Mr.Radar
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2004
- Posts
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Last night I couldn't get to sleep, and I started thinking about where Hi-Fi audio will be in 20 years. Here are some of my thoughts/predictions. They aren't necescarily right, but should generate some interesting conversation.
Headphones will continue to be a small market, but will continue to increase acceptance in the mainstream audiophile world, especially as more and more manufacturers (especially respected speaker manufacturers) will start producing headphones. All headphone companies will continue to release new headphones. A few I'm specifically thinking will happen: Grado Labs will completely revamp their headphone line in 10~15 years, and their lower end models will start appearing in mass-market retail stores (like Best Buy and Circuit City). Sennheiser will come out with the HD700, as well as the HD655 (more refined HD595), and will probably come out with a new electrostatic can. Their portable line-up will also see improvements, though not very dramatic ones. Koss's only decent cans will continue to be based mainly on the PortaPro. Some company will make a headphone with a plasma driver, and others will make ribbon headphones, though dynamic cans will continue to dominate. IEMs will grow in popularity due to their high quality and extreme portablility. Sony's Qualia 010 won't be as popular as the R10 was, mainly due to it's overly analytical nature. Their Street Style line of headphones will see gradual improvements, though will still be considered wretched by all audiophiles.
Speaker hi-fi will become dominated by home theater setups and multimedia computer speakers. Few consumers will actually buy a stereo setup (I'm not counting speakers that come free with stuff). The audiophile market for speakers will continue to be strong, and will also see gradual improvements accross the board, though I feel the most improvements will be int eh $550~$200 category.
Amps like the SuperMono will be the hot thing for a while: small, high quality, feature laden, and, most importantly, affordable. There will of course still be a market for expensive home amps (especially tube ones), but overall the market will start focusing on portable amps that are good enough to be used at home.
In the analog source world the current upward trend in the useage of vinyl as a hi-fi source will be looked at as the great vinyl revival, and it will continue until record companies rerelease the majority of their catalog (from about 1960 or so) in hi-rez digital (if that ever happens, see below). Vinyl setups in the sub-$1500 catagory will be the most popular, and more options there will appear. [EDIT: Also, optical vinyl will start becoming popular for collectors who wish to listen to their collection without risking the damage associated with traditional needle-based playback.]
Stand-alone digital home sources will start becoming less mainstream as time goes on, and most consumers switch to more portable devices (see below). I predict that the future for digital sources is in univeral players that can play CDs, DVD-A's, and SACD's and that dedicated CD players will only be a very niche market 15 or so years from now. Also, what's left of consumer "home" gear will continue to be moddable to get good quality at low prices. Meridian will also still be unable to add a hard drive to their players due to pressure from the RIAA and legal concerns over the DMCA.
Computer-as-source will become very popular. Professional soundcards will continue to dominate the hi-fi CaS world, however more and more cards marketed specifically as "hi-fi" cards will become availble, though the majority of consumer soundcards will continue to be made specifically for HT and gaming. In the short term: nVidia will break Creative's near-monopoly of the gaming soundcard market with their stand-alone SoundStorm card, though Creative will still control a majority of that market. Creative will release an Audigy 3 based on technology that went into the EMU cards and will finally have a non-resampling card. They will hopefully also fix the analog output stage to have decent quality. Their card will also appeal to the HT market with features like DD/DTS decoding and DVD-A playback.
Portable audio will grow with online music purchases. I predict that as DAPs become more popular, their sound quality will go down, and the market for vintage DAPs will be big. PCDPs will start being recognized as a market by hi-fi source manufacturers, especially with the groth of aceptance of headphones, and we may see some hi-fi PCDPs in the $200~$400 price range.
The prices on ICs will drop dramatically over the next 20 years, as more and more low-cost, high-quality cables come to the market. Power-releated tweaks will continue to improve in quality, though I don't predict that prices will drop significatnly.
Music distribution will move online with lossy downloads at $.49 per song and $4.99 per CD on average. Some online download companies will try to convince the RIAA to let them use 256kbps/320kbps/lossless for their files but the RIAA will stay with the 192kbps cap, though by this point compression will have improved so that 192k is transparent on all material (and the RIAA will most likely attempt to lower the threashold to 128k). [EDIT: MP3 will still be popular for years, but AAC and WMA will dominate the market in two to three years, and then after that for the next 5 years. Eventually both will be replaced by even newer formats.] Physical media will become a smaller market and move mainly to online stores and small local record shops. Hi-rez formats most likely won't be a huge success, even with surround-sound mixes and music videos included on the discs. Live concert DVD-V's and music video DVD-V's will rise in popularity though. [EDIT: SACD will be the more popular of the two digital high-rez formats, especially if DVD-A encryption is cracked within the next few years. In five or so years new high-rez releases will surpass new analog releases.]
DIY audio will continue to be popular.
Head-Fi and meets will continue to grow in popularity with headphones. Head-Fi will once again see server trouble, but not for years to come. With more and more people Head-Fi won't be as nice as it is today (which is inevitable with growth), but still much better than most forums on the internet.
