What's going on with the audio market?


Recent retail sales reports are very bad and I am hearing that sales for audio equipment have been nonexistent over the past few months.  I also see more dealers putting items up for sale here and on other outlets.  Even items that have traditionally sold quickly here are expiring without being sold. 

To what would you attribute the slowdown?  Have you changed your buying habits for audio equipment and, if so, why? 
theothergreg
@extravaganza , 
you would need to research whom is doing the modding. There are couple of great people out there with experience and integrity whom mods audio equipment because of passion for music but not for commercial reasons. Hopes you can continue to support them so these small group of people survives. 
-philip
Lots of great responses here. Obviously its a combination of several things such as format changes, economy, baby boomers getting older and their kids not catching on to 2 channel audio, outrages prices, saturation, etc...  One thing I do think is cool, vinyl has been making a comeback and I have seen younger generations gravitate towards it. There's nothing like having that big vinyl disc in your hand and watching it spin. Hopefully when the market stabilizes we will see things come back around. I have never seen in my life the economy, racial relations, greed and many many other crazy things happen as it has the last 8 years or the Obama era.  Not starting a political discussion but in my opinion lots of areas of society and business have gone to crap. Hopefully some of it can recover. :)
btw. I was talking about official factory upgrades, such as new drivers for the "same" speakers and vibration control feets. i agree a 100% that homegrown changes can destroy the sales-price.
The audiophile market is dead.

BTW, you can get great great great sound with ($500) av receiver and cheap ($100-200) speakers. The trick is use mogami speaker cable.

I had a $10k+ audiophile system. I sold it at quite a big loss. My current system cost less than $1000 and sounds way better (active monitors are amazing bang for the buck). Technologies have moved on.

I still got a pair of audiophile floorstander left, I might write it completely off soon.
Hey @coli 

I agree about the Mogami cables. LOL. They are a great value. Though in my case it helped to have some decent equipment to start with.