What happened to all the highend stereo shops

back in the day i simply had not sufficient fundage to get anything. i was not alone. expanding working class and shrinking middle is what did them in IMHO. a lot of them also were snooty IMHO, looked at me in work clothes with visible disdain. would not answer my questions or even acknowledge my presence. wish it were not so. there was/is one in tacoma that i respect highly as he is good to his customers no matter their station. 

You mentioned California...what county?

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@audioguy85 I am very lucky that my wife enjoys listening to the music I play. She’s also okay with how everything looks. Other than her, no one besides my coworker, who lives states away, cares one bit about this hobby. I don’t even know anyone that buys/collects music like I do. 
 

I agree that it can be a lonely hobby. No one I currently work with has any idea I have this system or my music collection. 

thefile Hi End shops are still around. I know of at least 3 in Melbourne and 3 in Sydney that will let you audition equipment in your own home.

One side note re: the younger generation…at THE Show a few weeks ago, one very high end room was spinning Taylor Swift on the turntable. The vendor said he was trying to show the recording quality of the Midnights LP and that there was so much missing with phone streaming, etc. Of course he was correct, but there weren’t many young ears at that show. Time will tell. And maybe someday Americans will learn quality over quantity from their European brothers and sisters and high quality music reproduction will live on. 

@femoore12

Well that is one more than I know! I have absolutely Noone that I know that is an audiophile. And when I talk about anything audio to the avg person, it falls on deaf ears. Most people just do not care....happy with their mp3, phone, soundbar, or whatever....I’m in it alone, not a bad thing. This can and usually is a lonely hobby. I can’t even get my wife to sit and listen, what a shame.

This is why many of us have to rely on YouTube reviews and suggestions from forums like this one. I only have one friend/coworker that is also an audiophile. Most people I know have sound-bars or a home theater in a box.  

I used to shop at the Tech hifi store in Brockton, MA. Also used to frequent Spearit Sound in Boston. Both closed their doors long ago. Audio Concepts took over the space where Spearit was located on Commonwealth Ave in Boston, but they were there for only a few years. Now, that space is occupied by an Amazon pick-up store! 🙄...very sad state of affairs. The closest Auduo shop to me would be Natural Sound in I think Framingham, or Fidelis Audio in New Hampshire. Tech hifi and Spearit Sound were the best! Sadly, In Your Ear records closed up shop....what a terrific record shop that was! They were on Commonwealth Ave in Boston for over 40 years! I long for the good old days...

Many of the comments offered mirror my opinion. Let me add, I observe that for the many who could spend money today, their easy and ubiquitous access to “a vast library of music” is a higher priority than “hearing quality” of the same music library. They spend money elsewhere. Plus, little patience for hearing old people talk nostalgic about their favorite “equipment.” I sold lots of stereos while in college during the late 70’s, and many, many people just wanted a stereo that “looked good and sounded loud.” For the majority, a system that friends and acquaintances admire for its looks, won over a less dramatic, but better sounding system at the same price-point.

I recently returned from a few weeks without my 2-channel system. I fired it up this morning and realized how much I missed the sweet sound. For me, my satisfaction and my investment is in the content, and the quality. Both components made satisfying this mornings “Chet Baker in Tokyo” hearing experience. For younger folks, it appears they are just as satisfied to dial up and hear “Chet Baker in Tokyo” on their earbuds and phone, ideal sound quality is simply less important.

HiFi stores can’t earn enough profit in a market with diminishing customers to afford the rent. The lucky ones own their property or have favorable long-term leases.

this is a good point... so many ground floor businesses, looking at them, you wonder how the heck they survive -- quite often is the answer is they own the building at a low historical cost, so rent is nil and property taxes are low, and these days, retail renters can be hard to find even if they wanted to rent out the space for income... so they stay, just hang in there

@ghdprentice got to the first answer I had too, yep "the internet". That happened.

It opened a new world of used gear, then more new gear. It offered up a few hours drive -or- mail order options across a continent which hurt local dealers for sure.

Now people complain about not being able to "go hear it somewhere". Well...

Our last remaining local dealer (2 of 20) in my region is 55 years in business. He survives because nobody offers what he does. Has a loyal following, with lots of experience, and people willing to pay for it. In return they receive lots of amazing musical enjoyment, trade-in options, and more. Offers an experience the internet and forums cannot offer. Some customers drive a full day just to go there.  

Some manufactures are slowly getting back to protecting dealers again.

It goes back to what the majority of people want.  Sadly, it is not quality 2 channel audio.  Why is an entirely different topic.  There are however, many more stores that sell the audio equipment people want - seems like every where sells bose, or bluetooth speakers, or sonos, or an AVR receiver and HT speakers, or ear buds and phones.   

