High End is Dead?

Nearly every big American City has become expensive . Here in St Paul
average home price has increased 40% in 4 yrs as wages have stayed stable .And they are far lower than coastal cities .
No house stays on Market longer than 3 days even if it’s a dump .
Two blocks from me a 190 unit seniors only condo with prices from 250-450 $$
opened 6 moths ago and was sold out 6 months before it was completed .
There is no affordable housing being built in USA and it appears there never will be again .
  And no generation will ever again exist that  became wealthy only because all the other industrial countries
  were flat on their back from WW II .

gnaudio , Brilliant and and informative post .
One thing I would say , that 10 year out recession is far from being resolved . The present market bubble is
there only to prolong the inevitable . The US dollar was hours from collapse in 2008, factors that caused it
have been ignored and that chicken will come home to roost .A 401K buck put in today is in Zurich tomorrow .

Without getting into the socio-political aspects of this, maybe some new definitions are in order. With turntables at 80k and up, arms at say 10k+, top tier phono carts retailing at 10-15k (not that people pay full sticker), and the rest an almost sky is the limit in terms of electronics and speakers in the top tier (what the "high end" used to refer to), I think of this as more of a luxe goods category. There are some customers for this, but I don’t think it reflects the majority of hobbyists. Audiogon caters to used equipment buyers and sellers and that’s where a lot of the hobbyists can make up for the high prices on new gear since it depreciates in most cases.
Those who will scrimp, save, upgrade or build upon a system owned for years are probably shrinking. I’m not even sure it has to do strictly with economics, but also lifestyle and priorities.
Those of us who grew up with two channel audio only systems for focused listening are aging out.
Although some younger people may get into the hobby, the market is far different- it’s portability, access through the cloud or on multiple devices, ease of use and cheap. (Look at the antique furniture market- dead. People want new, clean, almost disposable furniture; sure there will be collectors, but they fit into that top tier niche).
Let’s not forget that even when we Boomers were coming of age, we weren’t buying Levinson, Infinity Servo-Statik, Tympanis or ARC unless we were in deep (not average) and/or until we got some money-- usually earning power didn’t begin until a little later in life. I had some serious gear at a young age, but I was a ’nut’ and had access b/c I worked in stores at the time. The average system then- a receiver, a pair of bookshelf speakers and a modest turntable-- was not high end. People did get together and listen in a home environment- but this home listening activity wasn’t limited to the high end. It is an activity -- the listening session- that is no longer common, except to hi-fi nuts.
I think a lot has to do with how people live today. Spend a grand on a phone or 3 grand on a laptop or more on a big TV, but two channel audio isn’t really a priority. I think high end has been dying for decades. Remember how all the dealers had to shift to big A/V systems in the ’90s to stay in business? That was twenty or more years ago. I think the hobby will survive. It already has. The names may change, but there will always be enthusiasts.

I don't know about HEA, but the effectiveness and utility of this site as a way to buy and sell used gear has greatly diminished in recent years.  The number of daily ads is way down, and if it wasn't for all the repeat dealer ads, it would be a trickle compared to the "old days".  

I'm not sure what this means.  Maybe that used audio is still a vibrant market, but it happens somewhere else?  Maybe that after relentless luxury upgrading over the past few decades, and all the new competing luxury items to buy, that people are happy with what they've acquired already?  Maybe that the prime market for HEA is aging and worried more about a secure later life?

There is no doubt in my mind that the market has changed considerably, that there are far fewer B&M dealers than 20 years ago, and that the high end of high end has moved to the stratospheric.  I think the notion of HEA being "dead" is just semantics - lots and lots has changed, but what area of life hasn't?

What part hasn't ?
The part where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer .

Schubert:
Or, the old quote, "The rich get richer and the poor get children..."
The trends noted here are the natural result of the cultural downturn in musical activities and the shift towards streaming -- where you can get anything immediately at no or low cost.
Who is going to spend huge amounts on a system in order to stream MP3 files? Well over 60% of current listeners stream only and this delights the small crowd controlling the process because they can ensure some revenue from each listen. But musicians lose.
High res MP3 (LOL) and MQA files might move this large crowd towards higher end audio equipment but there are a lot of unknowns. Who would have thought that Spotify would get the kind of stock opening it just received? As with Amazon and Google wonder if the big money has made its choice for the music streamer of the future.