The Promoting Of Mediocrity In Audio - October 2025
- Lou Hamilton
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
I recently posted a video on Youtube, found at Audible Elegance, about the history of mediocrity in hi-fi as I see it. It's not the end all and be all of history, but my perspective of it. I had the pleasure of a viewer commenting about it and it allowed me to explain my thoughts further. Hope you all enjoy.
Viewer:
"I think a more polite term would be compromise. I've been a consumer of these mediocre products, just recently I bought a soundbar and subwoofer in a box solution. $600 Samsung and no need to manually calibrate crossovers etc it just works with your TV audio. I think we all need to victim to these conveniences, I remember the day I ditched wired headphones for Bluetooth I just can't go back."
My Response:
While I understand what you are saying, you certainly must recognize how "the experts" of CNN, Yahoo, and other sites promote these products as the full and complete solution right along with a link to their paid advertiser or Amazon. You cannot even read any news site without these ads being interspersed with news stories with convenient links to the sellers. That is where I draw the line. It is promoted mediocrity, not a compromise to meet other needs.
It's like home automation which promotes all these glorious things it can do which, if properly installed, may last a year before computer firmware, software, begin to take its toll. These "upgrades" come from both product manufacturers as well as those from the makers of the control systems themselves. And after a few rounds of this, the entire network becomes outdated like a Windows machine running Vista.
In short, it is the over-promising and underperforming that gets my attention and the obligation to simply point this out. What people do with the information, well, it's their money and their decision as it should be.
-Lou
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