Harbinger of the future of 2-channel?


I just looked at the Sunfire website and noticed that Sunfire no longer makes 2-channel amplifiers. The minimum number of channels you can purchase from them is a 5-channel amp.

I remember when Apple came out with the I-Mac. It did not have a floppy drive. Even though I hadn't used a floppy in years, it still made me a little nervous that the machine didn't have one. It turns out that Apple was right on the money by eliminating the floppy. Email had rendered it useless.

Is home theater pushing 2-channel closer to the brink?

Does anyone think that the bulk of amplifier mfgs will follow suit and concentrate on multi-channel amps? I see that Audio Research has a new multi-channel preamp in its lineup.
128x128mitch4t
Reubent is right. My nieces and nephews (8 of 'em, ages 12 through 24)don't even care about 2 channel. They all use I-Pods for music (you can barely call cheap earbuds 2 channel music) and, increasingly, cell phones for video. Not one of them cares a wit about home theatre. Any home music system is either a small jam box or similar type thing with detachable speakers stuffed into opposite corners. And all of them are in upper middle class homes.

Funny, just a few years ago everybody wanted a big screen TV, now kids don't care if they watch on 2" ones.
Reubent:

Reubent
iPods are 2-channel. nuff said......

What about that special edition iPod with seven channels and seven ear buds, supplying three and a half humans with mediocre sound :^).
Albertporter,

It must really suck for that half person that only gets one earbud!

TIC
Hey, we're forgetting the true future of music reproduction - the cell phone ring tone! I hear them everywhere and it seems everyone I know has at least one. A guy at the gym has bunches of songs on his phone. I bet there are 20 times as many people interested in ring tones than multi-channel music.