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?
58 20 Until I die.......or until I can no longer hear!
At this point I am looking more at a designated listening room than equipment. From there my next upgrade will be speakers and then perhaps an additional amp for bi-amping. I think there are ebbs and flows to this hobby and maybe we're just in an ebb.
Yup. It's music here not politics. I still enjoy the new music coming out and some of the new gear is great. I hope this hobby doesn't kill itself by overpricing gear.
1. Sales are good. 2. Dealers have to retool for many reasons that I will list separately. Dealers that don't retool, are closing down or having a hard time selling. 3. There seems to be a seasonality to sales, along with economic swings with are counterintuitive.
Dealers need retooling. 1. The older buyers are downsizing. 2. The new products are better, faster and cheaper. 3. There is a lot going on in the Audio industry that even manfacturers are finding hard to keep up with. 4. There are many new entrants from around the world. These products are excellent. 5. Asia likes large, bulky bling products. Europe likes sleek designs. US likes both. 6. The trophy buyers are shrinking fast. Dealers selling trophy systems for the highest profit, other then NYC, are being challenged. 7. Newer, younger buyers are looking for value, performance and use. For example I am chided by the older users for the LED VU meters and liked by the younger users for the LED VU meters. 8. The internet! 9. Headphone users are the next generation of Audiophiles. This is a huge market of Audiophiles growing up.
The above is not all of equal weight and seen only through my lens. So I am sure there are other views also. The economy is good, so there is a lot of confidence in the buyers and a lot of purchases that stretch budgets. That is good news. I suspect that there is also pent up demand that is a little confused with so many products now coming out, and seem to be changing fast. Computer, Vinyl, Tape.
Also note that when the economy is good, there is more of other activities, hence less time for Audio. I see business owners spending more time expanding and less time with Audio. Employees working harder with more cash but less time for Audio.
Interesting perspective merrillaudio, that is a different view from where I see it. I have to question your point number 2, as I see "better" as subjective, faster I can agree with, though this isn't necessarily always a good thing, but cheaper? I don't see this.
I have seen companies go in two directions, cheaper, and more expensive. It's the middle ground that seems to be disappearing. Companies like Wilson, ARC, VAC, Vitus, Nordost, Tara Labs, etc., are making gear more and more expensive every year. So I have a hard time seeing that new products are cheaper. Maybe cheaper to manufacture, but the list price still goes up.
I've always scratched my head when I read that the advertisers target the younger crowd. I'm 62 years old and have a LOT more discretionary income than about 99% of those "gen whatevertheyarecallednowers".
Back in the late 70's/early 80's I worked at some high-end audio shops and the ebbs and flows in the sales cycles defied reason. Yes, we were prepared for a slowdown in purchases during the summer vacation season, but I'll never forget watching NBC news, unemployment ticked down, interest rates ticked down but for some reason people stopped buying audio equipment for the next 2-3 months.
High-end audio is such a niche market, I don't think the larger trends in the economy effect the sales of this sort of equipment so much.
A good example of "cheaper". Is the Bel Canto C5i integrated I picked up recently for my second system. It has everything in one small shoebox sized package and the sound would satisfy most anyone I suspect with most any speaker used. 60 watts power is its only limitation. It goes loud but not to real life levels some might want with less efficient speakers but loud and clear enough for most.
It's all the hifi 99% of folks out there would ever need or want. Nice headphone amp as well.
I think there's a recent shift in emphasis on what high-end audio manufacturers are making, which may leave some of us old troglodytes (64 in my case) behind. Flavor-of-the-month seems to be music streaming as opposed to physical media, the latter being what most of us grew up with. My theory is that younger buyers, fewer of whom are audiophiles, are more focused on convenience and portability than actual audio quality. (Some of the blame here might rest with the advent of the MP3 format, the first time in the history of recorded music that the public demanded a LOWER quality of sound). While there remains a dizzying variety of traditional equipment still in production, I agree with many previous posters that prices have butted their heads against the ceiling of affordability, and the market is at or near saturation. In my area (Northern California) there are still a fair number of high-end audio stores and they show no signs of distress yet, but most concentrate on home theater which is where the money is at the moment.
merrillaudio4 posts05-27-2016 9:53amHere is my 2 cents from a manufacturer.
