March 2025

The Future Of Our Audiophile Hobby Part 2
More about things to come and how to make them better.
Article By Roger Skoff

  In last month's Part 1 of "The Future Of Our Audiophile Hobby", I wrote that Hi-Fi – our hobby, our industry, and our long-time source of both enjoyment and cultural enrichment – seems to be following the path of the electric train, another once great, "everybody-used-to-have-one" product, into obscurity. I also told you why it was happening: Not many people, nowadays – at least not a significant percentage of the people that I or my friends and other people in the industry have talked to about it – know or can tell you the meaning of the words "Hi-fi", "High Fidelity", or "Stereo", or even know that we, our hobby, our industry, or the products that could potentially add so much to their lives, exist. We have dropped out of sight to the general public, and what is happening is its inevitable outcome.

I cited some examples in Part 1 of this article and have had more proof of our invisibility to the general public since then. There's no need to tell you about them here, though. If you're an audiophile and have talked with your non-audiophile friends about hi-fi, you've probably got your own stories to tell.

Instead, the important things for us to do are to figure out why our hobby and industry are declining, develop an approach or a program to correct it, and put whatever we come up with into effect.

What's happening now doesn't derive from a shortage of music for the public to listen to. Far from it; people are immersed in music at every hour of every day, either, hopefully by choice, as they listen to their favorite recordings or broadcast programming, or otherwise as part of the constant barrage of commercials – all of which have their own background music, to sell whatever product they're trying to push.

It's not even that hi-fi and stereo sound are disappearing: They're all around us. Every modern movie soundtrack is recorded In stereo, as is every modern music recording. Most television sets and all car radios are designed for stereo play, and even "boomboxes" –  the oversized portable radios that kids carry around even though they're much too big for that, have two speakers and claim to offer stereophonic sound.

So, what's the problem?

A very major part of it seems to be that what most people are listening to is the content – the tune, the song, or the commercial – and not the sound that they're hearing it in. And a big part of that simply has to do with the abundance of sound confronting us every day, with at least most of it not being something we're concentrating on, but simply a background to our other activities.

Much of what we hear, we don't listen to at all, but filter for whatever it might contain of value and simply disregard the rest.

That's entirely understandable: In most people's normal way of listening to things, whatever it may be, the sound isn't the main attraction or what the sponsors are trying to sell. And because of that, it's always (or tries to be) good enough to hold the listener's attention, but – possibly because of the way it's recorded, possibly because of the nature of the music, itself, possibly because of the equipment people are listening on, or possibly because they're not listening at all – never good enough to be, just as sound, exciting or thrilling or realistic. Certainly not enough to get them running off to their nearest hi-fi dealer waving money.

The real sound of music is all of those things, though, – exciting, thrilling, realistic, and more. Unfortunately, in these times when virtually all music is either recorded or amplified (even your favorite concert hall likely has a "sound reinforcement" [used to be called "PA"] system) only very few people have ever actually heard music as it is, and for most people, good enough is good enough.

Do you know the old saying "The good is the enemy of the great".

That's what's happened to hi-fi. People are okay with the sound they get from their television set, their car radio, their boomboxes, their MP3s, and all of the other sources of the recorded or broadcast sound they hear. Okay is okay, and until they learn otherwise, they don't feel the need for anything better.

To revive our industry, somebody needs to show them or get them to find out for themselves just how good music can sound and what a meaningful and important part good sounding music – music as it really sounds "live", without amplification – can play in their lives.

Obviously, the only way that can happen is for them to hear live music, but a good modern "High-End" hi-fi system can come wonderfully close and, given a decent room for it to perform in, can bring them life-changing good sound for a price that can be surprisingly affordable.

The problem is that they don't know that; they don't know how much difference it would make; and, because they're satisfied with what they've got, they don't care enough to find out.

So how can we help them learn?

One thing would be what many of us have already done, even without encouragement; tell your friends and neighbors about your system. Invite them into your home to hear it and, when they ask you what's so good about it, show them. Most people have never heard genuine deep bass. Most have never heard any type of sound system that images or throws a believable reality-like soundscape. If yours can, let them hear it for themselves. Who knows, they might become audiophiles on the spot! And if not, just the idea of listening to something for its sound as well as its content might change their thinking forever.

