Sound quality is not lost on younger generations! - Page 2

I think people who take music seriously, in other words not just as pleasing background noises, are more likely to invest in sound quality. I used to believe that most audiophiles are classical music fans. I know that's not true, but good sound quality is really quite important if you  want to hear the nuances in good classical recordings. 

Perhaps the real question is whether we as a society (young and old) think of music as a commodity or as art.

At the end of the day, it really does come down to the individual and his or her preferences and priorities. I am lucky enough to have parents who do not understand but are still supportive of my hobby - my mother, particularly, who was once a competent pianist in her youth, is always admiring the sound from my system but does not see the point of investing in it. Moreover, my parents vastly prefer speakers over headphones, although I doubt this is a generational difference, simply an individual one.

high quality sound is hard to come by nowadays even if you want it. even CDs are limited to 16/44.1 and many albums are downsampled to fit that limitation.

I'm 22 here in college and I have a roommate who listens to Pop/Hip Hop everyday, he is a dancer (very good one at that), and DJs for parties. When I showed him my W3's, he went like "Wow thats cool... So.." =( 

Yeah I believe it's totally on personal preferences and personalities that make us audiophiles, but I'm starting to think the current generation is becoming more and more focus on just beaty and crap quality music. I mean, in clubs, who cares if the SQ is good or not? Plus, the iPod generation is more focus on appearances and music just being portable.

Just imagine plugging those W3's into, just say, a RudiStor NX-02 that im trying to sell. They would sound amazing.

That's an interesting article / presentation, especially the bit about the speaker choice. I suspect a lot of 'audiophiles' would automatically choose the Martin Logan simply on magazine status endorsement. This reinforces the view that we should divorce ourselves from aesthetics, close our eyes, and just listen.

Thanks for posting a link to my blog article, and for all the useful feedback so far. It's great to hear from so many young audiophiles, and to know that you care about music and good sound quality.

Cheers

Sean Olive

Audio Musings

My roommate is a music education major at a music school... 

I was helping him set up his new computer, and the first thing he did is set the equalizer settings on his computer all the way up and checked the "loudness" option. explaining that it sounds better.  He also owns the cheapest pair of logitech 2.1's and boosts the subwoofer to maximum.  He also keeps insisting that expensive cables makes a big difference.

That is truly a sad tale James. I think you need to send him our way. 

My brother was unable to hear a difference between his old ibuds and the marshmallows I got him. He also couldn't detect a difference between the marshmallows and my sr60s.   Needless to say, he doesn't really care about audio quality. Youtube is more than adequate, as well as some of his 64kb/s and 32kb/s (!) mp3s.

My dad is at least able to hear the difference, but it doesn't matter to him. The 2.1 speakers that came included with his computer + youtube is also more than adequate for his purposes. Although he at least appreciates good music and vocalists, rather than the popular rap-pop music my brother leans towards. Ah well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesL 

My roommate is a music education major at a music school... 

I was helping him set up his new computer, and the first thing he did is set the equalizer settings on his computer all the way up and checked the "loudness" option. explaining that it sounds better.  He also owns the cheapest pair of logitech 2.1's and boosts the subwoofer to maximum.  He also keeps insisting that expensive cables makes a big difference.

That does mean he uses $500 interconnects and power cables to hook up his Logitech speakers? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vel 

Being a 22-year-old who does care about sound quality, and observing others' behaviour regarding audio quality, I can say that the majority of young people that I have come across simply don't care about what they're missing. Often if you show people your system they will agree the clarity is there and it sounds better, but they pretty much just aren't interested in improving their system.

 

It seems to me that the majority of people in any age group won't be interested in accurate sound reproduction. I suppose the question is whether the percentage of people who are interested has gone down/up between the different age groups.

I agree totally. I'm only 25, yet care way more about audio quality than ANY of my friends...It amazes me that they are content with their iBuds playing 128kbps files and scoff at the idea of spending more than $25 on headphones...makes me sad.

MP3s are to blame for most of it. CDs were amazing, and vinyl even moreso. But now lossy audio is the norm.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ypoknons 

That does mean he uses $500 interconnects and power cables to hook up his Logitech speakers? 

lol no.  He doesn't need to buy any interconnects... his cables came hard-wired onto his speakers, and he hooks it up directly to his laptop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drewjp 

 

I agree totally. I'm only 25, yet care way more about audio quality than ANY of my friends...It amazes me that they are content with their iBuds playing 128kbps files and scoff at the idea of spending more than $25 on headphones...makes me sad.

 

MP3s are to blame for most of it. CDs were amazing, and vinyl even moreso. But now lossy audio is the norm.
 

I make the argument, "Okay, so you spent about $200-300 on your iPod,  probably more than that on your music, and you're using them through headphones that sound like crap? That's kind of a waste."