end of golden era-a different point of view

There are numerous debates about what killed progressive rock a the end of the 70's: punk, disco, too long songs for airplay? Prog became too pompous or pretentious? Listeners fed up with the genre?
Bands lost their creativity?

All of these reasons are true to some extent, and all of these reasons have been discused on different topics already.
However, there's one more reason that should be considered: a progress of technology.

What do you think? Progress in technology is creating regress in music? Isn't that ironic?
Mellotrons or samplers - what do you prefer? Why?

I can go even further, and narrow the beginning of the end: the very moment when synthesizer became polyphonic. More that I think of it, more I got an impression that is the main reason.

Is that making any sense or am I talking rubbish? What do you think?

Hard to say. You raise some good points for discussion which, as you point out, have been argued to death on this site over the past few years. I think it definitely had to do with technological advancements in general which made life more easier and simple People`s minds became lazier were and less inclined to use their brains for everything from solving math problems to listening to music. There were perhaps social implications as well which yours truly is not really qualified to discuss.

However I must thank technology for preserving a lot of music from the 70`s which otherwise would not be still available as well as recordings which have been hauled out of the vaults. I`ll take a mellotron or Hammond over sampled music any day. Then again I am still living in the stone age of vinyl and still buy it at second hand shops and will only buy a CD if I can`t find it on Vinyl.

the musical climate in the late seventies could be described as rather stormy - many changes, but many Prog/rock dinosaurs who survived the storm were never the same again!

The "golden era" came to an end because of two main influences.  Punk/New Wave and MTV with the latter being the real deathknell.  Because of MTV all attention was diverted to the presentation rather than the substance and progressive rock couldn't find a niche in that 3-minute format.  It didn't die but it definitely went into hibernation for a long time.  Happy to say it seems to be reawakening....

To an extant polyphonic synths killed the Hammond sound.  It is pretty amazing that by 1980 ELP, Yes, Kansas, Genesis and most other bands who's beefy sound was made with the Hammond had all stopped using them in favor of the polyphonic analog synths of the day.  To me that ripped a big part of the sound out of the music. I don't really know if it killed it or not.  I just think it was on many changes that eventually killed it off.

Well, I think it was a combination of audience apathy and overt pompousness, really.

Let's face it, there were some follies that really did the genre no favours whatsoever. Rick Wakeman, although I actually enjoy almost every 70s album he's done a lot, is a prime candidate with his 'King Arthur on ice' stage show, which is stupid whatever way you look at it. It took people's minds away from the music and they focussed on the grandiliquence. ELP's orchestral tour is another prime suspect- I had a VHS of this and I'm not surprised it's so maligned. I think they had the opinion that bigger meant better, when it doesn't. I don't think anybody here would claim 'Works' was better than their first 5 albums, because it's simply not. I'm not too surprised the public were put off by the sheer hubris of Emerson doing a 'Piano Concerto'.

The first album I can see which really took a critical battering though was 'A Passion Play'. I think it's another example of a band thinking 'bigger is better' and they tried to outdo TAAB, by doing something even more over the top than that was. Such albums sowed the seeds of discontent.

I think these massive stage shows gave the impression rock was becoming something of an exclusive club for the rich and upper class, too. At that point, with huge shows, the bands probably lost some grass roots appeal from the public who maybe couldn't relate to the bands anymore. The punk thing is often seen as a social revolution as much as a musical one (just as well because a lot of the music doesn't hold water), where the working classes claimed rock music back again and made their voices heard.

I think the really lean years for prog were at the end of the 70s and the early 80s. A few bands were quite inactive in this period or had split altogether. In fact, punk itself had all but disappeared by the end of the 70s, and I think there was general uncertainty in music in general.

Frasse wrote: Prog never died. It was just the media hipsters who stopped reporting about it / started bashing it.

This, I feel, is the biggest cause of Progs decline at the end of the 70's. Prog had a tendancy to embrace new technology and try to get the most from it, so I dont think that synths had a major part in its fall from grace.