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progressively fewer and fewer people have ever heard a good system

172.147.225.22

The best stuff in the big box stores is getting worse and worse. The typical home theater in a box is incredibly bad. The difference between average audio and good/high-end audio is increasing.

The opposite is happening in video. The cost of plasma and lcd televisions that have excellent pictures is dropping quickly. Front projectors, the ideal for home theater, are ridiculously cheap. I bought a $1,000 projector a couple of months ago that is far superior to what was available for $5,000 3 or 4 years ago. It's hard to find video that's anything less than very good at any price.

I believe that there will come a point when the current trend will naturally reverse itself and audio will regain focus. The typical audio system will once again become the bigger investment and video will return to second place. The reason for this is that audio is so much more difficult to get right. With digital processing video has progressed from low resolution tube and very poor rear projection sets to spectacularly good plasma and lcd sets and front projectors in only about the last 5 years. Full range audio systems that can play loudly with low distortion and actually sound good in a particular room will always require a sizable investment and careful setup. The digital front end has become cheap and good amplification may become cheap but good speakers will always be expensive. The other areas where I think there's some room to grow are in custom installation and room treatments that don't look wierd. If someone invented some room treatments that were reasonably priced, effective, and didn't stand out in a typical living room quality audio could become popular with normals again.

The problem is that high-end shops are still trying to sell thousands of dollars worth of wires to people like me who can't hear much difference and aren't sure the differences they hear are improvements. This despite the fact that they audition their equipment in terrible sounding rooms that easily overshadow any improvements made by tweaks.

I think high-end audio is just going through a much needed natural selection process where a lot of BS is going to go extinct and real quality and value will remain for the minority of people who care about it.

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