1. Sales are good.
...only need to know location and even if you do, it's worth LOTS of LOTS of money to settle so profit not guaranteed or highly jeopardized. Otherwise sales... Don't even think of dealing high-end components unless you snatch a nice storage unit for cheap or sweep through tempting estates. Ordering new high-end products and selling via retail store -- WASTE OF TIME and MONEY no matter whatcha do.
Dealers need retooling.
retooling implies expenses that should be ALWAYS part of equation.
1. The older buyers are downsizing. 2. The new products are better, faster and cheaper.
...the new products are better and cheaper isn't true at all. compared intro prices 10 years ago and found 40% increase in average. don't find new products ANY better at all. They're just advertised better and nothing more.
I'll go out on a limb and say many of those young people streaming music from phones and tablets today will be doing something similar in 20 years or so but also to a very good sounding home setup ranging from good quailty powered wireless speakers to things as good or better than anything around today depending on their goals and discretionary income.
No, many of today's high end products are seriously overpriced. Some great values like never before, but lots of exaggerated, hyper dollar stuff being pushed. Some of it sounds fine, but not worth the price. I suppose I am so turned off that this colors my view of the industry in general.
Bad service is also rampant and really upsets me. The gear quest has stopped for me. I am on a new music quest!
If you were to look inside the gear sold today and see the parts quality used for the prices asked, assuming you know about electronics and parts, you would begin to feel as sick as I do about the industry. No reason for the prices charged on many high end pieces. No reason other than only a relative few of us will ever buy this stuff. I can no longer support this dying model as I have decided to enable it no longer.
$1 resistors and $10 capacitors in $15,000 speakers and on and on!
Again, I know we have exceptions, but we need open our eyes as we are being charged ridiculous prices for what is actually inside the gear. Yes, including R&D etc...
We do have some companies selling nice sounding gear for reasonable prices like Emotiva and others. These are genuine great values that we should take notice of and there are others.
I can't speak to the initial post question cause I haven't a clue.. I'm a 72 year old oxy-moron... Retired musician. Since the late 1960s I've always had a meat and potatoes system. Kenwood, Sansui, Pioneer, Yamaha, Marantz or Onkyo.. with Braun 810s and Thorens TD 125 Mark something (I forget the rest). Upgraded over the years to more audiophile stuff when CDs came into being.. When I turned 70 and discovered SACD I had a realization.. I have a ton of available credit. My present debt will never get paid in my lifetime. I'll make my payments, but never finish. I decided who cares. Call it all the interest paid over 50 years. I was thinking, after standing in front of Marshalls on 11 for 50 years, Why would I wanna wait until I'm wearing a thousand dollar hearing aid to listen to $18,000 speakers. So I took the plunge. Not a hobby, but a one time top line system buy. Spent $40,000 plus of the banks money. I'm talkin' just 3 pieces. Integrated amp, sacd player and speakers. S*#t, I spent more on cables than I ever did on any single piece of electronics or speakers in my life. I've never ever heard music as I'm hearing now. So the point is if you are over 70 you have more 'disposable' income than you think. Just charge it. don't worry about interest. just make your payments, enjoy your music and then eventually die. Simple. Of course you can't do this at 50 or 65 years old. You'd have too much time left. But at 70? Do the life math. Who cares.
I don’t know you, but I have read many of your post. People like you make it hard to continue to be part of Audiogon. This is a hobby that should be fun; therefore I don’t understand the need to use such foul language or talk politics on an Audio Forum.
