplifier. From there, one set of 3 channels go to power each of the drivers in the 3-way crossoverless speakers. and the other 3 channels power the drivers in the other speaker.
To my ears, the Sony amplifier leaves something to be desired [like some decay and fineness of resolution, etc.] but this is a fascinating idea. All the hard work is done in the laptop, which means it is done in software, which means free or very inexpensive and very malleable allowing you to optimize for your ears, your room and your speakers.
Home Audio is going Big Time
Nest is entering the home audio business, and having thought about how a innovative tech company would approach our industry for several years, I think things as we knew them are going to get turned upside-down and inside out. This is the guy who is ‘the father of the iPod’ and the silly little smart thermostat company that sold for $3.2B. If this pans out, our hobby will really grow, finally(!), but few of the current players are going to participate in this growth [except but for the old saying: a rising tide raises all boats – but in this case it’ll be a tsunami].
That’s hi-fi for now folks. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
“The power of radio extends across all major demographics and ethnicities: 91% of Millennials are reached by radio each week, and penetration among both African Americans and Hispanics also exceeds 90%.”
“Of the 243 million Americans (aged 12 or older) using radio each week, 66.6 million of them are Millennials. This far outpaces the size of the weekly Generation X and Boomer radio audiences, with 57.9 million weekly listeners each. The younger generation also listens to a lot! Millennials spend more than 11 hours a week with radio, and nearly three quarters (73%) of their listening occurs while outside the home and close to making purchasing decisions.”
[Note the different (Non-overlapping!) times per day each age group listens to the radio.]
The marginalization of the CD and resulting shrinkage of the recorded music industry.
There are still 140 million CDs sold in the US. Almost a billion worldwide. CDs are not going away for us audiophiles for many decades, and will always dwarf LP sales [IMO]
Adjusted for inflation…
OK. Let’s cry these jerks [the RIAA] a river.
They are selling CDs that cost 20 cents to make [or less, for the entire package] for $20 or so. Made some money with this scam. Created a bubble in their earnings.
Now people are fed up and do not want to pay anything at all. Surprised?
DVDs are the same scam. Even at Costco DVDs cost $18 or so. Expect more shouting when that bubble collapses as movies also migrate from product to service.
Anyway, like all bubbles, the post bubble era will be characterized by a depressed value for music, but it will recover eventually. Think one billion+ people subscribing to music services at $30/month.
Bryston becomes international distributor for Target equipment stands.
Glad to see this. I have a couple of Target stands here in my office holding up my monitor speakers – but I had a hard time finding where they are still being sold on the internet for our Hi-Fi Equipment Racks page. Hopefully Bryston will fix that problem.
That’s hi-fi for now folks. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
This might be positive for the industry if we can get people to walk into a decent high-end audio dealership – and if at the same time if there should appear more decent high-end audio dealerships. Or maybe they should just go to high-end audio shows – much better sound there for the most part…. Hmmmmmm…..
The contrast between high-end audio and what most people are used to hearing is growing and growing…
“A recent study performed by audio researchers at DTS divided a group of listeners into two groups — one that watched a video accompanied by standard stereo 96-kbps sound (Spotify’s default audio setting) and the other group listened in 256-kbps audio format. The responses in the brains of the group listening with the 256-kbps audio were 14% more powerful on metrics measuring memory creation and 66% higher on pleasure responses. And this was just 96 to 256 kbps. “
Lots of links to articles and graphs in that Mic article…
From Spotify’s voluminous data analyzed by Music Machinery :
Just what is with you late 40 somethings and late 60 somethings? 🙂
Decent article. Essentially, the value proposition is that they weed through a ton of used vinyl to find those special pressing in special condition for you. So you are really paying to save time and effort and frustration [if it takes you 100 purchases of $10 LPs to get one really awesome LP, well that is 1000 dollars and a ton of time]. Of course, if you have some time and enjoy flipping through LPs and the thrill of the hunt, well then, this may not be for you.
