More potential bad news for some big names...

It is interesting to me how every commercial has a silver faced 70's era receiver, turntable and speakers in the background. It's considered cool I guess but for looks more than real function. I have a collection of older equipment from the 70's that I still use to this day. All of that stuff is worth 3-4 times what I paid for it. There are also plenty of audio companies trying to capture the retro vibe market with components that have the vintage look. Maybe the younger generation will latch on to that once they get into the working world. I think college kids with a stereo are rare as hens teeth. Polar opposite of my years in school. 

This may be a little off topic  but I would like to point out. The world has 8 billion people, And from the 1970s to the 2000. The tv brand's were RCA, Toshiba, Panasonic,  Quasar, Electrahome, Zenith, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi. Not to mention a number of early MIC brands. So the question I have is with how large the population is now versus then, what drove all the above brands away or to a fraction of what they were?

As I contemplate the audio market I am unsure as to why better quality has gotten so expensive.  My frame of reference is televisions.  If you look at the price history of TVs against their quality and feature history, it is clear that the quality and features have gone way up as the comparative cost has come down.

The first color TVs were about $500.  Today $500 will buy you a very nice quality and size TV, and inflation has driven the value of the dollar down considerably in that time.  Now tell me why audio has not followed that path.  Solid state audio equipment should not be mega dollars, I will leave tubes out of the discussion for simplicity of the question.

1) High end audio has always been a niche market. I've been buying high end gear for 45 years and I've rarely found any of my friends or acquaintences who were into the hobby like I was. Also, there is no similarity between Apple earbuds and the enthusiast audio market. Apple is a mass market company. Denon and Marantz are the proverbial fly on the elephant's butt.

2) High end audio has been dying ever since I entered the hobby. Oh, wait, it's bigger than it has ever been....

3) New companies have been entering the market and established companies are expanding their product lines. This is not indicative of a dying industry. Look at the Music Direct catalog and tell me that the industry is shrinking and dying.

4) The ultra high end is exploding. We may sneer at speakers and amplifiers that cost $100K but someone is buying this stuff.

5) The value end of the industry is solid and growing. Schiit, Topping, and SVS are excellent examples of companies that are selling tons of very high quality gear at reasonable prices.

6) The chances of Denon and Marantz disappearing are zero. These companies have the most recognizable brands in the industry, they are selling hundreds of millions of dollars of gear, and they have a strong dealer network. Masimo will sell their audio division for much less than they paid for it but it will survive and prosper.

7) I'm running high end gear from the 90's (Krell and Thiel) and I've been to 3 audio shows. My observation is that the state of the art has not improved much from 30 years ago. I've listend to many systems where the cables cost more than my entire rig and the sound did not equal my setup.

8) This is the golden age of audio. There are lots of very high quality components available for reasonable prices, you can stream millions of titles of high resolution music for an absurdly low monthly price, and there has never been more used luxury gear available. But nevermind, the sky is falling.

My kids (30 somethings) have listened to mp3 and bluetooth for so long hard for their ears to hear difference. Just like I grew up with tube sound and then quality ss, so my ears are more accustomed to that. My theory anyway.