Nature of the current used speaker market

Sound or Gear?

Most audiophiles have left the building and are enjoying their music collections not feeding their equipment closets anymore. J Gordon is gone and so is Harry. Dave is gone and the others are in their 70's and 80's. The discrete HEA equipment era is winding down and we shouldn't be surprised, or sad about it. 

Raise your hands, how many of you still want to go out and spend 40-100k on something that is obsolete? I'm not asking what you did spend, I'm asking, going to spend?

It's like being in the store past closing and the announcements are coming over the PA "please finish making your selections and bring them to the counter". Then there's the guys still trying to sell 80 pound toaster ovens to folks looking at the latest and more efficient cookers.

Look around guys. There are threads on here talking about if one thinks a soundstage is important, and guess what, most are answering as if they've never been able to create a stage. That same guy is going to once again spend the big bucks one more time? I don't think so. Seeing that wall of components in ones living room doesn't hold the same status as it did. Again the serious audiophile for the most part has either left the building or gotten serious about their sound.

Used speaker market above 6k? I would imagine there are stock piles upon stock piles. I would even imagine it won't be long before you can't give them away.

Michael

I hope folks don’t mind me sharing my views on these forums. They can come off alarming I know, but my posts here are based in reality not fiction.

The 80’s and 90’s we spent our time as insiders recruiting young and middle aged listeners into this wonderful hobby. HEA up till the mid-90’s fit. The hobby was still pure in many ways bringing in fresh designers who were sound driven more than money. The CES was the mother of shows and then the other shows were the regional spin offs supporting the CES. The main floor of the CES today, is young an full of innovation, teamed up with a mature foundation. Electronics now are performance based with affordability and practicality in mind. Today’s electronics aren’t here to replace the room, but to use it as part of the equation.

The now generation looks at equipment stacked against a wall quite differently vs the guys trying to impress by saying how much their system cost them. Now, hobbyist using a dollar amount to describe their system means nothing. Look at the posts here using a dollar figure to describe their sound instead of sound itself describing the sound. Those statements hold no appeal for the guy or gal walking around the CES main floor. HEA has isolated itself for 20 some years now, not being the leader any more, and not even being a competitor in smart systems.

Smart audio is about using the environment as the medium, not sitting there looking at components as if they can do something magical. Are you following me yet? Saying "my system cost $250,000.00" is yesteryear. It registers a zero for a 25 year old music lover looking to be inside of a soundstage. Listeners now are looking to the experience not a component chassis. Most of them don’t know what a radioshack RTA even is. Today’s listener is beyond home brew bench testing, or home brew "experts" looking at numbers to explain their distortion levels. Some of the new listeners reading this post right now are going to be getting ahold of me, simply for the reason that I’m talking about now. And, that’s not going to change or suddenly flip back to some old school belief in expensive chassis. Remember the days when there was a radioshack or 2 in every town along with a couple of stereo stores? There’s a reason they are no longer there. There's a reason HEA is no longer on the main floor of the CES.

mg

Hi inna, you said

"Those people buy new, some of them are even audiophiles."

I don’t see these guys showing up at the HEA trade shows do you?

I might be way off target but I don’t see the market the way some here are describing it at all. Let me give an example.

2 years ago we were approached by a HEA rep who wanted to push our products (happens often nothin new). My first question was "where’s your website" he didn’t have one. Next I asked how much did he sale at his last show of another product he carried? He bragged $47,000.00. I come to find out that the company he was talking about sold zero $$$$ at that show. The hype projected in HEA right now is desperate at best.

here’s another example

Talked with a designer (well known) about his price increases over the last few years. We asked "is the product better" to which he answered "nope, I’m selling 1/10 the product I did a couple of years ago".

What I’m saying is, the market has changed and the people who did buy $$$,$$$.00 are not being fooled anymore. 5k for an amp folks could deal with, 10k they even bought into it. But when the price and size race took off, and when you only got a volume control, the fate was sealed. Millionaires are rich, they’re not stupid. They’re not buying into a C Class selling for $40,000.00 jumping over night to $400,000.00. Not happening with Mercedes and for sure isn’t happening with HEA once reality sets in. Reality is setting in.

Audiophiles are fine, HEA?, is in the middle of redefining itself.

mg

Audio eye candy and audio listening are two distinctly different hobbies and professions. It's easy to tell the difference. One looks like a showcase display and the other looks like electrical, mechanical and acoustical tools. The eye candy guy talks about audio systems in terms of dollars, the audio listener talks about audio in terms of tuning.

Typically the eye candy guy has never gone beyond component plug & play. They haven't quite got to the point where they use their system as a variable tool to play the music. The connection between "all recordings have a different code" and require a variable playback solution vs a set (fixed) one sound system has not been made a reality for them.

The HEA hobby started to make the next step but then stalled. That's when the audio listener departed from the scene. The internet has made it possible for a reconnect, but a lot of folks are still in that "fixed" mentality.

MG