Back In the Day

Yes; I was in Chicago in the 60s and a bunch of us would read the Chicago Tribune Sunday ads when it came out Sat night for the latest listings. I changed equipment much more then as things were A LOT cheaper. A pair of Quad 57s were under $400 including sea freight from England. A Stax tone arm was $37.50 including air freight from Japan, and so on. One thing hasn't changed; the audiophiles I knew didn't use Mac then either. The ones with money used Marantz 9s or 8b or Citation 2 or 5. The ones with less money [me] used Dynaco Stereo 70 or Mk 3s or 4s. I went to solid state in the mid 60s and never went back. Cartridges were $50 or less when they weren't a penny extra when bought with a turntable.

Damn, I am old. There were a lot of brands of good equipment that I am sure almost no younger audiophile has heard of. Hadley, Ge-Go, Fane, Goodmans, Sherwood, Scott, Radford, Transcriptors, Rec-o-kut, Gray, Hartley, Viking, Ampex, Braun, Bozak, Ferrograph. Some that I have mentioned lived on as cheap labels for some time; Warfedale is still around but not what it was when Gilbert Briggs ran it. There always was a "high end" if you use the term to mean gear significantly better than average; just not as pretentious as it is now.

Yes; I was in Chicago in the 60s and a bunch of us would read the Chicago Tribune Sunday ads when it came out Sat night for the latest listings. I changed equipment much more then as things were A LOT cheaper. A pair of Quad 57s were under $400 including sea freight from England. A Stax tone arm was $37.50 including air freight from Japan, and so on. One thing hasn't changed; the audiophiles I knew didn't use Mac then either. The ones with money used Marantz 9s or 8b or Citation 2 or 5. The ones with less money [me] used Dynaco Stereo 70 or Mk 3s or 4s. I went to solid state in the mid 60s and never went back. Cartridges were $50 or less when they weren't a penny extra when bought with a turntable.

Yes, Reaganomics, the radical redistribution of income to the upper end of the financial spectrum which transformed America from the greatest creditor nation in the world to the greatest debtor nation. While the middle class has barely held even if not declined in the last 30 years that of the upper few percent has exploded. No wonder that there are roughly 100 speakers on the market priced at $100K or more. Instead of aiming at a broad middle class most companies now aim at the upper end of the market as that is where the money is.