Not long ago I wanted to upgrade the speakers for my home stereo system. I’ve done this several times over the years as technology improved. At the first store I visited the salesman asked me what kind of phone I had. Ugh! I smiled, thanked him, and left the store. The world had changed more than I wanted to admit. I’m a wired guy living in a Bluetooth world.
When I was a kid, one of the rites of passage was having a stereo in your room. A real one. Not a portable radio or cassette player with a built-in speaker. A stereo system with wired speakers on either side of the room. The kind that might rattle the pictures off the wall.
Humble beginnings with albums and cassettes
My first stereo had a turntable, radio and cassette player integrated into one unit with separate speakers. I adored it and the sound it produced was immeasurably better than the small radio it replaced. That childhood all-in-one stereo provided my escape into music for a very long time.
Years and years passed before I traded up to a component system that came in several boxes as I’d chosen each piece rather than a matched system. This was my dream-come-true stereo system. I’d dreamt of this. The receiver was on top of the stack sitting above a cassette deck and CD player. The final piece was a set of floor-standing speakers.
The sound that filled the room that day left me in awe. You could hear and feel the music in a way I’d seldom experienced. Everything I loved about music took on a new life with this system. At the time in the mid-80s, stereo stores were abundant and large electronics stores like Crazy Eddie, Tweeter, Circuit City and Nobody Beats The Wiz were stocked to the rafters with equipment.
Shift in music retail
Those stores are long gone now as is the traditional stereo. People now post pictures of my beloved component stereo as nostalgic throwback photos on social media. A generation of kids have reached adulthood without having bought a CD (or DVD for that matter) and few have experienced stereo sound.
My son is part of that generation and has subsisted on headphones and Bluetooth speakers, with all his music streaming via his phone. He owns no physical media outside of his video games, and even those are disappearing in favor of downloaded game files. The first time I fired up my home stereo for him, his eyes widened. He’d never experienced music that filled a room, enveloping you in your favorite band’s magic.
I’m not sure how we got here. Music fans don’t own their music – it’s streamed. Smartphones have become the modern-day stereo. I crave the thunderous bass I get from floor standing speakers. This too has been replaced. Speakers no longer come in pairs for stereo sound. They’re a single wireless unit accessed via Bluetooth. Headphones seem the only way to achieve a true stereo sound, as a single Bluetooth speaker doesn’t have the same type of output.
I feel as though today’s generation has been steered away from physical media in favor of streams and thrust into a music landscape that takes away the once rich sounds that could be felt. Having grown up with deep rumbling bass and music that filled my room, it’s hard to comprehend how today’s retail landscape satisfies our love of music.
You can still buy traditional stereo speakers (even those big floor-standing models), but today’s retail market doesn’t make it easy. The speakers I was shopping for at the beginning of this article… I finally bought them, the next evolution in my love for music, but I had to go online. After doing some research on a trusted brand, I had the pair shipped to me. Big sound. Love them.
On Cape Cod, stores selling stereo equipment are few and far between. They do exist, but please do your research on local stores, as some of them are far better than others! After investigating local stores and brands, you may opt to buy online as this will offer more choices in equipment and prices. My best advice is not to settle. Don’t be pressured into buying what “they” have in stock.
Happy shopping! Great sound can be achieved despite inroads into how music is distributed and listened to. Quality is worth pursuing and you should keep looking until you find the equipment that meets your requirements.
By CapeCod.com Staff
