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Is Hi-Fi Dead? Say it with me now, with rising then falling intonation and in a southern cadence; like the first cut on the Puscifer album. (If you like Tool check this one out.) Heellll Yeaahhh. Traditional U.S. high-end audio is totally dead, stop beatin’ it already. The flip side is music is stronger than it’s been in decades and it’s bigger than ever before. More people are recording cool stuff and the creative musical spirit is laying waste to genre classification, pumping out more original, creative and expressive music than at any time in the history of mankind! The RIAA is scared, hi-fi impenitent, all traditional heavies are chewin’ their nails. Virgin Records? Like Dave Lowery sings, “it ain’t goin’ a suck itself” (Cracker, Country Sides). Hey you, the dork with the big desk, look around, you missed the boat, you did nothing, the music and life passed you buy. You could have propelled us all further and faster but we figured it out on our own. It’s done, we don’t need you anymore. You washed up, condescending fool. Where was your leadership, your innovation, and your selflessness. Smoky is dead and you don’t even have sense enough to slide off the saddle. Pathetic.
Traditional leading U.S. manufactures and dealers have been focused on short-term bottom line results, raising margin, failing to see the necessity of a retail price correction and the fundamental shift to get back to basics—to increase its customer base and not soak the faithful. The icons of the 80’s and 90s, those in a position to see most clearly the future of playback chose to instead live in the moment. 1990s hi-fi was weird. The point, those in power did nothing to expand high fidelity playback in the U.S. No real leadership, no vision. Bag it, we don’t need ‘em. Give ‘em enough rope; let’s see what they can do now. Great Clash album, they all are. I still can’t believe we lost Strummer, Cash, and Joey Ramone all in the same year, no tears though, look at the wake they left. And that’s it really, they kept putting it out there, giving what was in them, with obvious sincerity. Like punk, and please don’t bother me with a definition of what punk is, music, audio, playback, is what ever we make it to be. I’m done with late twentieth century hi-fi.
The Revolution in cutting edge performance driven playback has happened. Vacuum tubes more popular than at any time since the golden age of playback, and we aren’t talking post ‘60s either. High efficiency back as a primary design goal for more than just a handful of hobbyists, the little guy pushing the envelope and making really cool stuff and selling it for an honest price. Music lovers embracing the HDD, iPod, pro audio gear, and vinyl. Wake up everybody, the guard has changed, don’t be burdened with the old system, it’s busted. New leaders, take your place and keep making spectacular sounding gear, sold direct to the end user at real prices. And Internet trade press (news from paper? No way). Never mind the bollocks here’s 6moons, PFO, tone, stereomojo, enjoythemusic... Thanks for moving music back as the reason.
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