The crowd at Stereophile Magazine`s recent high-end hi-fi show in New York took their seats in silence, savoring a few moments of quiet reflection and gazing expectantly toward a 10-foot Stewart screen hooked up to a Barco 660C (front) projector. For all their reverence, they might as well have been in church. In fact, they were awaiting their first encounter with high-definition television.
As the lights went down, the six-foot speakers alongside the screen came alive with sounds suggesting space travel. A portentous announcer declared that after this demonstration, visitors would never look at television in the same way. Then the screen lit up with yet another view of the Manhattan skyline.
The picture itself was certainly stunning, with a pointillistic clarity that far surpasses today`s television and differs significantly from the look of film. Where a memorable film might conjure a lushness that suggests a painting, HDTV delivers a much flatter picture that teems with detail. It`s more realistic, if perhaps less poetic.
The big screen and high definition certainly put the viewer closer to the action during a segment shot at a football game, but in the end, the presentation consisted of overly familiar scenes played through state-of-the- art hardware that retails for $10,000. A cynical consumer could reasonably ask: Will this expensive consumer item really enrich my prime-time experience? Such considerations are irrelevant to the high-end video-audiophile. To them, it`s the clarity of the reproduction, as opposed to the image itself, that`s important.
Audiophiles are a mostly male breed unto themselves; they`re nerds with gold cards stuck into their pocket pencil holders. They wandered the corridors of the Penta Hotel like stereophonic explorers in search of the ultimate sound.
The Home Entertainer`s trip to the Hi-End show was a purely academic exercise; over the last year, he had replaced his tape deck, CD machine, and turntable at a total price that was less than most of the individual stereo components being displayed at the show. Yet even if money were no object, he would have been hard pressed to differentiate between these high-ticket items. Hi-Fi heaven, it seems, is in the ear of the beholder.
”Did you notice a difference in those speakers?” said one young man to another, pausing in the hallway between two showrooms. ”Yeah,” said his buddy.
”Well,” persisted the questioner, ”what was the difference?”
”Um . . . the dispersion.”
The world of high-end hi-fi is an increasingly specialized market serviced by a number of small, mostly American and European companies. Sony and the other big guns from Japan weren`t even represented at the show. The giants are interested in the mass market. The high-end is devoted to those few who wouldn`t think twice about spending hundreds of dollars on high-performance cables to connect their high-performance equipment.
The Home Entertainer is more of a low-end kind of guy. For those heading out into the tortuous world of consumer electronics, where salesmen excel at guiding you to the item that offers the store its greatest profit margin, he heartily endorses these carefully chosen components: the NAD Compact Disc Player 5325 (about $270); the Nakamichi CR-1A cassette deck (about $320), and the Ariston Q Deck II turntable ($360, including cartridge). Each is at the very bottom of the audiophile scale.
In the age of the compact disc, the turntable is fast becoming the odd man out in the world of home electronics. That`s because the only people buying them are older consumers who have significant record collections. Since the early `80s, most younger fans have bought cassettes instead of records, and have had no need for turntables.
One result is that the shrinking turntable market is essentially divided into a low end and a high end, with little in the middle. The assumption is that people replacing old turntables will buy a cheap one or pop for a deluxe model.
High-end audiophiles generally contend that a vinyl album containing an analog recording is superior to a compact disc. It`s more ”lifelike,” they say, and doesn`t sound as ”chilly” as a CD. The difference, however, is only apparent on turntables that are far more sophisticated than the rattly $99 models that entertained the rock-and-roll generation.
The Home Entertainer noticed the difference as soon as he spun the new
”Midnight Oil” album on his new Q Deck. The turntable was suddenly in the same aural ballpark as his CD deck. That suggests that one reason most people decided CDs were better than albums was that most people were listening to LPs on mediocre turntables.
The Q Deck, of course, is on the floor of the high end. It`s $360 price tag pales next to the princely $32,000 required to buy the audiophile`s nirvana: The Goldmund Reference. Most audiophiles spend between $1,000 and $2,000 for a turntable and tone arm (at that price, they`re typically sold separately). That`s why as many dealers at the High End Show were
demonstrating their equipment with albums as compact discs.
The Home Entertainer also noticed a great improvement in the sound quality of his NAD 5325 compact disc player compared to his 3-year-old (and mechanically troubled) Yamaha 300. Much of the difference is no doubt a reflection of the fact that improvements come fast in popular new products. All the same, his purchase of the 5325 was based on the fact that it was uniformly recommended by high-end dealers.
The electronics industry thrives on planned obsolescence. There`s always some new gadget for the consumer to lust after. Remember eight-track tapes?
Quadrophonic sound? The new technology on the block-digital audio tape (DAT)- didn`t seem to be causing much of a stir at the High End Show, partly, perhaps, because of the audiophile`s preference for analog over digital sound. Amidst this shell game of expensive electronics, Home Entertainer was tickled to encounter the Serious Listeners, a $24.95 item billed as ”The most cost-efficient improvement in the listening enjoyment of your audio/video system.” Serious Listeners are black leather thingamajigs that hang from the ear to replicate the effect of cupping your ears with your hands. Visually, the listener appears to have sprouted the ears of a beagle.
Leaving the show, Home Entertainer stopped in an art supplies store to pick up what some contend is the cheapest audio improvement of all: a $2.50 felt-tip magic marker.
The theory goes that marking the inner and outer rims of a CD with a green marker gives the music a warmer, more natural sound. Nobody seems to know why, and some dismiss the difference altogether. Rolling Stone magazine reported that one believer recommends the turquoise Design Art Marker 255 by Faber Castell.
For test purposes, Home Entertainer chose a compilation disc that included tracks by Roy Orbison (”You Got It”), Neneh Cherry (”Buffalo Stance”), and Julia Fordham (”Happy Ever After”). He listened to the tunes and then coated the disc`s rims with turquoise. The power of (inexpensive)
suggestion is mighty, but the Home Entertainer did seem to notice a pleasing difference in the sound of the treated disc.
And when Home Entertainer slipped on the Serious Listeners, the effect was . . . wow!