Dying way of listening to music.  Dying sales model.  Dying customers.  The local shops in my area concentrate on selling equipment and installing theater rooms.  Other, but fewer businesses, have adapted to Internet sales.  Smart phones and EarPods dominate the market.  The photography equipment market has had an identical fate.

The same thing that happened to all the camera stores.  There used to be a lot more shoes stores too.

The demand for HiFi and Hi End audio is diminishing. The younger generations don’t spend large sums of money on this hobby. Yes there is a turntable guy here and there, but the ones they buy to spin records are not high dollar investments in tonearms, cartridges and isolation. It is more a hip trend than a serious hobby. Plus I don’t think they have the money. If they do they spend it on other things...they don’t buy expensive really old vacuum tubes, they buy expensive coffee from Starbucks. One year I bought about $750 in tubes for my newly purchased tube amp. Do you know how many chai tea lattes with soy milk... one can buy for that kind of money?

HiFi stores can't earn enough profit in a market with diminishing customers to afford the rent. The lucky ones own their property or have favorable long-term leases. 

If I still lived in L.A. I'd still be frequenting high end shops and actual record stores & musical instrument shops.  I made myself a nuisance in them, and so did my dad. In any event, now that I've moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere, with the closest high end shop at least an airplane flight away, I've been obliged to take to the aether when component shopping rears its ugly head. But hey, thank goodness for streaming! The world of music at my fingertips...

@thefile  Salient points....all.  

I would add the disposable world.  It permeates everything and drives a cheapness and impermanence.  A side product can be a caustic customer bereft of civility.

I've owned certain audio pieces for decades because they were/are simply that well engineered and built.  They were also expensive initially.  But then, not really when calculating their cost divided by service years.  Who does that today?

I've a friend who runs a B&M audio shop for over 20 years and has experienced customers in the store listening to equipment and ordering it off the internet by cellphone before exiting.  That's healthy.  So these customers do not want a longterm business relationship as it's too taxing, beyond their capacities and skill levels of interaction and go for the nickel bag fix.  

It's sad, but seems to have irreversible momentum until extinction of that species many of us have known and loved;  the consumption of great music with knowledgeable purveyors of stunning equipment and media to excite our senses.

Soon enough we'll be left with Taylor Swift and Apple as our only choices and in the vernacular of middle schoolers "that sucks man".

It’s sad, i agree with that, but many hifi dealers were not very good business people and didn’t run their businesses very well.  Some have really awful attitudes and treat customers badly.

Agreed, at 67 I remember the small city I live in back when it was about 50000 population. At that time it had 3 shops that carried at least 3-4 higher end brands and a few lower priced. They had passion for music and wanted to help the customers understand equipment and the increased reproduction of music. Now that same city exceeds 100000 and no shops exist. I have to drive 50 miles to Denver to try the same number of hifi shops. Blame the internet and the customer that goes to the brick and mortar shop to audition and decide then buy on the internet. But along with hifi shops so has the same fate befallen the corner grocer, local hardware store etc.

When I was young there was a HiFi store on every block in Boston.....  maybe not every block but there were a number of great dealers.  Now only a few survive.  

Goodwins High-end,  Natural Sound ,  Audio Studio,  and Q Audio is all thats left 

A new dealer called BlinkHigh End is open in Boston , need to check them out.   Also want to check out Holt Hill Audio in Lawrence MA.   Nice collection of used gear and they make speakers also. 

The years I am referring to are the late 60s, early 70s 80s and 90s, since the 90s I believe California lost about 70% of the high-end stereo shops. If I tried now I might be able to find 5 that are within 80 miles from my house, when they were around I could get to one in 15 or 20 minutes. 

I’m experiencing issues with this right now.  Posted a bit ago looking for speaker suggestions and received lots of great feedback.  Fast forward a couple of weeks and I’ve gone to several relatively local (within 100 miles) dealers hoping to audition some of the suggested speakers and I keep hearing that they don’t move enough speakers of that caliber to keep any on the floor to audition. I understand not wanting to tie up 25k+ in a set of speakers they might not sell but I’m not sure who’s dropping that kind of money without being able to hear them. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

yes indeed

the internet, mainly...

then covid

ghdprentice, I'm 70 also and live in Portland OR. Do you remember Joe Weber of Corner Audio? I had a Lake Oswego home based business in the mid 80's to the mid 90's called in/between audio.

The internet. 
 

I am only 70, but I know where you are coming from. I live outside Portland Oregon and there are three great stores. I am really good friends with one and he will drop components by my house that he thinks I might like. No check. 
 

But the internet has caused folks to focus so much on cost that the buy stuff on line. I am certain that the vast majority of people with mid-high end systems these days have suboptimal systems because they are assembling from only reviews and buying on line. They sound good… but if auditioning was included in the process, their systems would be much better (given their tastes).