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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

> discontinued 4 years ago - that's a pretty long tail and in line with Apple

My stereo system was built in 1999. It still works fine and will continue to do so no matter what Sony does with their web servers.

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My stereo system is from 2003. There is something deeply warped about accepting this idea each electronic product we buy should have a 2-4 year life expectancy.

Can it connect to Spotify? Or do you need another device to do that?

That's the point. Separate the "smart" components, which are short-lived and at the whims of the manufacturer, from the "dumb" components that are not at the mercy of constant updates, online accounts and sunsetting. You can connect to Shopify from a chromecast, airplay, bluetooth from a phone or anything else yet to be devised.

I've been saying this exact same thing about "Smart TVs" for so long. There really aren't options these days, if you want a good current-gen TV, you're getting a "smart" TV.

The smart components in these will get outdated quickly (perhaps slower now than 5 years ago, but still quite quickly), but I'm gonna be fine with my current TV panel for far longer than I will the OS that's on it.

I'm very concerned about what will happen to all of these TVs when consumers feel that they are too slow or can't install the apps they want to use. I fear they will just replace the TV with another smart TV that will last 3-4 years.

Sure, for a complex device like a TV. But for a small, self contained speaker? That's messy and complex, and frankly, people buy Sonos units to avoid that very situation.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

My stereo is from 1973 and the Raspberry Pi I have connected to its inputs can play Spotify just fine and will get updates for much longer. Or I could plug my phone up. Or a more consumer friendly device like a Roku. Or a bluetooth module that pairs wirelessly with my phone. If and when I do decide to update the Pi is a single device that costs $40 or so instead of having to do that much per speaker. Sonos devices just aren't worth it, they're insanely overpriced and provide little to no real benefit over any number of other options that separate out the stereo from the thing that plays music.

Sure, because one of my old laptops has been relegated to music-player duty. If I hadn't had a spare laptop it'd have been a spare phone. Or maybe I'd add a Bluetooth dongle to stream media to it from any other device.

The Yamaha TSR-6750WA I bought in 2013 (7 years ago) does. Still.

Your ability to find tapes, discs, or things to plugin to it (assuming it even supports that) are disappearing with increasing speed.

My family has a Sony receiver bought in 1966. It works great with sources from phonograph to smartphone. There is no feeling of anything disappearing, on the contrary it is a device which is extremely pleasant to use and otherwise unthought of. Tuning its radio using a heavily weighted and lightly damped knob is faster than digital, the power-on latency is a few milliseconds, and most sources can be selected with a single press instead of scrolling an endless, feelless knob like many modern models.

Who is making receivers now that people will enjoy in 2073?

I go to hamfests often; if I ever need old audio gear, I can get it there (recently picked up a home-built crystal set with the galena cat-whisker still hooked up - I have yet to try to see if I can get it to work, but it looks complete).

Not too long back I bought a bluetooth adapter for my old Realistic component stereo system (that I bought as a high-schooler in 1989) - my wife likes to use it to listen to music and audio books, both inside the house and outside on the back patio.

If I ever wanted to do some kind of "streaming music/speaker system" - there are plenty of open source options out there. Or I would run wiring for speakers like others here have done. But for now, our needs and simple, and we're fine with that.

Are you suggesting RCA jacks are getting phased out? That's the only way I need to worry.

When buying home theater equipment recently I’ve had to make sure it had RCA jacks. Plenty of TVs don’t have them, I think.

Yes, definitely not a given a new tv you buy will still have rca jacks.

RCA and XLR are still pretty much the standard. You just need to look for studio equipment from companies such as Genelec, Neumann, Pioneer et.al.

I went to a small record store just the other day and they were selling fancy brand new turn tables that I could have bought. They also had a bluetooth module, and even a very fancy device that had 2 RCA connectors on one end, and a 3.5mm jack on the other so you could plug up something called a "phone" without even spending all the money on wireless. It's amazing how audio, for the longest time, just worked and I didn't have to think about it. When you keep things simple and standardized it pays dividends for years.

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