I was listening to an interesting podcast interview with Brent Butterworth about the divide between the audio and home theater enthusiast communities, as well as what’s changed since the early 1990’s.
Brent, a freelance writer and consumer electronics journalist, falls firmly in the evidence-based camp, and he’s one of the few audio writers whom I don’t need the BS-filter turned on (the only others being Alan Lofft, Ian G Masters, and Daniel Kumin).
https://youtu.be/LlA8CcEarPw The meat of the content is from 14:00 to 1:25:00. It sounds fine at 1.25x speed.
Some things stand out for me:
- Kids rarely use the TV nor audio system. Their entertainment is strictly through mobile devices. (This is true in my household.)
- Usually only one person in the family knows how to operate the A/V equipment, let alone diagnose it. (Also true in my household.)
- It’s a good time to be an audio and home theater enthusiast today. The days of rapid technological churn and obsolescence are over.
- Soundbars are getting really good.
- Today’s generic branded $800 TV outperforms the best TV’s of just 6-8 years ago.
- A $1500 home theater today will give you a $10,000-$20,000 home theater experience from the 1990’s and 2000’s. (High end projectors are still $$ instead of $$$, but mostly true.)
- The home theater enthusiast is better at understanding diminishing returns than audio enthusiasts. Those lacking critical thinking skills are ripe for being ripped off.
