As Hi as Fi Will Go

Artrockers,
As a teenage rock‘n’roller I had two obsessions (apart from the obvious). Most of my waking hours were spent planning my weekend record purchase, which was always dependent on how much money I had (capitalism eh - ‘twas always thus), but even if it was only 99p there’d always be something in the ‘reduced’ box for less than a quid. And my lack of funds often lead me to buy cheap albums by artists I’d never usually consider - and the result was that my musical taste was broadened - a very good thing. (I even bought ELP’s Tarkus and Pictures At An Exhibition because they only cost £1.49. It was only when I played them that I realised they were obscenely over-priced.)
Obsession number two was Hi-Fi, after all, not much point having an expanding record collection if you couldn’t listen to it. From Dansette I progressed, via my parent’s radiogram, to ‘separates’. Comet had opened one of its first stores on the other side of Birmingham, here I bought a Solavox amplifier, which sat on as shelf in my bedroom for about six months before I could afford a deck (BSR McDonald). Now I could borrow my big brother’s headphones and listen to my records, which was OK, but what I really wanted was some booming speakers. I ended up making my own enclosures from chip-board and filled them with 12” speakers purchased second hand. This was my first hi-fi. But I didn’t stop there, I was always improving, updating, dreaming of owning; a Quad amp, Wharfedale speakers and a Transcriptors deck…my holy grail. All that mattered to me was that one day I’d be able to hear my records as loud and as pure as possible. It was all about quality, the hunt for perfect sound…on a budget.
I don’t own a hi-fi anymore, I have a ‘set’ (the modern equivalent of my parent’s radiogram but without the bass) and a PC. Various members of my family own iPods and spend much of their time listening to music through a ‘dock’. And the thing about these docks is that, when combined with the low quality of MP3s, they sound considerably worse than my old Dansette. What’s that about? Why is the quality if sound no longer important? Why is ‘tinny’ acceptable? Why has the quality of sound become irrelevant? Why does new technology so often lead to a decline in quality (see: digital radio and TV)? And, perhaps most importantly, why do we put up with it?

Tom Artrocker