Well, Rich...
rant/
Somebody already said it. Most people -- and that includes avid music consumers -- just don't care about sound quality or even the quality of the music. They download the MP3s from various sources and store them on their hard drives or portable players in highly compressed/lossy formats. Then they blast their tunes directly into their ear canals with terrible sounding "ear buds". And these people are happy. While having a beer after work at a local pub, a co-worker who heard that I'm an audiophile with a substantial system, told me that he listened to a Bose Acoustimass system in Circuit City and thought it was fantastic. I told him that Bose isn't the best way to spend his musical dollar... But if that would help him connect better with his music, then he should buy it -- so desperate are we music lovers to get people into this hobby that I couldn't even bring myself to trash-talk Bose.
Anyway, most consumers have no connection to their music. Each song is simply a packet of data that makes background noise. Ask one of these people to hum the accompaniment, or instrumental lead-in, to that favorite song of theirs that they keep singing the lyrics to. THEY CAN'T [ my opinion: A lot of modern popular music just isn't that interesting "musically" -- might be part of the problem. ]. For me, getting up out of my listening chair to flip an LP is an act of love, not a tedious effort as they would have you believe. The cleaning of the record, stylus and careful handling are joyous events, as is swapping out a CD and gingerly placing it back into it's case.
Using CDs for these people is a damned inconvenience -- they have to get up and change discs every few minutes [ my opinion: very few modern pop artists can create an entire session of good songs. They get famous for 15 minutes with one song, never to be heard of again. When this thought depresses me, I throw one of my many LPs on from talented artists -- today, Journey's Escape album is rockin' the Logans ].
Sound quality is meaningless to these consumers. CD's are overkill for them, where we would argue that many CD's come up short in this regard [ opinion: think about massive amounts of "dynamic compression" that ruins otherwise good music ]. For them, the sound quality is irrelevant and file sizes to large. I really love to bring over friends and acquaintances to my house and blow their minds when they hear what they have been missing all of their lives. Back when I grew up in the 70's and 80's, every home of decent means had a stereo in the family room. It was a sign of accomplishment in life -- an expression of success and demonstration of respect for the finer things in life -- even if their rig was centered around an el-cheapo turntable like a Technics SL-1200 (which sounds better than most audio-snobs think). Those days are long gone.
My computer [ Also could be considered a high-end device: Intel Quad q6700, 4GB RAM, 22" monitor fed by an ATI 4870, 24 bit X-Fi sound card driving a 500 watt Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 system ] has more resolution than any system they have ever heard -- and that's sad. My computer system certainly is loud, easily attaining ear-shattering levels, but high fidelity it ain't. But on a brighter note, the whole music server thing is friggin awesome !! Many (336 GB at last count) of my favorite CDs are on my 1 TB external drive in an uncompressed or lossless format like FLAC. Someday that data will get transferred into a nice home server. I absolutely love HDtracks.com and others like it. You get the excellent music, excellent sound quality and instant gratification of shopping in a music store. But this store actually has Classical and Jazz !!
So I say... Let the brick and mortar stores flounder in mediocrity and obsolescence. The RIAA, music production companies (desperately seeking the next big thing and failing miserably), countless talentless artists, and general attitude of not caring about their product have doomed them. Funny thing though... The two stores near here that deal in vinyl are thriving. So I would say that your thread title/hypothesis is wrong -- or a misnomer at best. And that's a beautiful thing.
My 2 cents -- /rant.
~VDR
ps: CCH said it all very profoundly in a different thread:
"That's an interesting question. Like others who have already posted, I have no close friends who are audiophiles (although one is on the edge), and no one of my general acquaintance living in this area would qualify, either. It is interesting to ask what larger trends this phenomenon might be part of. I'm not sure I know the answer, but it is certainly the case that the popularity of most things changes over time. Stamp collecting was still a common hobby when I was a kid, but there are far fewer philatelists today. I have a son who is nineteen, and I don't think he or any of his friends is into cars as was more typical of an earlier generation. Another way of getting at this would be to ask what activities carry status today. It used to be that a young person with a good stereo was the envy of his friends. I doubt that is the case anymore. What other luxury goods are in decline, and what things are replacing them? You've put your finger on a trend, but I suspect that there is more to it than simply the rise of the iPod, although living in a faster paced culture is certainly one piece of the larger puzzle. Another parallel example is the overall decline in reading and in literary standards. On most fronts, our culture has been dumbing down for more than a generation. (Did you happen to see the comparison between Senate speeches following Pearl Harbor and 9/11? The difference in quality was stunning.) Many blame television, and that might well be a good target, but it is a part of something larger, I suspect. Anyway, lots of food for thought here."