Dear all:(from Santiago,Chile) excuse my english. I am a old surgeon,72, near retired,and I am in this crazy world since near 50 years, At this time,I knew a pretty Bang Olufsen receiver(B&O 1000) and a reel to reel Tandberg,valvular. I was amazed a long time with my first stereo audition,and then beguin my concern for to buy all the not news Bang or Tandberg that I would see at the newspapers and now in ebay... Nobody of my son like for his or her house this device...I have in the basement a room for personal audition,plenty of loudspeakers,old german valvular radios,transistors receivers,etc. Y think that,I must not buy any new or used device¡¡¡¡¡ Thanks for yours input
You don’t protect your 1st Amendment rights anymore than I do. After 50 years on this earth I’ve learned to stay away from, not talk to, or simply ignore people that I perceive to be like you. Unfortunately, Audiogon doesn’t have an unfriend like Facebook. This will be the last conversation I ever have with you again.
I am 67. I purchased my 1st system in 1968 ( Dual 1019,JBL SA 600, JBL Lancer 99's) and still have it. Have bought several other systems in last 10 years using Legacy, Merlin and Klipsch speakers. I listened to the music when I was young with friends. It was a shared passion of my generation. Now I often sit alone with a SME turntable, tube phono amp feeding a tube preamp into a 450 watt per channel amp into 6' high speakers each with three 15"woofers plus a massive sub. My step daughter told me politely she did not wish to hear it because she might not be satisfied afterwards with her MP3 device and ear buds. My wife primarily listens after a live concert so she can hear what the artist should have sounded like. Music is now basically free and sound quality not very important . It's background music when doing something else . I can afford this stuff now but much of the meaning is gone. Note that many of the albums advertised were recorded decades ago. I don't see big footprint , high dollar, physical media music purchased by the new generation in large quanities.
Ok fellas, I think you guys all make valid points in the audio direction as far as gear and sales. I'm a young 43 I been in the hobby for the last 8 years. I went to the top of the heap pretty fast I went from gear to gear. I heard Dave baskin's half million dollar system. Raidho and solutions. Blew me away. I've heard top of the line cabling and other gear. There is great stuff being made. But I'm done. I'm keeping my kr audio va 900 integrated. My gato fm6 my Parasound cd1 and resonessence mirus dac. I use high fidelity, mavros and clarity cables. I'm happy. I change my music not my gear anymore. It's about the music. Not Obama, free speech etc. No rants just happy smiles when you hear the notes being played. Don't talk just listen. Enjoy all!
People don't have as much discretionary income or time.....healthcare; taxes; food; rent; etc. takes up a large part of most peoples income. Add to it that young people have not adopted the hobby or enjoyment of listening to "actual" music for quite a long time. The passion for music has been lost in a formulaic business model that pushes the most mundane BS as music at MP3 quality and most people dont even know the history of music. Does anyone need a great system to listen to the garbage created by the likes of defjam or skidrow? No!...just a car with juiced up subs and a penchant for expletive laced egocentric nursery rhymes for criminals! What do you hear if you leave your windows open? There are still alot of good bands making great music for the sake of the music and I love them for it....but their audiences are nothing like the audiences of 70s rockers who created the whole reason many of us cared to go to shows, buy the records and then buy the systems to listen to them as they intended. Classical will always be a small piece of the pie despite the passion those listeners have to put money and time into their systems. Its going to be very hard for audio engineers to continue to fund their research into better sound...the well is running dry and its a shame that the wealth of music we have is ignored by so many who listen to "noise" without heart and soul and think its cool. Meanwhile, noise is on the rise and ask yourselves this: When was the last day you didnt hear a machine?
First the target market is slowly diminishing. Gen. X and Y and Millenials are using iPhones for their primary music source and show no signs of changing. Only the Boomers care about this stuff anymore.
Second, the value proposition that many audio company's offered 20-30 years ago has been abandoned. I am pretty certain, having listened to them side-by-side, that today's turntables, cartridges and tonearms are really not any better than the 1980's versions...in fact in many ways they are inferior. When you can go on Audiogon and buy a dead man's set-up for 10% of the cost of a new rig, and it sounds as good or better, why see an audio retailer at all ?