EDIT: W00t! I'm a Headphoneus Supremus with this post!
Headphones will continue to be a small market, but will continue to increase acceptance in the mainstream audiophile world, especially as more and more manufacturers (especially respected speaker manufacturers) will start producing headphones. All headphone companies will continue to release new headphones. A few I'm specifically thinking will happen: Grado Labs will completely revamp their headphone line in 10~15 years, and their lower end models will start appearing in mass-market retail stores (like Best Buy and Circuit City). Sennheiser will come out with the HD700, as well as the HD655 (more refined HD595), and will probably come out with a new electrostatic can. Their portable line-up will also see improvements, though not very dramatic ones. Koss's only decent cans will continue to be based mainly on the PortaPro. Some company will make a headphone with a plasma driver, and others will make ribbon headphones, though dynamic cans will continue to dominate. IEMs will grow in popularity due to their high quality and extreme portablility. Sony's Qualia 010 won't be as popular as the R10 was, mainly due to it's overly analytical nature. Their Street Style line of headphones will see gradual improvements, though will still be considered wretched by all audiophiles.
Speaker hi-fi will become dominated by home theater setups and multimedia computer speakers. Few consumers will actually buy a stereo setup (I'm not counting speakers that come free with stuff). The audiophile market for speakers will continue to be strong, and will also see gradual improvements accross the board, though I feel the most improvements will be int eh $550~$200 category.
Amps like the SuperMono will be the hot thing for a while: small, high quality, feature laden, and, most importantly, affordable. There will of course still be a market for expensive home amps (especially tube ones), but overall the market will start focusing on portable amps that are good enough to be used at home.
In the analog source world the current upward trend in the useage of vinyl as a hi-fi source will be looked at as the great vinyl revival, and it will continue until record companies rerelease the majority of their catalog (from about 1960 or so) in hi-rez digital (if that ever happens, see below). Vinyl setups in the sub-$1500 catagory will be the most popular, and more options there will appear. [EDIT: Also, optical vinyl will start becoming popular for collectors who wish to listen to their collection without risking the damage associated with traditional needle-based playback.]
Stand-alone digital home sources will start becoming less mainstream as time goes on, and most consumers switch to more portable devices (see below). I predict that the future for digital sources is in univeral players that can play CDs, DVD-A's, and SACD's and that dedicated CD players will only be a very niche market 15 or so years from now. Also, what's left of consumer "home" gear will continue to be moddable to get good quality at low prices. Meridian will also still be unable to add a hard drive to their players due to pressure from the RIAA and legal concerns over the DMCA.
Computer-as-source will become very popular. Professional soundcards will continue to dominate the hi-fi CaS world, however more and more cards marketed specifically as "hi-fi" cards will become availble, though the majority of consumer soundcards will continue to be made specifically for HT and gaming. In the short term: nVidia will break Creative's near-monopoly of the gaming soundcard market with their stand-alone SoundStorm card, though Creative will still control a majority of that market. Creative will release an Audigy 3 based on technology that went into the EMU cards and will finally have a non-resampling card. They will hopefully also fix the analog output stage to have decent quality. Their card will also appeal to the HT market with features like DD/DTS decoding and DVD-A playback.
Portable audio will grow with online music purchases. I predict that as DAPs become more popular, their sound quality will go down, and the market for vintage DAPs will be big. PCDPs will start being recognized as a market by hi-fi source manufacturers, especially with the groth of aceptance of headphones, and we may see some hi-fi PCDPs in the $200~$400 price range.
The prices on ICs will drop dramatically over the next 20 years, as more and more low-cost, high-quality cables come to the market. Power-releated tweaks will continue to improve in quality, though I don't predict that prices will drop significatnly.
Music distribution will move online with lossy downloads at $.49 per song and $4.99 per CD on average. Some online download companies will try to convince the RIAA to let them use 256kbps/320kbps/lossless for their files but the RIAA will stay with the 192kbps cap, though by this point compression will have improved so that 192k is transparent on all material (and the RIAA will most likely attempt to lower the threashold to 128k). [EDIT: MP3 will still be popular for years, but AAC and WMA will dominate the market in two to three years, and then after that for the next 5 years. Eventually both will be replaced by even newer formats.] Physical media will become a smaller market and move mainly to online stores and small local record shops. Hi-rez formats most likely won't be a huge success, even with surround-sound mixes and music videos included on the discs. Live concert DVD-V's and music video DVD-V's will rise in popularity though. [EDIT: SACD will be the more popular of the two digital high-rez formats, especially if DVD-A encryption is cracked within the next few years. In five or so years new high-rez releases will surpass new analog releases.]
DIY audio will continue to be popular.
Head-Fi and meets will continue to grow in popularity with headphones. Head-Fi will once again see server trouble, but not for years to come. With more and more people Head-Fi won't be as nice as it is today (which is inevitable with growth), but still much better than most forums on the internet.
EDIT: W00t! I'm a Headphoneus Supremus with this post!
