I guess I was lucky to have a dealer located near me. When I heard something really amazingly good, I waited until I could afford it - or waited until a more well-off customer no longer wanted the component and I bought it then. I stuck to my saving's goals in the meanwhile since I still had music. My only long-term complaint was having to send things back for repairs, since I thought solidly built gear should have been more reliable. One piece actually had to be re-designed from scratch to work properly (the power supply) even though it sounded exceptional. Oh also, it wobbled on a flat surface. Maybe I was being too picky....
Krell, MBL, Levinson, et al... What if 50% off?
Lot of talk about the death of high end audio, which is warranted. But is it just about price?
What if a Krell K-300i was $4000 with DAC and not $8000 - would you buy it? The i800 monblocks were $40,000 not $73,000? Would they sell 4x as many?
What if an MBL 100 MkII speakers were $45,000 and not $95,000 and could be paired with their digital streamer for $6,000 not $11,000 and N15 mono amps for $7500 ea instead of $21,000... that gives you a state of the art digital system for $66,000 instead of $150,000.
Is that the answer, or is it something deeper (system is still big, requires a big room, space from the walls, looks odd, etc)?