Third, the price of SOTA equipment in 2016 is astronomical......$100K for a pair of loudspeakers is ridiculous. Just because one can build a speaker cabinet entirely out of CNC high-speed machined aluminum billet doesn't mean that they should, or that they will get better results than Paul Klipsch or Roy Allison or Roger Vandersteen did 30 years ago.
Finally, the audio business is not really offering any technology improvements to materially improve the home music experience to speak of. It has NOT embraced multichannel when it has shown to be clearly more realistic then 2-channel audio, and every improvement to digital playback since the original CD player in 1982 has been met with lukewarm sales at best. SACD and DVD-A SHOULD have taken off, but when audiophiles sat on they pocketbooks, the die was cast and the BIG players said "those old SOB's don't care so why should we ?"
I remain skeptical of digital downloads....the numbers aren't even close to CD sales TODAY, much less at their peak, and the selection is more "austere" than SACD's. Digital streaming (TIDAL, etc.) may have a chance, but...who knows. Let's see what happens with MQA.....can anyone remember the last great digital "sonic breakthrough ?" (Hint, it was called "Pono ?" As is Phono.) Not even Neil Young could sell needle-dragging, vinyl-loving Boomers on that one.
I stopped watching the news and politics and the world kept on turning! I am 59 and started serious buying after my wife passed away in 2012. Nothing calms and puts things in perspective like a quite room with a good system and great music to listen too. We have the ability to change very little in life, outside of our community, many will argue that but I have been so calm since I learned to let the train wreck continue on without me. I guess you could say I went over the top and off the cliff buying audio gear, it was the perfect storm , depression, insurance money and a rediscovery of great music and systems again. One day I was looking at ebay, I have never payed much attention to the computers, and I discovered vintage audio gear:):):)! 6 Macintosh amps, numerous tube amps and 22 sets of speakers later, I am calm. I am raising two grand kids, since birth 14 and 15 now, they know what heavy amps mean ,what large effecent altec and klipsch speakers are and why size matters ,differences between tube amps and ss. They are home schooled by me , we are learning electronics as one of our studies, if your going to have it you need to be able to fix it. They like what we like, they will continue on and all I did was expose them to it and take cable tv away throw the video games out and set them up with their own systems. They also had to have a few months of disbelief and come to terms with no one was coming to save them and their spoiled life they had been living. Did I mention the installation of two wood stoves and now we heat with wood, another shock but now they look forward to cold weather, yes we cut and split our own wood:). I have a bedroom I turned into a stereo storage room, more like a store, we all change our systems about at will, we go shopping in the store. All this was made possible for about what some people pay for a good bass boat, or a fraction of what that latest greatest new car cost. I hope this does not come across wrong,I am just so happy to be able too show my kids there is so much more to life and it's all about choices we make along the way. I think audio today is suffering because the youth today does not care about great music , any old music will do on the phone or computer. I have down loaded music off line , when I burn them to cd and put them in a great system the play back is less than stellar. I have used other computers and have cd's people have made for me, I just think the quality of mixing and recording has suffered because it's just not that important anymore, they will buy anything!
I'm 55 and have always had a system. I have actively bought and sold gear for ten years, but slowing down now and enjoying my music more.
There seems to be a large number of gear manufacturers fighting for market share. This competition is good for us I guess price wise. Plus there is a healthy used market of quality gear to choose from.
I have a turntable and many albums but I tend to be leaning toward smaller and smaller gear that gives me good sound. I'm excited about technology and the positive changes it will bring in terms of form and function. I no longer aspire toward a 90 pound amp, etc, but I'm not quite ready for a Bose Wave yet!
I think we are living in an exciting time for our hobby. I'd like the US to manufacture more and provide jobs, etc, but I'm not well versed enough to pontificate on the subject.
I'm thankful for Audiogon and all the help offered here. It helps me buy smarter and learn about new gear rather than learn from only advertising.
