On 21 Jun, 23:34, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Doki" wrote in message



I noticed today in John Lewis that they had no hifi or
hifialike gear for sale at all.

How do you define "hifi"?

The word hifi is a shortening of "high fidelity" and high fidelity refers to
reproducing sound with accuracy.

Loads of digital radios,

Surely some of them are at least somewhat accurate in their reproduction.

mp3 players

Which can be used with highly accurate earphones and headphones to obtain
good, accurate sound.

and sets of little speakers that ipods fit onto,

Some of which are actually fairly accurate, or at least no less accurate
than some middle- or low-priced traditional home stereo sets.

but no mini systems

Some of those really sucked.

or seperates at all.

Arguably separates have been in their decline ever since integrated
amplifiers and then receivers became more popular.

Has the mass market for hifi stuff completely died?

The market for high fidelity audio has changed. It is now dominated by
portable and personal use equipment.

The
emphasis seems to have turned entirely to subwoofers that
produce midbass at a very small range of frequencies
(bandpass box perhaps?) along with a load of little
speakers that sound absolutely horrible.

There are many examples of that technology that sound great. You have to
spend a little money for them and be careful what you buy. *IOW, nothing has
really changed except the format.

Some kit has
only tweeters for stereo seperation with a "sub"
producing the mid range.

Well, the speakers may be the size of tweeters, but it is possible that some
of them cover a lot more than just the treble.

Even the B&W zeppelin thing
sounded *very* poor to me.

I haven't had the opportunity to hear it.

It seems very strange to me given that development has
been driven by better quality in the past - ie moving
from LPs to CDs.

Many portable music players provide something that is effectively CD
quality, when they are playing files that are *not lossy-compressed.

*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.

15 years ago we knew that really good headphones at a given price point
would vastly outperform speakers at the same price. The only thing that has
changed is that we have more options for really good headphones and
earphones.

How do you define "accurate"? Accurate to what? Unless you were there
when the recording was made and have an incredible memory of audio,
then the judgement of what is accurate or not is ********.Yes you may
have an idea of how it should sound..For example.A piano played in one
venue will have a different sound when played in another.An
individuals judgement of what might be accurate is purely a subjective
one.However,what sound better is another matter.There is no doubt that
MP3 has driven peoples expectations of hifi downward.There's little
point in buying superb replay equipment if you supply it low quality
source material.

"borosteve" wrote in message
...
On 21 Jun, 23:34, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Doki" wrote in message



I noticed today in John Lewis that they had no hifi or
hifialike gear for sale at all.

How do you define "hifi"?

The word hifi is a shortening of "high fidelity" and high fidelity
refers to
reproducing sound with accuracy.

Loads of digital radios,

Surely some of them are at least somewhat accurate in their
reproduction.

mp3 players

Which can be used with highly accurate earphones and headphones to
obtain
good, accurate sound.

and sets of little speakers that ipods fit onto,

Some of which are actually fairly accurate, or at least no less
accurate
than some middle- or low-priced traditional home stereo sets.

but no mini systems

Some of those really sucked.

or seperates at all.

Arguably separates have been in their decline ever since integrated
amplifiers and then receivers became more popular.

Has the mass market for hifi stuff completely died?

The market for high fidelity audio has changed. It is now dominated by
portable and personal use equipment.

The
emphasis seems to have turned entirely to subwoofers that
produce midbass at a very small range of frequencies
(bandpass box perhaps?) along with a load of little
speakers that sound absolutely horrible.

There are many examples of that technology that sound great. You have
to
spend a little money for them and be careful what you buy. IOW,
nothing has
really changed except the format.

Some kit has
only tweeters for stereo seperation with a "sub"
producing the mid range.

Well, the speakers may be the size of tweeters, but it is possible
that some
of them cover a lot more than just the treble.

Even the B&W zeppelin thing
sounded *very* poor to me.

I haven't had the opportunity to hear it.

It seems very strange to me given that development has
been driven by better quality in the past - ie moving
from LPs to CDs.

Many portable music players provide something that is effectively CD
quality, when they are playing files that are not lossy-compressed.

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.

15 years ago we knew that really good headphones at a given price
point
would vastly outperform speakers at the same price. The only thing
that has
changed is that we have more options for really good headphones and
earphones.

How do you define "accurate"? Accurate to what? Unless you were there
when the recording was made and have an incredible memory of audio,
then the judgement of what is accurate or not is ********.Yes you may
have an idea of how it should sound..For example.A piano played in one
venue will have a different sound when played in another.An
individuals judgement of what might be accurate is purely a subjective
one.However,what sound better is another matter.There is no doubt that
MP3 has driven peoples expectations of hifi downward.There's little
point in buying superb replay equipment if you supply it low quality
source material.



The sad bit is that with the right sample rate mp3 can sound quite
acceptable. From something I say earlier this week - may even have been
in this thread - the crossover point is a sample rate somewhere between
192 and 224Kb/s. Browse many of the download sites that do give sample
rates and you will find that some (notably classical) do 192 most of the
time, some at 224 or 256 and the odd one as high as 320, but go looking
at pop/rock and you will find some at 160 but most at 128 and that is
where the real quality dumbing-down has occurred.


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

"Woody" wrote in message


How do you define "accurate"?

Like a dictionary?

Accurate to what?

The reference.

Unless you were there when the recording was made and have an
incredible memory of audio, then the judgement of what is
accurate or not is ********.

Good point.

Yes you may have an idea of
how it should sound..For example.A piano played in one
venue will have a different sound when played in another.

It will sound different if you move it around. A recording of it will sound
different if you move the mics around.

An individuals judgement of what might be accurate is purely
a subjective one.

Judgements can be better than that if there is a ready reference.

However,what sound better is another
matter.There is no doubt that MP3 has driven peoples
expectations of hifi downward.There's little point in
buying superb replay equipment if you supply it low
quality source material.

However, just because its a MP3 does not mean that it has to sound bad or be
audibly inaccurate. Low bitrate MP3s can sound bad and be inaccurate.
Someplace above 128 kbps, MP3 recordings can be very accurate and defy
detection by skilled listeners.

The sad bit is that with the right sample rate mp3 can
sound quite acceptable. From something I say earlier this
week - may even have been in this thread - the crossover
point is a sample rate somewhere between 192 and 224Kb/s.

About that, yes.

Browse many of the download sites that do give sample
rates and you will find that some (notably classical) do
192 most of the time, some at 224 or 256 and the odd one
as high as 320, but go looking at pop/rock and you will
find some at 160 but most at 128 and that is where the
real quality dumbing-down has occurred.

There are a lot of MP3s that have done time well below 128 kbps.

In article
,
borosteve wrote:


How do you define "accurate"? Accurate to what? Unless you were there
when the recording was made and have an incredible memory of audio, then
the judgement of what is accurate or not is ********.

Actually, you can often define and measure accuracy. You just compare the
input with the output.

e.g. when assessing an amplifier, compare the patterns of the input and
output signal waveforms. Then define a measure of accuracy in terms of
something like the fractional rms deviation between the two when scaled for
minimu difference.

Yes you may have an idea of how it should sound..

When considering equipment to *reproduce* from a given input, you don't
necessarily have to have any idea 'how it should sound'. That is already
implicit in the information patterns provided by the recording or
broadcast.

But you can have problems when you have no 'original' with which to do a
comparison of any kind. Also, with accurate reproduction of an information
pattern that you do not like. The problem being that - as you indicated -
if you don't know how it "should sound" you can't be sure that what you
hear isn't what was intended, even if it sounds foul to you (or me!). :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
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