These guys could really use a much better system to evaluate LPs with… though that is a really revealing tweeter.
The comments reveal the usual Belief-based versus Fact-based world views, rife on the internet and in the media these days
Besides the value proposition explained above, besides the ‘market’ saying that hot stampers and audiophile gear in general is worth a great deal to a great number of people, these people BELIEVE that CDs must sound better than LPs, the audiophile’s do not understand a lot more of what they are hearing than they do, that cables make no difference, etc. The thing about BELIEVERS is there is no supporting factual base for their positions, and that it makes them feel very uncomfortable to hear factual data in opposition to their beliefs. Their real thrill comes from vitriolic willfully ignorant compatriots who support their beliefs.
So, Mr. Fremer, I think your efforts are wasted on the people commenting on that article.
If I was to comment, I might go for the sarcastic mocking approach, like “Yeah, audiophiles will spend megabucks on just about anything!!! It is so EZ to sell these guys stuff that we are starting a business to do just that. You guys are just the ones who should invest – you are the ones who have figured all this out and know how big this will be, this is like shooting ducks on a pond, right? $1000 dollar CDs!!! We’ll make billions. We’re starting a Kickstarter campaign tomorrow…”
Yep. Something nice for the Believers – just winging it here…
Music Lovers (SF) gets ripped off again, twice in the last 30 days, along with several other high-end audio establishments in the area.
If you think our marketplaces are keeping an eye out for this stuff, you would be wrong:
“We have the serial numbers. If Audiogon ever advertises our stolen goods again, as they did with a Nagra preamp, and then fails to cooperate with us so we can tell the Police Department, I’m going to sue them.”
So it is up to us to keep alert. I haven’t seen a list of stolen gear which would be helpful…
Today in Audiophiledom – Audeze robbery, Hyperion Records, Photoshopping eBay LPs, and Recreational Noise
Please Help Audeze – Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open for Clues
“February 28th, there was a break-in and robbery at Audeze. About $250,000 of headphones were stolen. We’re a relatively small company and this is a real blow. Audeze asks everyone to let us know if offered LCD headphones at a deal that’s too good to be true. You should be highly suspicious if anyone other than an Authorized Audeze dealer offers you our headphones for sale at a reduced price. We don’t allow our dealers to sell via Amazon, eBay, Craigslist etc., so deals on these sites should be carefully researched before purchase. You should also be very concerned if their headphones do not have a serial number, or the seller refuses to give you the serial number before purchase. All Audeze headphones have a serial number on the inside of the adjusting block. We’ll soon publish a list of all stolen products’ serial numbers. In addition, Audeze is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves.
If you have any information or questions, please write to: support@audeze.com. While it does not appear any EL-8s were stolen (they were in a different area of our warehouse), due to the police investigation and general disruption, you should expect a few days’ delay in EL-8 shipments.
Thanks, The Audeze Team”
Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first, has a free music download this month of their monthly sampler in ALAC and FLAC and MP3
The Reddit user, REMAIN_IN_LIGHT, has a good idea for people who buy LPs off eBay. If they put up a photo of the album, you can run it through something like Photoshop to see what it REALLY looks like, warts, scratches and all.
“Data from studies in middle- and high-income countries analysed by WHO indicate that among teenagers and young adults aged 12-35 years, nearly 50% are exposed to unsafe levels of sound from the use of personal audio devices and around 40% are exposed to potentially damaging levels of sound at entertainment venues. Unsafe levels of sounds can be, for example, exposure to in excess of 85 decibles[sic] (dB) for eight hours or 100dB for 15 minutes.”
85dB for 8 hours? Sounds like an average day for an exhibitor at every hi-fi show I have ever been to.
And weren’t they saying this in the 60s? and 70s? and, you know, haven’t they been saying this forever?
