Sustainable Hi-Fi Platform

If you are interest in Hi-Fi, I recommend you watch XrayTonyB YouTube channel. Especially his video on damping factor is very informative. When you watch the video, you learn that no speaker is perfect and amplifiers don’t match perfectly with every speaker. As a result, I believe that a true hi-fi of today should be a modular active speaker. We don’t need the clutter of old hi-fi components. Today, the audio and video are digital and don’t require physical medium to reproduce them.

The sustainable hi-fi platform I propose will be based on standardized modules attached inside hi-fi speakers. Each speaker will be driven with a dedicated amplifier. This dedication will be based on the characteristic of the speaker, not just it's ohm value.

Digital music will be streamed into the hi-fi via USB, HDMI (ARC), optical, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. The DAC, digital stream processors and the wireless transceivers will be removable modules. As a result, changes in technology will not make the system obsolete. The consumers will be able to upgrade their system more economically over time.

The speakers will have removable casing to meet consumer esthetics. As a result, the manufacturers will not need to stock expensive powered speakers based on their color. The casings would be stocked which will be much cheaper than the electronic parts.

Placing everything inside the large speaker case negates the need for expensive audio cables and connectors, as well as external amplifiers, streamers and their cable clutter. Only one of the speakers within a system will house DAC, digital stream processor and the wireless transceivers. The rest of the speakers will be connected to the main speaker via special cable which carries electricity as well as the digital audio signal for the specific speaker.

Each speaker case will house detailed schematics of electronics and mechanics of the speaker to assist future servicing of the products. I got my inspiration from old radios where such schematics would be sticked inside the casing. Unlike the old ones, the schematics will be printed on long lasting coated papers.

Once the standards are properly defined, the result would an upgradable Hi-Fi system like the upgradable desktop PCs.