On the opposite end, high end audio is booming. You are seeing more and more new high end offerings in major audio shows. This phenomenon is without any reason, the richest 1% own 48% global wealth in 2014 (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/blogs/2015/01/richest-1-per-cent-will-own-more-than-all-the-rest-by-2016) and the trend will continue. Globalization, trade barrier deregulation and greater liquidity due to money printing thrust the economy forward. Businesses are moving cross border at an unprecedented rate. The "Occupy Wall Street" in 2011 is one hard evidence. Wages have been stagnant for decades while inflation compounded by yearly basis. Economy has no bearing on the rich, they are getting richer by the day and they continue to spend. Sadly, imbalance global wealth distribution is not healthy for the audio industry as a whole because soon enough, the high end market will saturate. Naturally, margin has to go up to cover the loss of sales in quantity.
The emerging headphone audio is due to the rise of computer generation. Information Technology revolutionizes our life, IT professionals dominate the world's richest man ranking and replacing the manufacturing based entrepreneurs. A shift of paradigm. Computerization speeds up everything, business, social, education, even politics and lowering the cost of business. The sad story of working class, the household income has not risen in tandem to inflation. Our real spending power is constantly lessen. The rising price of real estate is also at an alarming rate, it is impossible to own a house in urban now with average wage, let alone a decent size audio room. The younger generations will have to settle to a smaller living space. All these factors promote headphone audio for obvious reasons, headphone audio doesn't take up a lot space and no room acoustics to worry about. No noise issue either.
This is evidenced with the rise in headphone offerings in KLIAV 2016. I'm kind of disappointed to see lesser mid end hifi products. Even, the high end products this year have scaled down reflecting pessimistic economy outlook. It does look that way, at least. To me, high end products are my fascination, but the mid end products are the one I will live with. Just like car show, visitors come to watch luxurious sport cars but few can afford and those who can afford don't come to watch. They get private viewing.
I have come to understand the addiction of high power amp. The thought of high power amp producing coarse sound is a thing of the past. We have to give credits to the improvements of parts and new understanding of amplification technologies. With power, comes grand stage and majesty. The sound gains effortless-ness and grandeur. July 28 goes down as my audio redemption day as my system has leaped into another league of performance. It has been wild two weeks for me, taking no prisoners, I have grown intolerant to these anomalies. Everything is moving fast and I haven't stopped since. After three days of intensive tuning, I'm happy with how my system sounds. My confidence rose to record high, but I'll spare you the boring details.
Music is made out of rhythm, timbre and dynamic, these three sound principals are my sound guide. One cannot live without either element. Quite frankly, we couldn't do much with rhythm because it is in the music. The recording people are responsible keeping the rhythm intact in the recording. Timbre and dynamic are well within our choice of hardware, cables and speakers.
We want our timbre to be reasonably accurate. Tell me if you could settle to the tone of loose guitar strings? If you could settle a Steinway sounded as if a Yamaha or Kawai? Or Stradivari as Guarneri? Would you trade tonal accuracy for euphonic? I know I wouldn't. I know what to expect listening to Classical and Jazz. I too, know how the real thing sounds like. I like to hear gripping, snappiness and drive in music. But when someone come telling me otherwise, I smiled and walked away.
Besides that, drive and pace too are indispensable. A sluggish sound is a boring sound, it has taken away the zippiness of cymbals, hit hat, sax, violin, drums and so on so forth. It also slow the drive of the music, no swing to speak of.
Today, the "eye fi" plague, audio too becomes a game the perception. The evil of marketing prevails. Many have fallen prey to eye fi, they are omitting their cognitive valuation. Well, let me tell you, reputable brands also have flop offerings. Look out for product model longevity, say more than three years old if you want to walk on the safe side. A short lived product is almost never a good product.
There are too, some who read through the marketing literature and start bashing other competitive products. Unless he is technically sound, no direct benchmark to begin with.
The thing about milling the whole block of aluminum as an enclosure is excessively exotic albeit willing buying willing selling. High end audio is slowly self-reinventing to kind of like luxury horology. It seems that manufacturers are trying to outdo each other with price and power. Unawaringly, tonal profile becomes an area of differentiation. Audio folks are practically submitting to a specific sound profile of audio designer. This is a deviation from the truth of sound but it seems most are happy with the brand association. Refusing to budge, I maintain brand blind and stay true to "no strong character" equipment. Getting as close as possible to music is the name of my game.
It is not uncommon that a good system is ruined by poor set up. System ill matching tops the list, closely follow by room acoustics. The lucky few could afford building an audio room ground up but for most middle income earners, we settle with the existing room available to us. Our foremost priority is avoid the room acoustic from getting in the music way. This alone is a tall order.
If you desired high fidelity sound, you need to think timbre first. Secondly, dynamic, particularly the crucial micro dynamic. Plucking the guitar strings, bowing the cello, bending notes the sax, piano play, even playing the inconsequential chimes, micro dynamic gives life to them. Dynamic to music is like blood to Dracula. Unless you listen to Georgian chant, which is rather flat and hardly any rise and dip, you will fine. But for the rest of us, we need micro dynamic.
We ought to stay in a state of hedonic treadmill, for we only live once. Stay positive, every break of dawn is another day less in our life. I have gone passed sound integrity, harmonics and dynamic. Don't bite off more than you can chew, take thing one at a time, you get there. I thank God that I am now enjoying the fruit of my labor.
