As 2013 gives way to 2014, those of us contributing to
Putting Curtains in the Mancave want to sum up the year from our perspectives. We learned quite a few exciting things, but we'll also put on our psychic hat
(Sorting Hat?! Hufflepuff?) and make a few predictions for the year to come!
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| The Venerable DL-103R still kicks butt! |
Things we learned in 2013:
Killer deal for analog: We found that the
Denon 103R ($380 retail) offers a sound that is well in excess of its price, showing you don't have to spend thousands of dollars in order to have top flight sound. It isn't perfect, but for a large collection of used vinyl, it will do as good or better than pickups that cost multiples of its price. While there are a lot of other "big bang for the buck" pickups out there, the Denon blew us away in it's overall music presentation.
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Concert Vault - thousands of live concert
performances of artists you know
and love! |
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| Sonos still is our "go to" for whole house |
Whole House Audio started becoming more important to our family. We expanded our
Sonos system throughout the house - and the biggest "tipping point" for us was putting a
Play:3 in the kitchen and a
Play:1 in the laundry room. This made our Sunday chores and cooking music filled and much more enjoyable. And while some of it is sonic wallpaper, using a couple of new (to us) streaming services in the form of "
Concert Vault," "
MOG" and "
Songza" brought some of the listening into the foreground. While we think the proliferation of these services will continue in 2014, given the shaky finances of most of them, consolidation and higher prices for the survivors are inevitable. But probably not in the first half of 2014.
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| The best upgrade we have done for analog! |
Clean Vinyl is happy vinyl. If you clean your records you won't have the pops and crackles that journalists seem to think we love. We don't. We think they are idiots for thinking that. But in 2013 we experimented with a lot of new cleaning methods, and a 2 step process seems to do the trick for us using a Nitty Gritty 2.5Fi. If an analog listener does nothing else in the form of "upgrades" a good vacuum cleaning machine will improve your sound well in excess of its price.
Some "Industry Predictions" for 2014:
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| Record Pressing Machine. Likely older than the operator! |
Revival of Vinyl will continue in 2014, but we will start feeling the limits in pressing capacity in the industry. Most current record pressings are using refurbished 30+ year old equipment bought at auction and brought back to working condition. These pressing plants are running more or less flat out. But there are limits to the absolute capacity of them since the world is running out of vintage machines to refurbish as the spectacular revival of records continues. The price of a new pressing machine, when someone develops one, will be prohibitive. To us, this means that as the supply of used vinyl runs thin (most used record shops are desperate to find old estates to keep their shops filled - and those resources are being tapped out) we will continue to see rising prices in new and used vinyl in 2014. We believe demand will remain unabated as more people discover how good vinyl sounds, even with a humble setup.
CD will still be the distribution method of choice in 2014. While music sales are shrinking, and the popularity of declaring the CD as "dead" among sloppy journalists trying to drum up ideas for articles is high, the CD will still be a dominant media for the next decade. In fact, unless there is deliberate action to kill it, the CD will linger on for the indefinite future. We expect a CD revival in about 10 years, as people realize the full potential of that medium.
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The Big Mack Daddy, will still be the
Big Mack Daddy in 2014
and beyond... |
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Alas ... Reel to Reel will remain a niche
within a niche in 2014 ... |
Blu Ray Audio is the DualDisc of 2014. Haven't heard of DualDisc? We rest our case.
Cassette Tapes revival is DOA. Cassette tape is a "hipster thing" that won't break free of "hipsterdom" the way vinyl appears have done. While we'll still see cassettes in used record stores, realize that you are seeing "dead man walking."
Reel to Reel tape. As much as the "Mister" behind the Mancave team lusts after reel to reel
(the answer is still "NO"), 2014 won't see any sort of tape revival. Perhaps 2015, 2016? One can hope, but as there are no new reel to reel machines being made, it may remain a niche within a niche for the foreseeable future.
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| Ethernet, local HDD ... could this be the future? |
Digital Audio (Hardware) is a lot like computers were 20 years ago - in that every 4-5 years the landscape will look different than before. This is in stark contrast to speakers, turntables and amplification where the changes are slower and more incremental.
The weakest link in the growing world of file-based computer audio is getting the file from the computer to the DAC. There is no solution yet that is truly ideal. Currently USB seems to be a popular choice, but it requires a computer co-located on your stereo stack, a pretty big limitation, and makes your house only have 1 place where you can listen with USB. You also have to hobble your computer (disabling background processes, etc.) in order to get the best possible sound. Our opinion is while it is functional in the "early adopter sense," these issues haven't yet been worked out fully (or if they have, it is highly proprietary and/or expensive with the players, unlikely to create a standard). We think that in 2014 we will see the introduction of the first USB3.0 based DAC's which correct some of the computer-hobbling issues, and the continued proliferation of quality streaming over Ethernet as a rational choice for someone seeking computer audio in more than one location. While the various challenges will not be resolved in 2014, we think the drive towards computer based audio will start gaining momentum as the "big boys" (Sony, Pioneer, Marantz, Yamaha) continue to introduce digital products that offer value for money.
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Could this be part of the mainstreaming of hiRez
downloads? |
Digital Downloads got a shot in the arm for 2014 with Sony pushing their DSD files to online music stores (like Acoustic Sounds and HDtracks) and getting behind DSD in a big way. This has been a long time coming, and we think that 2014 will be a big year for the long path of mainstreaming high resolution downloads. Given that people are used to free/cheap streaming and iTunes purchases ($9-10 or so an album), and the premium prices of these files ($17-30 a pop), we think it will get started slowly with people wanting the richer better sounding music for their favorite albums. And as things get rolling we can only hope that the threadbare MP3 will decrease in popularity, and the price of high bit-rate fall. But we think that compressed audio, for all its sonic faults, will still be the dominant digital medium.
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QVC for gadget hounds ...
... or the future of audio R&D? |
Crowdfunding will be big in 2014. Sites like "Indiegogo" and "Kickstarter" are playing a large role in audio that will grow in the coming years. From U-turn audio trying to create an "affordable" entry level turntable, to Olive Media trying to create a streamer, to the spectacularly successful campaign from Light Harmonic (raised over $1M as of the writing of this blog entry) - it is clear this new model is going to allow new and established but small companies a path to pre-sell their initial production runs of new products and make product development cheaper. This could create an explosion of audio products filling in the low and mid range that would have been impossible before. Don't expect this to be without bumps in the road, though. We haven't yet seen a spectacular failure or how the "market" readjusts expectations when donors are left holding the bag on a project. We think this is a new version of the "Wild West" with the potential of increasing innovation and risk taking in an electronics segment that has been slow to innovate. Hold on to your hats, say "caveat emptor" and hang on - it will be a fun year for this!
That's about it, we hope you have a wonderful New Year, and that 2014 is full of fun, family and music for you!
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