Perhaps I’ve missed it, but I haven’t seen in this
interesting thread any mention of the reasons I think account for the death
throes of the audio industry in America.
1. I live in a city with an MSA of a million people. In a
typical issue of Stereophile magazine, not a single piece of equipment reviewed
can be auditioned in my city. If one piece does happen to be on display in our
one remaining stereo store, none of the others will be, making comparisons
impossible.
2. The published specs for audio equipment are meaningless.
Virtually all amplifiers, integrated amplifiers, and receivers can reproduce
the entire frequency spectrum. So can virtually all CD players. Speakers are
more variable, but they all can go higher than I (or most people) can hear. The
low end does matter, but there are scores of speakers out there which go lower
than any orchestral instrument (except piano and harp and pipe organ). But the
fact that a piece of audio equipment can reproduce a note, tells you nothing
about how it sounds. They can all reproduce a middle C; so can a car horn.
Therefore, auditioning is essential; indeed, people like to advise you to trust
your ears; but as noted in #1, there’s nowhere nearby to hear anything.
3. Well, there are online sellers who offer free trials. So,
for example, I tried a pair of Ohm MicroWalshes, didn’t like them, the company
kept its promise and refunded every cent I paid for the speakers – but shipping
cost me $50 inward (a bargain) and $180 outward, for a total of $230 for my
free trial. Larger and more expensive speakers would cost still more to ship. Let’s
say you fancy a pair of Harbeths, which have a fanatic following. The three
middle models are around the same size and run from around $4,000 to $7,000.
There is nowhere within 500 miles of my home to audition these speakers. Home
trial? I would need to find a seller willing to ship me three sets of speakers
knowing he would get at least two sets back; I would need to lay out, say,
$15,000, and spend many hundreds of dollars to ship them all back if I didn’t
like any of them; and as the company does not sell direct in the U.S., I would
be at the mercy of the seller’s solvency – if he went out of business, I would
not be able to return them, indeed I would have no recourse if some of them
arrived damaged as UPS and FedEx will only deal with the shipper to make
claims.
4. Finally, there’s the “progress” of modern architecture.
When I retired to Arizona, I
brought with me the speakers I had lived with for 35 years and loved – a pair
of Klipschorns. I discovered to my horror that modern houses have no corners,
often no walls between the living room, dining room and kitchen. I did find a
house with a few walls – I refuse to have a noisy refrigerator in my living
room – but my living room has but one corner, the other should-be corners
occupied by the front door, a back patio door, and an archway. In fact, as the
walls are made of dry wall (cardboard, really), the single corner isn’t really
a corner at all from the vantage of a K-Horn – sound doesn’t reflect off
cardboard.
5. Finally finally, the audio magazines and catalogues are
filled with superlatives which, applied to everything on offer, have no meaning
at all. This amp is ideal, that one is perfect, that one punches well above its
weight, that one sounds better than it has any right to at its price (which may
be more than your car is worth, but when you hear it – which you have no way of
doing without actually buying it – you’ll realize it’s really a bargain).
Music has played, and continues to play, a large part in my
life. I can afford to indulge my hobby, and I have – since I culled my record
collection for lack of room, I have acquired thousands of CDs. If I can’t
upgrade my audio equipment due to lack of opportunity, I am scarcely surprised
that young people – I’m much older than anybody in this thread – won’t even
try.
The hi-end audio business has ALWAYS been lame. You've got a market depending on anal-retentive people with too much money and who are never satisfied, no matter how good it sounds. That and those who have too much money and just KNOW they are entitled to "the best" in whatever it is they own.
Then there's the rest of us mere mortals who are careful as we can be in trying to get value for our limited audio dollars.
The biggest problem hi-end audio has is not only are brands competing with each other, they're also competing with themselves. That Rowland Research amp which sold for $10,000 20 years ago is still every bit as good as the day it was new and you can get it on the used market today for $3000 instead of buying the current model which is $18000.
