reason sales are soft ?? true audiophiles are slowly becoming extinct. I grew up listening to vinyl and analog tape since I was 5 years old, now I’m 56 and the formats are ingrained in my psyche. my son is 19 and listens to everything on his Iphone with earbuds. the only hardcopy he actually may play is a CD in his car, but it’s usually Sirius radio stations. the only record player he had, was a vintage one I bought for him, for show and tell in 1st grade at school, using 45’s. I have a ton of vintage gear, offered him to pick/choose a setup of amp, speakers, turntable, tape deck for his apartment- he politely refused- refused a free stereo system worth over a grand that sounds great. as we older fellas die off, there is not an unending stream of newcomers into the market for stereo gear. talk stereo imaging and disappearing speakers to these kids, you may as well talk about UFO’s and the Loch Ness monster. you get blank stares or laughter. eventually high end gear will be sold for pennies on the dollar, as the older generation dies off, the next generation won’t even know what it is, or even care. it’s like the model T’s that used to bring big bucks at auctions, now have to be given away- cuz all the old timers who grew up driving them, and would pay big for them, are dead. stereo has become obsolete, it’s a 1950’s music medium delivery system. it’s days are numbered. if you have gear to sell, sell it now, for whatever you can get. the prices are only going to go down with time. really, if I kicked the bucket tomorrow, my wife and kid would be selling my vintage tube stereo amps and solid state amps for $10 each, or giving them away, or dumpstering them- along with all my reel to reel, cassette, 8-track decks, and turntables they wouldn’t know any better. nor have the time to market them correctly on the net. the local markets for stereo gear are nil. wake up and smell the coffee, stereo gear is not fine art. it takes a technical mind to understand and appreciate it, and the current crop of youngsters is severely technically dumbed down, when it comes to home audio. their home audio is a android phone or iPhone, that sounds like a 1965 transistor radio with an earbud. these corporations like Microsoft and Apple, have succeeded in dumbing down the consumers tastes to bare minimum, so they can make it cheap, sell it high ($1000 for new IPhone 10), and use cheap offshore Chinese labor to manufacture it. then import it into the USA by the millions and sell it at Walmart. that's the state of home audio today.