Not that it isn’t true, but the AMOUNT of hearing loss is usually so small that it has minimal deleterious impact on lifestyle. Especially compared to the alternative, in which case, like the authors of this WHO article, music just becomes other people’s recreational noise. 😉
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That’s hi-fi for now folks. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
First, there is a lot of music snobbery at shows. Maybe snobbery is not always the right word. Some attendees will only listen to classical music and will leave a room and never come back if anything else is played. Some attendees only listen to 3 or 4 piece jazz. Some only to ‘audiophile quality’ music. Most exhibitors will only play audiophile music, in fact 90% or so will not accept requests anymore (CES especially, but also trending at RMAF).
The reference to “… ask to hear a bootleg recording of ear-splitting heavy metal…” is a joke. No one plays heavy metal during a show [except Audio Note ;-)]. No one plays modern pop music [modern being after 1990 or so]. Established, old fashioned, very well-recorded Radiohead is OMG are you sure you want to play that? No one plays techno. No one plays country or bluegrass [with a few exceptions].
When we exhibit we play all requests. If the music is recorded badly, so be it. Let the attendee hear how badly it is recorded. There is a real problem with burned CDs, however, where well-recorded songs sound terrible. They say “We heard Hotel California in this room with $2 speakers, sounded great THERE”. But they played the real CD, not the burned mockery.
We also have people come to the store with these, and we just wait, wincing, hoping and wishing for one of their songs to be from a CD we also own – so we can replay the darn thing and show them how it is supposed to sound. Otherwise we have to have the ‘talk’ about how to not burn a CD – and that all of their auditions to this point, perhaps years worth, have been with material that is harmonically flawed and dynamically flat.
The real story in the Stereophile article is that the guy got to hear his recording for a few minutes before the exhibitor wanted to play a different genre of music. He should consider himself lucky and do not assume that exhibitors can hear the flaws being revealed in their playback systems anymore that we can assume musicians can hear them. Or reviewers. This ‘being able to hear things’ ability is only found on a case by case, individual basis, and has little to do with the listener’s profession. In fact, I bet one would find it to be inversely proportional to what you would expect based on their profession [few plumbers listen with their mind’s preconceptions rather than their ears].
Personally, I think they should ban classical, jazz and audiophile music from shows. Not that I don;t love these genres, but I AM SO BORED with hearing the same old every show. I bet sales would triple for most, while some manufacturers would go right out of business 😉
Good news for the Capital Audiofest, I think, getting access to more marketing and promotional juice.
Every year we hear good things about this show and how both exhibitors and attendees get a lot out of it.
The Vinyl Factory has a piece on Eno thinking sound engineers have gone too far in their reliance on digital.
It was about 10 years ago that they used a computer to generate ‘new’ Beethoven symphonies [by programming a computer with his basic patterns and rhythms, etc.]. At this point, any popular musician who has a sound [like Eno] can be imitated by both humans and computer.
How does a musician differentiate themselves? Is it REALLY by going analogue?
Or is it by changing up the sound from album to album like Radiohead. Or by playing so many, many concerts, and giving them away like the Dead thereby making imitations entertaining, but in the end worthless.
And then we have Krell being awarded a plaque by Honda.
“In recognition of continuous dedication to The Advanced Technology”
Does anybody else wonder about the English here and, ignoring that, what does this mean? That Krell is continually advancing Krell’s technology?
This is nice for audiophiledom, but there is a battle going on for the dashboard, and Apple, having been rejected, is working on building their own cars.
Ever think about the massive captive audience when people are stuck in their automatically driving cars for an hour a day with nothing to do but play with the dash?
Maybe Apple will buy a [real, not Beats] high-end audio company next for their auto factory.
That’s all for today folks. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.
But apparently the 44 countries they serve does not include the U.S. as the first screen we are presented with is below…
But they go ahead and let me browse anyway… Good. 🙂 Though, like with Tidal, the user interfaces of these sites takes some getting used to…
Next we have a video made last New Years Eve Eve (2014) by an EXTREMELY popular blog The Verge:
Fairly well-balanced presentation. Nice. Audiophiledom is creeping into the minds of the masses. Figure they arrive where we all are – in terms of macro-sized gear – in about… oh… 2025?
