The State of Listening

How an industry lost its silence — and what we can still hear beyond the noise.

Wax and Wire Manifesto

By Todd Kehoe, Founder / Editor, Wax and Wire

The Noise We Built

Somewhere along the way, the chase got louder than the music.
Every week — a new release, a new thumbnail, another promise of best ever, the bravado polished by another award.
Different boxes, same pitch.

And after a while, all the voices started to sound the same — and most of those voices looked the same, too.
Same rooms. Same faces. Same story on repeat.
A sea of gray hair and price tags, all nodding in the same direction.

Somewhere, the idea took hold that good sound was a luxury — something reserved for the wealthy, the white, the male, the few.
But music never asked for that.
It’s always belonged to everyone.
Every language, every age, every skin, every song that meant something to someone.
And until more of us are seen in those rooms — every color, every age, every kind of voice — we’re only hearing half the song.

The industry forgot that. And so did we.
We built rooms to isolate instead of invite.
We made perfection a password.

We called it progress, but it felt more like feedback — a hum that never stopped.
We told ourselves we were growing the hobby.
But what we really grew was the noise:
more specs, more content, more performance.
We started chasing perfection and stopped hearing people.

We’ve never had more ways to listen — and somehow, we listen less.
Not because the gear got worse, but because the space around it disappeared.
The kind of space where sound could breathe, and so could we.

This isn’t judgment.
It’s recognition — and maybe a little regret.
We built the noise together.
And we can take it apart, one listen at a time.

The Silence We Forgot

There was a time when silence meant something.
That pause before the needle drops, the gear whine of a CD loading — that heartbeat before a track takes hold.
The soft hum of an amp warming up in the dark.
You could feel it, even before the music started — the anticipation, the respect.

Listening used to be slower.
Not nostalgic — just human.
Music wasn’t a solo sport; it filled rooms, spilled out of windows, drifted across nights with friends who knew when to shut up and let the song do the talking.

Now we compare, scroll, unbox, repeat.
Perfect rooms, perfect gear — and somehow, less life.
We sit alone in chairs meant for one, while the best part of listening still happens when it’s shared.

Silence isn’t absence.
It’s the room catching its breath.
It’s the sound trusting us enough to stop talking.
And we’ve forgotten how to wait for it.

The Way Out

The way out isn’t through the gates.
It’s through each other.
Build smaller circles.
Share systems that fit the room, not the résumé.
Trade comparison for curiosity.
Make listening public again — kitchens, clubs, porches, backyards.

Fill the playlists with more than the usual suspects.
Let Diana Krall live next to Erykah Badu, Khruangbin, Kendrick, Mitski, and Miles.
Let the room belong to everyone who feels something when the first note drops.

Because the sound of inclusion isn’t noise — it’s harmony.
The noise fades when the room fills with people.

That’s the way out — more voices, more songs, one shared silence.

The Sound We Can Still Find

But here’s the thing — it’s still out there.
Waiting in smaller rooms, slower nights, playlists that don’t need explaining.
It’s in the sigh that follows a song, the quiet nod between friends who heard the same moment hit different.
It’s in the laugh that breaks the spell — proof that connection still beats precision.

We don’t need the latest miracle box to find it again.
We just need to care — to make room for the music, and the people it brings with it.
To welcome every listener, every story, every kind of silence.

There’s a movement forming — not a brand, not a product, just a return.
To slower sound.
To rooms that breathe.
To stories worth hearing, not just hearing about.

Because some gear changes how you hear music.
The rare ones change how you feel silence.

And if we’re lucky —
if we slow down long enough to really listen —
we might find that silence again.
Together.

Director’s Note

This isn’t nostalgia — it’s a correction.
I wrote this for the listeners who never saw themselves in the ads or the forums,
and for the ones who walked away because it stopped feeling like theirs.
Sound deserves everyone. And everyone deserves a place to listen.