This sounds more like a marketing question. There are fewer high end audio stores that we can just walk into and listen to gear. Then the ones that are open have their favorite brands they carry. These brands have to be ones that bring people in and ones that they can sell at a margin that will pay the bills and they need to make a living selling them. Just as your question is positioned as companies that have fallen from where people used to perceive them to be I will say that there are companies out there that have been hyped way above what their quality really is. This is marketing 101 and marketing cost money. Some companies are content to let their product speak for it self.
Manufacturers past their heyday
There are many companies that we all recall from years gone by that are gone. There are some companies that while still around, seem be be past their glory days. For instant, while Conrad Johnson is still around, they just don’t seem to be nearly as relevant as they used to be. Of course, my thought on CJ are purely subjective. And yet other companies seem to be as relevant today as they were 20 of more years ago. VPI perhaps? Definitely McIntosh.
Who are the other former high flyers that seem to be operating on an altogether different level these days?
Who are the other former high flyers that seem to be operating on an altogether different level these days?