I love the sound of Avalon loudspeakers. Their top-line floor standing loudspeaker a few years ago sold for something like $25,000. That same speaker today can be had on the used market for $10,000 or less, whereas the current top-line floor standing loudspeaker is selling at nearly $50,000. You can't tell me it's $40,000 better.
Russbutton: But if it weren't for those "anal-rententive people with too much money... [who] KNOW they are entitled..." you wouldn't benefit from the trickle down in the used market, would you? I've benefitted, as you have, from the used high-end market. But, no need to be angry with those who have money or spend it carelessly (in your estimation). There's always somebody richer, better looking, etc. I've made peace with that.
There's another category --- me. I'm almost 69 years old (August). I bought my first system in 1973 and I will only buy anything again if it means recapture of funds or significant compactualization of the physical setup. Why? Because I don't have much interest in listening to music in a trance like I did for so many years. The new stuff mostly doesn't interest me and the older stuff is little more than an infrequent exercise in nostalgia. Plus, it has been overplayed in elevators, supermarkets, classic rock stations, movie background, etc. Enough already. I listen to KVNF out of Paonia, Colorado. They have good taste, no screaming car dealer/cell phone/tanning salon/whatever ads screaming at me, and the element of surprise. When I play music, I know what is coming. When I let them do it, each selection surprises me. I'm an old hippie who likes the radio medium when well done. Everyone reading this has a computer which means all of you can stream thousands of radio stations from all over the world. Give it a try. It can be fun and it is free. Sonics will please everyone who isn't bound by the dissatisfaction that negates so much beauty. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
"The high end market started to fade in the DC metro area I’d say about 1985 when Excaliber in Alexandria shut it’s doors, followed by Myer Emco, Audio Associates, Paragon of Sound (in MD), a few in Maryland suburbs the names of which escape me. AFAIK there are only two left, Deja Vu and Gifted Listener Audio, both in VA. Did I miss any?"
geoffkait, JS Audio, Command Performance and Well Pleased A/V are 3 you missed. I worked at Excalibur from the start, miss it.
I used to need audio to relax and refresh. I have discovered something else that does a better job of this, so I don't "need" it. In addition, this something else also works when I sleep. I wake up totally refreshed(at age 64). If I do something now, my time and money are better spent on this "something else".
I forgot to mention that living in Colorado gives you legal access to the least expensive, most effective audio tweak I've ever become familiar with. My county is 70% public lands and still remains sparsely populated with just 150,000 people in an area of 3350 square miles. My property taxes for this year are $487. No audio stores other than Best Buy but I have no reason to care about that. Clean air and incomparable scenery. Ideal location for solar panels. Maybe relocation would make this topic moot for some of you. Worked for me.
You are all right on. IMHO I am 53, 35, forever into eternity (God's system rocks!)
My first, full-time job out of high school was in an audio showroom. I took a "raisin' kids" break for 10 years, due to limited $$$, but have now looked to rebuild a system. It has been bizarre. First instinct was to return to what I had-ish. Old school media, etc.
Due to a major shift in musical taste I booted my entire content at the 10 year ago point.
This means, now I am both old school (in muscle memory) and new school (in building EVERYTHING from scratch).
Options like Class D amps, MQA encoding, $15/mo unlimited content and Roon Labs to play it, etc., is cramping my memory muscle.
I have ended up returning to what I knew, more so, especially as the new is REALLY new and I want no to live on the bleeding edge. Yet, I wonder about just how good the old stuff I have bought still is (not an engineer, DIY type). I look at the bottle of De-Oxit I bought and wonder if I want to learn how to use it at the expense of my $4000 Audiogon system (McCormack, Azur, Inifinity, Transparent -- to give you a sense) or, just wait for the "next-fen" gear to purchase.
Frankly, the real rub seems to be that in no way can I imagine ever buying the content in traditional media to support a "best system" -- even if the system were given to me free in a will!
