In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Iain Churches
wrote:

"David Looser" wrote in message
...


There always has been a divided market, with some listeners
demanding the highest quality possible, and others happy with
pretty much anything

Indeed. It is said that the ratio is now about 20:1 The percentage of
what used to be called "serious listeners" has taken a nose dive.

TBH I doubt that the number of "serious listeners" has even been much
more than a tiny fraction of the population.

When I lived in the UK, I can remember that every district had a
"gramophone society" I lived in Ealing before moving to Richmond and
was a member of the Ealing, Acton and Windor societies. Each had a
healthy membership.

Yes. I belonged to one for a while. The membership was a tiny fraction of
the population.


However many years ago the minority who became 'hi fi enthsiast'
became noticable enough for some companies to take interest in them.
They were then immersed in a large number for which 'hi fi' was the
latest consumer 'must have'... until that particular wave rolled on to
other things.


Yes that true, and there was a strong DIY element too. People used to
built speaker, turntable bases, valve amps etc etc. In these plug and
play days, no one seems to build anything anymore. And as all amps and
CD players sound the same, the only thing the DIY audiophile can do is
to mess about with interconnects:-)

They can certainly do more than that *if* they decide to. But only a
minority will make the effort to learn or fiddle about modifying/building
things. I suspect these days they would be as likely to do this by altering
their computer or writing software than by more 'old fasioned' means.

As far as popularity is concerned, Hi-Fi seems to have gone the way of
the Lindy Hop:-)

Again, I don't see much evidence that a serious interest in HiFi is either
more or less common that it was. All that has happened is that a larger
tide of interest in consumer products and/or music washes around it, either
coming under the 'HiFi' banner or not as time passes.

Slainte,

Jim

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