The Demise of Hi-Fi

I am really upset about the state of audio. It seems we have forgotten what "High Fidelity" means. It means you try to reproduce recorded sound as faithfully as possible. It seems that principle has been forgotten for what I call "wow" audio.

"Wow" audio is where the playback is not meant to be accurate, but just so exciting that you say "wow!" You see this all the time with these multi-channel systems where the goal is not to sound like the real thing, but to impress yourself that sound is coming from all around you! Since when in any real musical setting do you have musicians surrounding you?

Just about all recordings these days are multitrack recordings made with untold amounts of effects processing. They are, in effect, the aural equivalent of a impressionist painting. Thus, you really want to experience the recording the way the artist intended. The problem is that studio recordings are mixed using studio monitors, and not home stereo speakers. Speaker makers should be trying to mimic the sound of those monitors.

Then there is the trend of lossy compression of digital music. A lot of people prefer to listen to MP3s or WMAs instead of the uncompressed CD audio. All the work that was spent to get CDs sounding good is now thrown out the window.

You can say that as long as you get enjoyment out of your music, it doesn't matter that it is no longer "hi-fi". I guess that's true, if you just want to apprecate music on that level. I just hope that enough people get fed up with the state of audio that things might try to swing in the other direction. It doesn't look like it will be any time soon.