Whatever Happened to Home Audio?

By Chris Petry

Everyone has an Uncle Dave. Whether his name is actually “Dave” or not. Being an Uncle Dave is more about possessing a particular attitude or spirit. A near-reckless abandon, complemented by a big heart and an almost Avant-Garde genius. Your Uncle Dave is the kind of guy who has blacklight posters from Spencer’s Gifts in the den and thinks The Wizard of Oz is best enjoyed in simpatico with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The other thing about Uncle Dave? He always has a killer sound setup. Or, at least, used to. With just a little speaker wire he bought at Radio Shack in 1986 and some PVC pipe, he could wake up the neighbors with the high-fidelity assault of Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo! Beyond that, he had a top-tier turntable or a 10-disc CD player with commercial-grade subwoofers and a phono preamp meant to deliver thousands of hours of auditory sledgehammering for a pittance of his grass-cutting money.


 
So, what happened to Uncle Dave? Better yet, what happened to public interest in high quality audio in general? It seems one company had a disproportionate effect on Americans’ listening habits: Apple. First with the launch of the I-Pod in Q4 of 2001. Sharing sites such as Napster and LimeWire began popping up in the late 90s, which gave users the ability to share and download newly digitized music files worldwide. The problem for the music industry, of course, was that those shares were unauthorized and thus, illegal. Unfortunately, the cat was out of the bag and it wasn’t going back in. Music was no longer contained to a physical format which cost money upfront and required storage space. Record labels eventually acquiesced and began remodeling themselves (some would argue too late) to accommodate the changing needs of the consumer by creating an online marketplace wherein consumers could purchase digital versions of their favorite records or songs anytime. Apple, and other lesser remembered competitors, began marketing digital music players like the I-Pod. The best part? You could power through weights in the gym without a single skip.


 
Inevitably, once smart phones took off, many began to dedicate more and more storage on their devices to music or emerging audio and phones became the primary music-listening device for most people. As unfortunate as that may be. Might I remind you that CDs are indeed digital audio files ripped to a physical disc? Or that the warmth, clarity and dynamic range of the vinyl LP is still unmatched over a century after its introduction? Plus, with CDs and vinyl, you have a physical relationship with your music. Artwork, credits, liner notes… oh, who am I kidding? As much as I, or the entire contingency of feverish audiophiles and collectors that keep the physical music market afloat, continue to extol the benefits of LPS, CDs or even cassettes, the average listener just wants convenience. That’s why they’ll cuddle up under a blanket and listen to an ultra-compressed scratchy stream of David Bowie’s Station to Station through earbuds instead of Sennheiser overheads from a Technics SL-1200 as the music gods intended. Hm!


 
There’s no mistake that once people changed their attitudes about music and their relationship with it, that they also eschewed yesterday’s essential hardware. Heck, even before the arrival of MP3 players (and certainly before streaming platforms like Pandora and Spotify), audio engineering and mixing had already gone through changes to reflect the dominance of new formats and playing systems. Around the mid-period of the CD revolution, producers began increasing audio levels on masters, sacrificing the dynamic range that had been present on LPs and indeed the earliest CDs, to up the loudness. This phenomenon was known as the “loudness wars,” in the press and several albums released during the period have been signaled out by fans as being particularly harsh listens. Early RUSH fans who had come on board during the Terry Brown years in the mid-70s were horrified when the band released the heavily-distorted and clipped Vapor Trails in 2002, for instance.


 
Over the years, there have been various attempts to correct the limitations of the digital audio file, to give it more clarity and range and lure in physical diehards. Perhaps the most enduring and heavily-publicized technology is that of Dolby Atmos, a three-dimensional sound format with no horizontal or vertical limits. I admit, that sounds ultra-nerdy. However, pop in an audio only Blu-Ray of a Steven Wilson remix of your favorite 70s prog record, blast it through an Atmos sound bar and you’ll get it. Or, you could listen through your car stereo or phone if the format is supported. It’s really the closest we’ve gotten to creating a digitized format that pleases both audiophiles and casual listeners.


 
Now we circle back to the original question: whatever happened to home audio? Well, it still exists. It just looks different. More and more people have accepted the limitations of streaming for the tradeoff of convenience, a lesser investment and far less-needed storage space. The blue tooth speaker market is expected to exceed $36.06 billion in revenue by 2029, so people obviously still want a speaker separate from their device to listen to music and talk. Yet, designated spaces with complex setups for audio and video immersion like home theaters and music rooms are not as popular with the general public these days. Some say the trend is reversing somewhat but one thing’s for sure: the average homeowner is not prioritizing it anymore.


 
While it pains audiophiles and cinephiles like myself, it’s likely to get even rarer as time soldiers on and less and less people see value in higher end and, obviously, more expensive home theater setups. In an age where Tik Tok and YouTube (and I write this begrudgingly) have huge sway over people’s viewing habits and music listening and discovery, it’s likely that high end setups will become increasingly niche. Oh, well. Until HDMI ports are as scarce as a thylacine and TVs come standard in a 9x16 aspect ratio, I’m not giving up on my home theater setup. I wouldn’t even know what to do. I guess I could always call Uncle Dave. He’ll figure it out.