I’ve just gone through the whole excellent 23 page picture thread linked by Keith and as ever I’m left somewhere between bemused, annoyed and even sickened by the way the hobby I’ve been passionate about since I was a kid now seems little more than vulgar consumption for ‘one percenters’. Just page after page of ‘you really have to be kidding’, ‘why the hell did they think that was a good idea?’, ‘who actually buys this?’, or just staring slack-jawed at the page in disbelief. The only times I stopped and though, ‘hmm, that’s actually really, really nice’ was some, I assume vintage, Luxman kit and a really beautiful Air Tight EL34 power amp on about page 21 that I think has been out in some form or other for well over a decade, some really nice looking tonearms in that room too (I love the look of Air Tight kit, very nearly pushed the button on a preamp on eBay a few years back, but chickened-out as it was outside the UK). A few stunning reel to reels on show across the show too, including a very interesting looking Denon I’d not seen before, but again almost certainly all vintage ones. Some lovely truly ancient Western Electric cinema horns somewhere too, I’d love to hear them one day.
I now make my living out of audio related stuff (this site), so I really don’t want to be too negative about the hand that at least in some respect feeds me, but I honestly don’t spot anything of the real cutting edge innovation and accessibility that captured my mind as a kid and has (within my own increasingly niche market) kept me interested ever since. It all looks like people trying to make existing ideas far more expensive.
Anyway, I can’t recommend that picture set highly enough, it is fascinating as a socio-economic analysis of an industry that to my eyes has gone from the perfect form dictated by function but with real design flair of say a Quad 33, Planar 3, vintage Pioneer receiver or whatever, to deciding everything (I assume including simply enormous gold plated cables) should be more expensive than a house in Wigan and look like a 1/4-size replica of the most tasteless footballer’s Bentley.
What happened? How exactly did we get to here?! I realise it is a self-professed ‘hi-end’ show, so one could argue by design only the true industry excess, but even so!
PS Did anyone actually go? I’d be interested to know what if anything actually sounded good!