It is, as always, relative.
I grew up listening to a"radiogram" until I was 15...a good old stack 'em and go machine and mono too.
Around 73 my folks bought a "stereo"...a big piece of furniture but it had a cassette player recorder, turntable plus AM/FM radio.
That was an eye opener...stereo...the room was filled with sounds - headphones were acquired.

The MP3 world was a retrograde step in terms of quality, compared to decently made records and many, though not all cassettes, but since then storage is much cheaper and either 16 & 24 bit hi res files are easily acquired and played. Some streaming services offer hi res and a decent program on the receiver can make them sound as grand as they should but there is a generation for whom "in the room" decent resolution stereo sound is a foreign thing. They know headphones/earbuds playlists and streaming, they know sonically hyped Beats headphones, they know wham pow surround sound as well as sound bar simulations. They rarely know good stereo. That's pretty sad really. Even glorious Quad rarely packed the punch of a good stereo mix on half decent gear in a living room.

This is not a cohort's fault as it is, as things were in my youth, the prevailing technology combined with marketing and acquisition desire that drives consumption. The market backed off from one set of consumables and pushed the latest, and more profit intensive, versions. People bought/acquired what was available and in their price range, (except for iPhone people who happily buy outside their economic range becasue it's Apple). I like my records, I play them when I can. I like my CDs, I play them when I can. I haven't bought many digital music files but I like them and play them when I can. I make digital music and play that on whatever will play it. I'm a consumer who hasn't thrown away the goods in that same way that I still enjoy Slade, Bowie, T Rex, John Mayall, Dinosaur Jr and stuff I've bought recently.

Regardless of format I'm always battling to create a wider sweet spot so I don't have to tie myself to a single chair to listen.

Last edited by rayc; 11/07/21 02:58 PM.
Cheers
rayc
"What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe