Analog radio
Analog radio seems to be alive and well here in the USA. There was never the same push to convert all broadcasts to digital, as there was with broadcast TV, probably because the bandwidth to be gained wasn't worth it.
OTOH, I'm a big fan of HD radio. It gives a much cleaner signal than FM, especially for car radio. Plus, so far, most of the extra HD radio stations are commercial free, which is a real treat if you like to have the radio on at work. The drawback is that HD radio here is patented by a single company, and finding HD radio sets can be a bit of a treasure hunt. Not so much a problem with car stereos (at least not aftermarket) but for clock radios/tabletop/receivers there are very limited offerings. I wish more home theatre receiver mfg's would include HD radio on their systems. So far I've only seen it on very high end Yamaha systems, with some mid-end systems offering it as an extra optional add-on. To work around this I recently bought some small Insignia desktop HD radios. FM only, no AM. But they work well enough and have a headphone output that can be funneled into the aux-in of a bigger stereo system. Not ideal but workable.
The proponents of HD radio say it can deliver CD-quality FM and FM-Quality AM. Very few HD-AM radio stations on the dial in my area, but most of the major FM stations have HD radio capability. My favorites include a station that plays non-stop "smooth jazz" radio without any commercials. It's great since the only other such analog FM radio station (KKSF) when to rock oldies a few years ago.
The cloud on the horizon is that if HD radio does catch on here, stations are likely to start adding commercials, and/or try to restrict signal reception to sets that pay a subscription fee. Technically it could be done. Politically it's probably not going to happen any time soon, as it would mean people having to get new sets to "unlock" the signal. And since it hasn't happened yet with digitized broadcast TV, I doubt it will hit digital radio any time soon.
As far as modern hi-fi... well, I think the modern higher end home theatre receivers can do a pretty good job. Unfortunately most of them lack a phone pre-amp but it's possible to add one on, and more turntables seem to be coming with line-out capability anyway. No, it's not top of the line sound but it's quite good when you get out of the package home theatre deals (like receiver/DVD player combos and speakers all in one package).
I don't know about speakers not lasting. I still have my Polk Audio 10's from the 1970's and they work just fine. Although I confess I haven't listened to them for a few years now (still rearranging things). But it's good to hear that modern speakers may be even better.
