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--- audio:american_audio_ages [2018/10/16 00:33] – [CD: quality and competition] mithat
+++ audio:american_audio_ages [2021/05/10 20:10] (current) – mithat
@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 **Abstract**
-We establish that a relationship exists between an age's dominant audio delivery media and the sociology of that age. Implications of this relationship for successful audio system design are explored. It is posited that the decline of the high-end audio niche in the United States owes predominantly to its failure to recognize the sociological shifts in the mainstream market as represented by shifts in dominant audio delivery media.
+We establish that a relationship exists between an age's predominant audio delivery media and the sociology of that age. Implications of this relationship for successful audio system design are explored. It is posited that the decline of the high-end audio niche in the United States owes predominantly to its failure to recognize the sociological shifts in the mainstream market as represented by shifts in dominant audio delivery media.
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 relationship with phone as "life repository".
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-==== What's next? ====
-Without doubt, future changes in sociology and technology will occur, and these changes will impact mainstream audio consumption. The exact changes that are likely to happen are not clear. However, for the near future, we can engage in some speculation.
+===== What's next? =====
+Without doubt, future changes in sociology and technology will occur, and these changes will impact mainstream audio consumption. The exact changes that are likely to happen are not clear. However, we can engage in some speculation.
 Sociological trends we expect to continue include reurbanization/gentrification, specifically young and wealthy demographics choosing to live in multi-unit structures in urban areas rather than bedroom communities. In addition, we expect to see increased disparity between wealthy, middle class, and impoverished demographics. The disparity will likely not be limited to income: access to social services and technological infrastructures may also be impacted. Technologically, we expect to see advances in wired and wireless streaming capacity as well as pushes in the area of IoT.
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 One possible outcome for those with means is an increase in "interdeviceness" --- multiple devices functioning in integrated, intelligent ways --- in support of increasingly instant and virtual mindsets. For those with lesser means, greater reliance on a minimal set of technology, including a minimal set of devices, to solve and manage life issues might result.
-===== Implications for high-end audio =====
+==== Implications for high-end audio =====
 A relationship between an age's dominant audio delivery media and the sociology of that age is evident. Equally evident is the impact of these on successful audio system design.
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 The high-end's failure to maintain formal relevance to the changing sociology, lifestyle requirements, and lifestyle choices in the greater population is compounded by advances in technology that render promises of heightened experience less convincing.((This is a subject I don't deal with further here but deserving its own paper.)) This without doubt is at the core of the significant downturn in the volume of high-end sales in the last several years in the U.S.
-There are strong indications that depth of the high-end niche (which is to say, the interest on the part of existing user demographics to bear a cost in the pursuit of higher experiences) has saturated in the US. Given this and the fact that the width of a narrowing niche eventually approaches zero, the prognosis for high-end audio isn't good. Even if the former were able to be overcome (e.g., with convincing promises of yet better performance), it still won't stop the progressive narrowing of the niche --- a narrowing caused by the high end's dogged insistence on formal paradigms that are increasingly irrelevant to new user requirements.
+There are strong indications that the depth of the high-end niche (which is to say, the interest on the part of existing user demographics to bear a cost in the pursuit of higher experiences) has saturated in the U.S. Given this and the fact that the width of a narrowing niche eventually approaches zero, the prognosis for high-end audio isn't good. Even if the former were able to be overcome (e.g., with convincing promises of yet better performance), it still won't stop the progressive narrowing of the niche --- a narrowing caused by the high end's dogged insistence on formal paradigms that are increasingly irrelevant to new user requirements.
 In the absence of profound change, the fate of high-end audio in America is clear.