That media would have to become much less expensive than it is now, especially in it's currently inflated "fad stage". This said, I will admit a great challenge I see in the subscription service (MQA) option is being able to know the source. Honestly, I think therein lies the great opportunity of this age. To make an MQA encoded digital content library worthy of the old school, class A, gear. A library provable as drawn from the purest spring and put in a digital pipe to drink.
Whatever gear elegantly serves both ear and pipe fitting will do just fine in the market place.
Next to all that, but entirely separate, is the great recession we are only now beginning to come out of. Twice a century, a major business cycle event happens, such as we have just had. In the last 100 years, it was the great depression and the great recession.
Following such an event the recovery tail is MUCH longer than the normal 3-4 years of a standard business cycle. It can be 10-15 years before an economy "returns" in all ways. This is a correct statement to the record of the last 700 years!
Where we are now, two things are real (historically and I believe also today) the upper 20% of the population sees around 5% growth in their wealth (mostly from investment) as the markets recover first. The other 20% have a flat wealth experience during the flatter main street recovery tail.
Two results in behavior: 1. Luxury items are ON HOLD! 1. Populous politics rule.
SO. Audio is experiencing a metamorphosis in content form and delivery. Wallets owned by the masses are closed for another few years. Folks with last gen gear/content are in a season where they should enjoy the music and put me in their will.
rippet - Your observation certainly applies to me. Key lies in being satisfied. Weed expedites that transition but it can be accomplished without as well. Going all the way back to the penny stock days, we see that the driving force behind or hobby has been dissatisfaction with what we own. That dissatisfaction is now focusing ever more on the whole predatory exploitive industry that evolved to exploit our dissatisfaction in the first place. Come on out to Colorado and grow your own tweak. It's a better DIY than tube rolling or making your home brew cables. Speaking of brew, Colorado was the birthplace of the home brewing phenomenon that grew into the craft beer industry. I would suggest that it is the best state in the country. And if those who don't agree stay away, we can keep it that way. Nice to have RMAF in your backyard too.
Interesting examination: 57, 35, as soon as this next system hits pay dirt!
Why the quest? Why not? I've had what i call a scratch the surface system. Combo 2-channel/ home theater. Anthem AVM 40, Anthem MCA 20 and 30, OPPO 95, Paradigm Studio 100s v5 and Analysis Plus Solo Crystal cabling. Been so busy the last few years fell off the audio map and to be honest was quite content with the sound of things.
I like the Studio 100s so when I came across pictures of Paradigms 30th Anniversary Tribute speakers which I did not even know existed till a few months ago I was smitten as in lust! Would their sound justify the upgrade cost or just look fresh like a new girlfriend? Long story short found a new pair and bought them (no audition).
Set up the Tributes and while not night and day the outstanding difference was in the open top end of the Beryllium tweeters. The bells and cymbals stood out but were also silky and not harsh. Broke them in pretty good and cranked them up a little one day with a SACD of Steely Dan's Everything Must Go. The tight slam of the bass and drums made the hair stand up on my neck! Wow that is impressive! Gotta move and get a dedicated room for this!
Now I'm waist deep in the forums and like they say be careful what you look for cause............boy those Pass Labs amps get great reviews across the boards! Are my pockets deep? Not so much.
Then why is there an X250.8 on the way? Like Chevy Chase said in vacation before he skinny dipped with Christie Brinkely.....this is crazy, this is crazy. I'm pretty sure (and so is my wife) that I've opened a not so small can of worms! My kids are too busy to look up from their iPhones and tablets to notice.
I really hope the law of diminishing returns is not too hard on me.
55,40,0 I too am finished, I think. I buy used gear, usually without hearing it first, so I have been through quite a few changes in equipment- solid state to tubes and back again. I found I like Dynaudio, bought some C1's for a great price, have a music server with some 200 gb of music and a turntable with a good phono pre. I also have a decent headphone setup. And my hearing isn't getting any better.
