Are we the last 'Hifi' generation?
- Thread starter RoA
- Start date
mark121211
pfm Member
I'd like to agree with you but if my experince is anything to go by we are an endangered species.
My daughters and their friends enjoy music, especially live but have no and I do mean no interest in hi-fi.
kernow
pfm Member
This is the norm. There are millions of people who love music but have no interest in hi-fi. It's always been niche and nowadays there's honestly little point when a phone and some earbuds sounds completely fine.
Nigel
pfm Member
One of my pals has around 8,000 LP's. He sometimes mentions how much Discogs says it's worth and how his son will be quids in after his days. He's 56 years old. Part of me thinks in twenty plus years down the line, it will only be fit for landfill. Guess we won't know until the time comes.
Tony L
Administrator
You need to bare in mind even in our day it was a minority interest. When I was at school in the ‘70s few friends families had more than a Danesette. My family didn’t even have that, just radios. My grandparents had a nice big valve radiogram which they gave me, but it wasn’t until I was about 13 when I visited one school friend who’s father had a proper system that I was hooked. In my teens as a music obsessive I ended up in a circle of friends where most did have some form of hi-fi, often very good, but I’m not typical. I have always been absolutely obsessed about this stuff and had no interest at all in say sport, holidays etc. If you think of say a Dansette or low-end music centre as being replaced by a Bluetooth speaker or two I don’t think much has changed. People like me are still out there for sure. They may be stuck at their parents with headphones now, but they are out there.
To put it another way; much of the music I’ve bought on vinyl over the past few years has been made by people half my age or less. Much of it will have been bought by folk half my age or less, and whenever I go into a record shop there tend to be some folk there who are younger than me (and I very deliberately try for quieter times when most folk will be at work). At weekends they are rammed with folk in their 20s and 30s. A lot of them will have something far better than a Crossley to play their £25 albums on even if they’ve never set foot in a conventional hi-fi shop other than maybe Richer Sounds (as there tends to be one in most large towns).
I’m really not worried. I’m certain everything will be around for a lot longer than I am. As I say I’m sure some is fashion, so temporary, and some is local to the UK thanks to the housing market being so punishing and exclusionary towards young buyers. You can’t have a decent hi-fi if you can’t afford anywhere to live!
Paul Mc
pfm Member
Yes, when is the best time to tell the record collection, before prices head south?
Tony L
Administrator
Never view a record collection as a single entity. It is always a spread-bet over hundreds or thousands of specific titles and pressings. Some go up, some go down. I find it fascinating watching my collection fluctuate on Discogs, it can swing £1.5k or so in just a week.
I’m not worried by any of it. My record collection has been the best investment I’ve ever made by a laughable extent. Even before you factor in I’m a dealer so always tend to buy stuff to sell to pay for the stuff I buy for myself. It is just absurdly better than my actual savings stock ISAs etc (which have been terrible, just so depressing at the moment) or my house. So many records I paid a couple of quid for now worth £hundreds. Just example after example after example. I’ll never sell as a block, though I have always viewed the collection as fluid so if I ever need to supplement a state pension it is just a matter of taking a mailer to the post office now and again.
Avon
pfm Member
When I discovered hi-fi in the 1980s, there was plenty of rock / pop music that sounded way better than it did on the sideboard system my parents owned. Nowadays, new music sounds no better on my system than it does on a ghetto blaster. Since new music drives interest in hi-fi to younger people, it’s inevitable that there’s no longer any point in hi-fi. This all started in the mid-nineties as far as I’m concerned.
The Moog
pfm Member
I thought your point was that just because you own the kit to listen to music, it doesn't follow that you necessarily do? So the technology moves on, the choice increases, and people can move from free services to paid ones if they have the interest. The proliferation of paid services (including high bitrate 'hifi' services or tiers) surely goes to show that the interest in music remains?
They always were. I remember going to Hi-Fi shows thirty years ago. They were characteristic by middle aged men wearing out of date clothes carrying carrier bags and a faint whiff of BO. Has anything changed?
There don't seem to be any fewer Hi-Fi shops in Glasgow than their used to be, which is impressive considering the internet, and the main Linn/Naim dealer is doing just fine.
I agree that the market is different now but I think the revival of vinyl gives cause for hope. I don't believe it's just old farts who are buying turntables and records these days.
krenzler
pfm Member
Yes, but having a parent that is a hi-fi nut is not the norm is it? If you don't get the introduction in a good way how would you know and care? Certainly not from high-end shows or the review magazines of today.
kernow
pfm Member
Bit of a generalisation there, some stuff is wonderfully produced, especially hip-hop and electronic.
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Excellent post. I wonder how many PFM members would have filled up their living room with racks of nondescript black boxes in the early 80s if they could have got great sound from a streamer and pair of active speakers.
Alex S
carbon based lifeform
I was lucky and unlucky as a school kid: unlucky that I had to live with my dad and stepmother who I really didn’t like much and lucky that they went out a lot so I could listen to my records on a Goldring/Quad/LS3/5a system my wicked stepmother had nicked from her first husband.