Audio - a State of Disarray

Audio use to be a pretty straight forward proposition. While there were quality decisions to make up and down the pricing spectrum, the purchase primarily consisted of speakers, amplifier/tuner, turntable, and a CD player. I would argue that the IPod (more than most other similar digital music players) has disrupted this model. First off, while it’s rumored that the sound quality of an ITunes downloaded song is inferior to the CD version, it doesn’t take much reading to hear many an audiophile claim otherwise. So – for purposes of this article, we won’t belabor the point. As a side note here, you do have some say in the file size you are downloading through your ITunes preferences. Most people merely accept the default setting unaware that options are available. Where the shift has occurred is in the portability of music. Obviously, you can now run your music collection in your car, your boat, etc… But even at home, when music is anything other than ambient noise, we tend to use a portable music player set in front of us to discuss and dissect the oldies and the newest musical offerings. The ubiquity of the IPod/IPhone has resulted in an absolute plethora of choices in portable players. There are many players for under $200 that sound great and, considering that you have the music exactly where you want it, on the picnic table in the yard, for example, you can begin to see the distributed sound system in a home to take on a certain irrelevance. Most recently, we were at a dinner party where the hosts were demonstrating their IPad driven distributed music system coupled with Rhapsody such that, with the touch of a pad, a song could be brought up at anyone’s choosing and played through one of a dozen set of speakers they had installed in and around their house. Now I have to say, I drooled over this when I first checked it out. A closet full of amplifiers – one for each speaker set, IPads and IPods controlling varying music played in varying locations – and, that they had controls over their heat, lighting, entry gates, etc.. made this system a most extraordinary one indeed. But – not a week later, that I was doing essentially the same thing with a battery operated unit sitting on our picnic table made me wonder just what the real utility of the extravagant system was – obviously gotten at enormous expense. As my son likes to say… it’s all good! Music has never been easier for the listener. Now I can’t imagine the difficulties it is to be discovered as a struggling musician, but that is a different story. As many a story does, I end mine back at the beginning. What I miss most about the portable music system is the rush of listening to music from a great pair of speakers driven by a powerful amp – where you comfortably sit front and center – to get blown away by the big sound of some powerful music. For this, you’ll need a great set of speakers, an amplifier/tuner, a turntable and a CD player!