Another thing you can do is when going to your local hi-fi shop to see what's new or different or even just to sit around and schmooze with the proprietor (We used to do that at Sound Cellar in Brea, California, all the time) invite them to come along, just as a curiosity. Don't push and don't make them think you're trying to do anything other than to buy something for yourself or to show them another aspect of your own life and see what happens. That's how I was first exposed to hi-fi as a twelve-year-old, and look how it turned out.

For us to bring new people into our hobby is a fine thing, but for people to join us in sufficient numbers to keep our hobby alive and flourishing is going to take more than just individual effort. The whole industry is going to have to participate, and a plan is already underway to make it happen.

First, though, let us take a look at our present situation and see how that's going to have to work if it's going to work at all.

We already know that a demonstration is a great way to convince people, but what if a demonstration – at least as a first step – isn't possible?

One good way to get people interested in practically anything is to make them believe that it is part of a lifestyle they aspire to (or, if they already have it, that they want to keep or show off.) That's why Mercedes, Cadillac, or other "prestige" cars or other products are used in so many movies and TV shows. It's called "product placement", and manufacturers, wanting people to think that's what people of that lifestyle drive or use, actually pay producers to include them in their films or TV shows. It works. Think what would happen if, all of a sudden, the public were to start to see a turntable or High-End speakers in use or within the background in all the best movies. Wouldn't that, just in itself, be enough to kindle some interest?

As it is now, if people hear that somebody drives a $300,000 Ferrari, they think he's crazy, but they wish they were him. Our problem is that if somebody has a hi-fi system costing just one-third that amount – $100,000 – they just think he's crazy. With an active program of product placement, though, we could make it clear that a good hi-fi sound system is a recognized and essential part of "the good life", and instead of people asking us why we have one, we could turn it around and make them wonder why they don't.

Besides product placements, many things could be done to make people realize that a high-quality hi-fi system is as much a part of a good lifestyle as a good car. Regular advertising, in national circulation NON-AUDIOPHILE magazines would do it. All we'd have to show – like so many other products that do the same – is people enjoying a good High-End hi-fi system.

It wouldn't even have to be exclusive advertising; we could share the ads and their cost with other products or industries as long as the ad shows a hi-fi sound system or recognizable parts of it as part of "the good life" and show happy people enjoying it.

The two most important things about such advertising or promotion are that they must promote not any one product or product line, but the concept of High-End hi-fi and the part it plays in happy living. It doesn't even have to be overt in its promotion – one picture may not really be worth a thousand words, but showing is always better than just telling, and is also more likely to simply be accepted as true.

Another thing that can be done with advertising is to create more than just a single impression. Cars do it all the time, and we see Ferraris, Chevys, pickup trucks, and every other kind or brand of vehicle used to create links and familiarity in readers'/viewers' minds, depending on the intent of the manufacturer. For Hi-Fi, for example, we could promote two entirely different lifestyles, one aspirational, one "homey" and, just as the car makers do, go for different segments of the market (Super-high-end and middle-class family) at the same time.

At this point, it doesn't matter which segment of the market we go for, any increase in any segment would help bring hi-fi back to the public's attention.

If we can do that, the rewards will be colossal. Getting more people interested in – and buying – hi-fi gear will keep the brands and companies we love in business, and maybe even bring in some new ones. It will do the same for dealers and, by possibly having things available for us for local auditions, do away with the current need to buy some things "blind" and unheard and just hope that we will either like them or trust their "satisfaction guaranteed" return policies. More hi-fi sales will make for more music sales, and more business or more enjoyment for everybody – including all the newbies who are joining our numbers for the first time.

Advertising and promotion will cost money, though, and require an organized and effective way to spend it. And the amount of money necessary will be large – far beyond the means of any single company or even a limited group of companies. And it's going to require that that money be spent to benefit not any one single product or company but the entire hi-fi industry. What will be necessary will be an industry association, but one unlike any ever seen before.

What it is, how it will work, and how we will all relate to it will be the subject of next month's article. Until then...

Enjoy the music!

 

Roger Skoff