What we’re experiencing is a perfect storm as it relates to the demise of "specialty audio."
Back in the 70s, new sales guys would show up to work on Day One with a love for music and the equipment that reproduced it. They’d already have a working "audiophile" vocabulary and would often bring in their own favorite demo material from the personal collections. It was cool, and prestigious, to work in an audio store.
Some manufacturers, seeing success with loyal specialty retailers made the decision to expand distribution to other channels. This not only drove prices down, but had other impactful implications for the industry as a whole. Big box business models were more efficient and could operate at lower margins. Department and catalog stores actually used "hifi" as traffic building loss leaders -- selling items at their net, net cost -- or below.. So, here’s the special store forced to sell an item at his cost, ringing it up, and presented with a credit card (with 3%-5% fee on the gross sale -- including sales tax) for payment. This got uglier with the Internet and the loophole to bypass sales tax. The brick and mortar retailer, being part of the community could not get around collecting these state and local taxes and pass them along to the consumer -- OR pay for them. Many customers "assume" the retailer will not be competitive and not give them the opportunity. Or, simply "catalog" them -- use the retailer’s space, time and investment in inventory to make a selection -- then order it via the Internet. Yes, some Etailers were true innovators, but more often than not, vampires who took the brand names and technologies developed through years of hard work by "specialty" dealers and sucked the life out of them.
But, the biggest casualty here was "the audio specialty" salesman, or audio consultant. Once respected for their knowledge and commitment to being a good steward of the customer’s money, was now demoted to "audio broker" whereby his/her value was providing the lowest cost for the item of interest. Usually on an unfair playing field (big box, Internet, etc) who would leverage their strengths to their advantage. As one industry professional stated: "It was once the fear of not buying the right product from the right dealer that day. Now it’s the fear of not getting the best deal that day."
This lead to fewer and fewer people desiring to make high performance audio their career. I’d like to acknowledge the high end "boutique" stores were fairly insulated from all of this. But, I can’t overemphasize the role of "consumer" hifi stores that offered quality systems for first time buyers, and an upgrade path to better gear. Some who would eventually "graduate" to authentic high end gear. Without actively supporting the tools (and people) necessary to build a wildly enthusiastic, growing hifi base, the industry shot itself in the foot. More accurately, both feet.
Could it get any worse? Short answer" "yes."
While high performance audio was seeing incremental increases in technology and performance, the video industry was exploding. This was initially good in the beginning for the "specialty stores." Products that were intimidating, complicated and expensive were the forte of specialty retailing. Consumers simply didn’t want to take the risk of getting it wrong. And there was money to be made. But as products became less complicated to own, set up, and cheaper, consumers didn’t need "experts" to put a system together. Innovations were coming fast and furious. When video was experiencing Blu-ray (hifi fidelity picture and sound) and "the race to zero" where the competition to decrease the price of flat panel televisions to the lowest on the street, audio was "ho humming" along with little to grab the attention of the now, new, video enthusiast. Audio took the back seat to video. Audio "enhanced" the movie experience as opposed to being the center of attention in dedicated 2-channel systems. First time buyers loaded up their flat panel TVs and soundbars in their minivans and went home. It sounds "good enough."
Some manufacturers eventually figured out that bypassing those who made them successful was not a good idea, and threw support back to them. By then, it was too little, too late.
- from a 50 year+ industry veteran