Hey Macrojack.. My daughter lived in Longmont, but the flood made her move to Superior. She brought me a Left Hand Brewery T shirt and 6 pack. good stuff, though I'm a Sapporo/Dinkleacker guy. Colorado's beautiful. Impossible to take a bad picture. Just point and shoot and you have an award winner.
rippet - I'm in Fruita at the westernmost end of the state. It's post card country for sure. Being a long recovered alcoholic, I cannot offer opinions on the beer made here from personal experience so I can;t enter into conversations about specific products. We used to live just west of Boulder in 4 Mile Canyon. It was a ghost town, a former mining community that was known locally as Wallstreet. After we left it was devastated by the flood and a forest fire. Oddly, out cabin survived both, I hear. Where are you?
Another point to consider on the widespread loss of business in audio could have to do with the carrot moving out beyond the vision of the horse. When the cost of the ultimate products was maybe 4 or 5 times what you were buying it was possible to dream - to aspire - to someday move up incrementally to that plateau. Of course, the target kept ahead of us even as we ascended but it remained in sight and we kept playing. Now with the ultimate stuff costing more than our house and cars combined, it isn't even within dream range to think about owning such stuff.
Then consider a failed economy, potential medical induced bankruptcies, unanticipated forced retirements, student loans, offspring returning to the nest, disabling hearing loss, shifting interests, and despair. All of these effects serve to deplete our numbers. Oh yeah, one more. Death. All are good reasons to change your priorities and I would wager that few, if any, of us can say we know no one to whom one or more of these factors has come into play.
The outlook going forward is dismal. There are a lot of designers such as Rowland, Vandersteen, Pass, Modjeski, Berning, etc. who are aging out. They may continue until death or they may pack it in sooner. Bigger companies might continue on but will they have sufficient support from our ranks to keep them viable? I guess that's for us to say but this thread indicates that few of us will be participating much longer. Just enjoy it while it lasts and be glad for what you have and what you had. Tick tock.
I am now 77 with hearing of a 35 year old, some forgetfulness, and the best damn sound I've ever had, basically well beyond anything I thought possible. I think all dealers of anything other than groceries, restaurants are doomed by the internet. Repair and service companies will prosper.
So few audiophiles get to hear a wide variety of audio gear. They can read reviews and see ads, of course, but they are hardly definitive like hearing it yourself. And postings on the internet never result in any agreement about what is best. I have a circle of friends whose opinions I trust, but most have and ever diminishing opportunity to hear gear.
One thing I entirely agree with is that the used market is vanishing. I think that the major companies must be selling less and less of the market, so few have any listening experience with gear other than their own. This may indicate that innovation tends to be from small companies. I must say that I have not had any large company gear since an ARC Ref II bought years ago. I feel burglar proof as my gear would get anything in a pawnshop.
Finally I doubt if politics has anything to do with any of this. We are too small a part of the market. I know many very sincere individuals who have committed to quality products and most have very limited resources. Thanks, guys, please keep up the good work.
61, 25,(gap from 30 -58) ?? Casual listening ! That's what affects the new audio market for the Most part - imo
Talking with friends in hi end audio seems to be less & less interest in 2 channel Most sales geared to & from home theater This is from a very well established audio dealer in a very affluent area
No interest = no sales. Given the cultural trend in music & the ability to download today's youth is content with ear buds !
Im not sure that a good stereo system would matter with much of today's music anyway I have family members come down into my "music room" & listen to what I consider well recorded LP / CD . Usual reaction is ok it's nice bye ! They don't want to sit & relax & HEAR the music
Too bad from our point of view , not their thing They don't care about soundstage imaging etc.
not it enough younger people to sustain better equipment - imo. But it can be a positive if factories realize this & try to capture the younger demographic. Competitive pricing may be in the future !!
Macrojack.. I'm in Syracuse, NY. now, but born and bred in Brooklyn. Have traveled and lived around the world during my 70+ years as a musician and a Nam vet.. Good Memorial Day to the Vets in this thread. It's good to be Home.
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