Where will audio be in 10 years?


In honor of CES and some other emerging trends in electronics, where do you see the state of audio in the next ten years?

I see the audiophiles and the "general public" with two different systems. The audiophile will have, similar to today, separate components that will probably incorporate a CD-like player using blue laser technology to produce higher rez audio and video on the same disc. All the separate components, including amps, speakers, etc. will be connected via one cable of some high speed variety (HDMI ?).

The non-audiophiles will probably have a fat looking "receiver" which will have an amp/preamp and a giant hard-drive device incorporated in one box. On that hard drive will be audio (MP5:-), hi-rez video and whatever else (games, pictures, etc) all connected to a flat panel TV, that doubles as the computer monitor, attached to a speaker system. Of course it is all integrated with the internet which is where you'll order your music and movies instantly, on-demand.

What do you see the future holding?
treyhoss
I think someone will build a DAC to enhance MP3/X compressed data. Therefore, digital sources may change.

Hopefully recording engineers will figure out better ways to record music, video, and combined audio/video material to enhance our home audio/theater systems. Which of course will have way more speakers than any one room has today.

It will be interesting to see how DSP will advance over time. They are already making more advances recently than over the last ten years combined.
I think vinyl will continue to (re)grow.
Just better analog playback.
There are plenty of lp's out there, there are new ones every day, and they are retro and romantic.
They still offer the best.
Hell, most music is inherently analog.
vinyl will still around. CDs will still be around (for backwards compatibility). We see some sort of Hi-Diff "DVD" on a 5-inch polycarbonate disc of some sort. Low rez downloads will still be prevailent. We'll see high-end players for the low-rez media, much like we saw audiophile cassette tape decks from Nakamichi and Tandberg back in the day. SACD will fill the same niche today that reel-to-reel does.

There will still be a definite cleavage between audiophiles and the unwashed. So I agree with Jmcgrogan2 on that.

Solidstate will likely erode mindshare and market share in favor of digital amps. Tubes will still be around though. As will SETs and horns. So not everyone will be use HDMI Treyhoss!!

The interesting thing to watch may be speaker technology. Will <$4k (in 2005 money) speakers in 2015 be better than what we have in 2005? I suspect it will be more of the same. Efficiency, reasonable size, reasonable cost - pick two.