Attracting New
Audiophiles
 As
a university lecturer, I come into contact with lots of young people who, one might hope,
are perfect candidates for wanting good sound. Because I teach at a school with strong
engineering programs, I always hope I’m going to stumble across students who are
interested in sound reproduction and electronics. Alas, this doesn’t happen. I once
had a student who had an internship with Panasonic designing portable CD players. When I
inquired about how he enjoyed the job, his reply was simply that it was "okay."
I thought that when I told him about my passion for audio, he might be moved to discuss
his internship with me or the details of what he did. The most I got in response was his
statement that, "Well, circuits are circuits. I don’t really care what I’m
designing." I have become dismayed to find that none of the students seems to share
my audio interests.
One reason for hoping to find younger audiophiles is to be
able to pass along some good advice. When I think back to missteps I’ve taken, or how
many times I had hoped for some unbiased advice, it makes me want to help those new to the
hobby, or who are simply looking for a good-sounding stereo. But besides wanting to pass
along some good advice, there are other reasons for wanting a new generation of
audiophiles.
First, new blood is needed to support the audio companies
that provide us with great products. If there are no new customers, then the market
remains small, and may be unable to support innovation. Second, without new converts, we
may end up with competent but uninspired audio designers. Consider my Panasonic intern:
How could designing CD players be, to him, equivalent to designing garage-door openers?
Shouldn’t it be terribly exciting for him to be producing a machine that can bring
music into someone’s life? Third, an appreciation of music can make them better
people. A true appreciation and understanding of any art form can deepen people’s
understandings of the human condition, and foster a greater ability to interpret the world
around them.
I think a main reason for the lack of interest in the young
people I meet is a culture that does not treat art and music as important parts of
society. Consider, for example, the role of MP3 files in contemporary culture. I think
there are several reasons young people are more interested in compressed MP3 files than in
the kind of sound reproduction we advocate at GoodSound!
First, the marginalization of musical education means that
children are no longer educated about music history or theory, or given any context within
which to appreciate music. When I assigned a music-related essay in a cultural history
course, not one student proposed a topic about music that was written more than 50 years
ago. (For those interested, Elvis Presley was a popular topic, but hip-hop was, by far,
the topic most often proposed.) Some of that can be explained by honest interest, but a
great deal of it, I think, was because of ignorance. Students just didn’t know about
any other sorts of music. This last year, when I lectured on German intellectual
development in the 19th century, I mentioned that it was a "Ring year" in
New York. None of the students knew that I was referring to Wagner’s cycle of operas,
Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Second, digital files and MP3 players are cool. I hope that
Apple provides more than adequate compensation for the marketing team behind iPod and
iTunes. The stark ads of dancing black figures with their bright white iPods have been
ubiquitous in New York the last couple of years, and I see more and more people wearing
the telltale white earbuds. (I’ve never tried them, but I’ll guess many of these
people would appreciate the Etymotic or Shure ear-canal phones.) It’s hard to make
the case for a large stereo system that plays CDs or LPs when students can carry around in
their back pockets more music than they may ever listen to.
Third, digital files are cheap, stereo equipment is
perceived as expensive, and young adults may be under severe financial strain. If music
has not already become a part of their lives, it’s unrealistic to think that the idea
of a stereo system will matter much to them. Often, it just doesn’t matter how much
better things would sound -- free downloading, even if illegal, is a powerful incentive to
overcome.
Many of these problems could be solved if we had different
priorities -- such as treating education as it should be treated. The word education
has its roots in words that mean to bring forth or to bring out, suggesting
that the purpose of education is to help the person realize that which is already inside
of him or her. This suggests that it is the goal of education to bring out the potential
that exists within each of us and make it actual. If we were to treat music education
seriously, then, more people could become aware of the great pleasure that music can
bring. With a greater understanding and appreciation of music, more people would have a
greater desire for a good music system.
This very Platonic ideal of education is nearly nonexistent
today, however. The commodification of education and the increasing tendency to treat
education, and higher education particularly, as nothing more than job training, seriously
undermines this true value of education.
We can’t solve all of these problems at GoodSound!,
but we can act to fix two of them. First, we can do our best to dispel the perception that
good sound is expensive. This month we review a Magnepan system to prove that you can have
very good sound for not very much money and without needing a great deal of space for the
speakers themselves. Second, we can act as guides to those who want to know more about
music and its reproduction. This can be seen in past features and "How To"
articles, and this month we’ll get an update from Kelly Kolln with more "Tales
from the Mid-Budget Trenches."
…Eric D. Hetherington
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