Many seem to think the younger generation are not interested in high end audio--but using my own journey as an example (that i believe fits many here) i only broke into high end audio when i could finally afford it--later in life after crossing age 50. Until then i settled for mid-fi and portable b/c other things had priority like the necessities mentioned above. I think we're just in a gap in generations where the younger generation's income (with some exceptions) hasn't caught up to high end audio yet and, as someone else said, it's not a high priority. If we could ask a large sample group whether they would buy high end audio if they could afford it then that might tell a more interesting story. Hopefully high end can survive until then.
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)?