In article , Doki
wrote:
I noticed today in John Lewis that they had no hifi or hifialike gear
for sale at all. Loads of digital radios, mp3 players and sets of
little speakers that ipods fit onto, but no mini systems or seperates
at all.

The significant term above may be "hifialike". So far as have been able to
tell, the majority of people have never had any real interest in 'hifi' in
terms of getting audio kit that can deliver the kind of performance some of
us know to be possible.

Has the mass market for hifi stuff completely died?

Did it ever exist? :-)


I suspect if you did a side by side comparison with £500s worth of
relatively mass market gear from 15 years ago (probably an amp, CD
player and a pair of bookshelf speakers, or a mini system) compared to
current gear (ie, ipod dock and ipod), the old stuff would sound better.

Dunno. May depend on how you select the items for the comparison.

One problem, perhaps, is that techniques like 'mp3' have given people a way
to distribute sound recordings/broadcasts in a way where lower quality
saves money and provides convenience. I suspect that more people chose CD
for convenience than for the results which can be obtained with a good disc
and replay system.

Certainly, when I occasionally borrow CDs from our local library, their
condition indicates that many people assume you can scratch the disc as
much as you like, cover it in grime, and it makes no difference! :-) Mind
you, borrowing LPs from a public library in the past was a rather stressful
activity - unless you happened to know the music librarian, so could get
first pick. :-]

Of course, if you read audio mags and take a keen interest, they you tend
to encounter a different approach and ideas. But this has always been a
minority interest so far as I have been able to tell. I doubt it has ever
been the case than well over 1 percent of people would even have regularly
bought audio mags, or done much more that buy whatever 'hifialike' was in a
local shop. Indeed, I wonder if most people even realise that 'stereo'
means more than 'has two speakers'... :-)

Slainte,

Jim

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