The future of HiFi

[admin_exported]

Hi

I was wondering about this subject. Please contribute your thoughts!

With people investing serious money and time to build respectable hifi systems, does the foreseeable future rest with stereo? Is it more reasonable to endorse audiophile 5.1-channel receiver and speaker systems, seeing the way that home-cinema is heading?

May your expertise prevail!

 

[gregory]

everyone thought vinyl was dead and buried,yet it still performs for many people on a higher level than cd but can we live with two formats vying for space with each other.yes if we have huge amounts of space and an understanding partner but in my book 2 channel stereo for me everytime.it depends i suppose on our needs as well.i live in a small flat so a 5.1 system is out of the question.i am quite happy with the sound going through my 2 channel set up and get great enjoyment from it.i don't watch much tv or many films so music is my first source of entertainment but when the wife wants to watch an action movie she is more than happy with the sound from my set up and agrees that to incorporate a 5.1 system would then interfere with our 2 channel enjoyment.my wife has had to put up with me on many demos so she knows a thing or two about hi-fi and concurs that our set up as it is,is more enjoyable in sound quality than an 5.1 system we had in a bigger flat we lived in a few years back.if you can intergrate said system and the sound quality is up to scratch then i believe you will get great enjoyment from it,but for me the 2 channel route is the only way to go for the sound it can reproduce.

 

[Anonymous]

Digital playback is to some considerable extent artificially limited at the moment. We have the technology to be routinely listening to 192kHz recordings in multichannel sound, but if the recordings aren't released in that format routinely, it's not going to become mainstream. Obviously multi-channel sound isn't always convenient, but recordings can of course default to stereo. Music is a little different to multichannel surround for home cinema or gaming, since music is frequently enjoyed while doing something else, so we are liable to continue to need the stereo option. For multichannel audio to be convenient, I think better dispersion is a must, none of this sweet-spot stuff....

I suppose another big issue is ditching physical media like CDs, vinyl and so on. The utility of having your music as files on some computer-based storage system is so great, and iTunes, despite the crippled playback quality has shown the effect such things can have on the album as-a-whole, once we're allowed to pick and choose individual tracks. Perhaps record companies would like us to be buying crippled media, and we seem to be mostly passengers in all of this... we get what we're given. As long as that continues, a significant chunk of audiophilia will be about making silk purses out of sows' ears.

 

[Anonymous]

The future of HiFi is whatever makes money for the manufacturers. If you want a 2 channel system then buy one. If everyone actually purchased what they want instead of trying to future proof their system maybe more of what they want would be available.

For me it is 2 channel all the way. 5.1 is a mess, 7.1 is a mess, and the constant new "standards" for multi-channel are much worse than anything the hi-end audio world has ever put out.

A 2 channel system purchased in 1950, with a CD player upgrade, will still play every single redbook CD sold in the world. Same with Vinyl.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's that simple. People can only buy what's available, they didn't CHOOSE a situation where there were all these different standards. If the industry keeps releasing media in different formats, how much choice do we have? Are there any consumers demanding that some films are released as BluRay while others are HD-DVD? If I could genuinely buy what I want, all my CDs would be high definition audio, not 44kHz and 16-bit. But most CDs are not released in a high-def. format.

 

[Anonymous]

5.1, why would anyone think that its natural for a person to go to a concert and sit in the middle of an orchestra .............

 

[Andrew Everard]

Agreed, but one might think it natural to go to a concert and sit in a realistic concert hall acoustic.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I'll never forgive the producers of the Elvis No1s DVD-Audio - one of the worst-engineered 5.1 music discs ever....

 

[Andrew Everard]

ie It's not a problem with 5.1 itself, but the way the recording engineers handle it. The sound on last night's Hootenanny, for example, was exemplary, with just the right combination of focus and ambience.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd presume that the originals weren't recorded in surround, so therefore the surround channels had to be "synthesised" in some abomnable way?

 

[Anonymous]

Meanwhile, Jools seemed a touch too distracted by having Kylie wriggling all over his piano...

 

[Andrew Everard]

As indeed one would be...

 

[VoodooDoctor]

[quote user="helisphon"]Meanwhile, Jools seemed a touch too distracted by having Kylie wriggling all over his piano...[/quote]

The sound from the Hootenany was great last night. We were rocking the street with it.

I think I'd be distracted if Kylie was wriggling on my piano too.

 

[Gyp]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]


As indeed one would be...

[/quote]

Sorry Andrew, i watched this last night and studied your picture but try as I might I can't see this "Jools" you are talking about. And a piano..?

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="Gyp"]Sorry Andrew, i watched this last night and studied your picture but try as I might I can't see this "Jools" you are talking about. And a piano..?[/quote]

Point taken

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Gyp"][quote user="Andrew Everard"]


As indeed one would be...

[/quote]

Sorry Andrew, i watched this last night and studied your picture but try as I might I can't see this "Jools" you are talking about. And a piano..?[/quote]

Jools is the guy looking like he's just died and gone to heaven, while his bassist looks at him reproachfully. The piano is the thing being wriggled upon... ok, I know it's hopeless, lol...

 

[robg1976]

Just a point we should all think about a av amp with 5 channels cost more to make so lets say a 2 channel stereo amp costing £300 you would have to pay probably £1000 to get a 5 channel a/v amp with the same sonic ability dont you think....

 

[Andrew Everard]

Yes, you're right - the version of I Should Be So Lucky was amazing.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
Yes, you're right - the version of I Should Be So Lucky was amazing.

[/quote]

Lucky I wasn't there! ; )

 

[matthewpiano]

I think the future of hi-fi is whatever we make it. For me its a higher end system built around my soon to be received Michell turntable. The system will probably grow via addition of either Quad or Sugden amplification and will be a long term - possibly permanent - fixture. CD duties will almost certainly be AstinTrew. I'm not interested in multi-channel for myself or in hard disk servers but I'm sure they will play a huge part in many audiophile's lives.
I think that as 2-channel eventually becomes less mainstream there will be continued great choice from the smaller specialist companies which already tend to make most of the best gear.

 

[Anonymous]

I think what one of the guys said about "sitting in the middle of an orchestra" is bang on right. Surely the point of stereo is to produce the feeling of being in a concert hall or the like...at night time when I turn my system on, it sometimes scares me how lifelike everything is when I was used to that cr@ppy JVC midi system.

I didn't know it was possible to place each instrument in the correct place in the orchestra just by listening! Sometimes i'll look at a diagram of where instruments are placed in an orchestra and make myself laugh cause it's so accurate. If that's not a reason to say Stereo is best...then I don't know what is!

The other problem I have with 5.1 set-ups is that you have to pay sooo much more to get the same level of quality you would from a stereo set-up.

Join the anti-music in 5.1 petition!

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Hughes123"]I think what one of the guys said about "sitting in the middle of an orchestra" is bang on right. Surely the point of stereo is to produce the feeling of being in a concert hall or the like...at night time when I turn my system on, it sometimes scares me how lifelike everything is when I was used to that cr@ppy JVC midi system.

I didn't know it was possible to place each instrument in the correct place in the orchestra just by listening! Sometimes i'll look at a diagram of where instruments are placed in an orchestra and make myself laugh cause it's so accurate. If that's not a reason to say Stereo is best...then I don't know what is!

The other problem I have with 5.1 set-ups is that you have to pay sooo much more to get the same level of quality you would from a stereo set-up.

Join the anti-music in 5.1 petition![/quote]

I think Andrew's point was that the idea behind using 5.1 when listening to classical music - or indeed live rock recordings - is not to place you in the middle of the orchestra, but to enhance the feeling of being sat in the audience by providing more ambient information than you get from stereo.

If the recording actually places you where the second violins sit, maybe it's not the best use of the 5.1 approach. Though I suppose it's something different...

(At least, I think that's what he meant. I could be wrong...)

 

[Andrew Everard]

[quote user="helisphon"]I think Andrew's point was that the idea behind using 5.1 when listening to classical music - or indeed live rock recordings - is not to place you in the middle of the orchestra, but to enhance the feeling of being sat in the audience by providing more ambient information than you get from stereo.
[/quote]

By George, he's got it!

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Andrew Everard"]
[quote user="helisphon"]I think Andrew's point was that the idea behind using 5.1 when listening to classical music - or indeed live rock recordings - is not to place you in the middle of the orchestra, but to enhance the feeling of being sat in the audience by providing more ambient information than you get from stereo.
[/quote]

By George, he's got it!
[/quote]

Woohoo!! (Now if I can just get my head around the cable thing, and CD versus vinyl, and valve vs. solid-state, and...)

 

[Anonymous]

So which hifi-standard 5.1 amplifiers have you in mind Andrew? Are these models starting above £600?