High End is Dead?

Most of ads on Audiogon is for old and/or off-brand gear for less than $1000. Wilsons and Magicos are a tiny minority of listings and they're all from dealers

Perhaps because a) the top end stuff is only a tiny minorityof the volume, especially when you take account of sales over time b) people hold onto top end gear and c) if they do sell it’s often via a dealer on consignment (let them deal with the hassle) or as a trade up (case in point the recent set of M Project being sold for a customer who has purchased M6)

As someone actively buying and selling in this market it seems quite healthy to me, sure maybe resale prices are not as good as they have been but that just means there are better options as a buyer, and anyone who gets into this business expecting not to lose 20-30% at least any time they buy and sell is fooling themselves

+1 folkfreak
Robert/Audiopoint:
Pretty sure we live on different planets but I admire your positivism and well-written creativity.
Here's something from John Prine's new album, "The Tree of Forgiveness:"
"The lonesome friends of science say
The world will end most any day
Well if it does then that's OK
'Cause i don't live here anyway..."
Yes, it's a great CD and you should listen to the final cut/masterpiece "When I Get to Heaven."
On High-end gear, that is!

Most of ads on Audiogon is for old and/or off-brand gear for less than $1000. Wilsons and Magicos are a tiny minority of listings and they're all from dealers. In reality no one is buying high end. I went to AXPONA this year, and I didn't see many (any?) people discussing a purchase with the dealers -- come in, listen for a minute, than leave with a pamphlet.

@madavid0 

Like many of us who start out on this site, you have been given the benefit of the doubt repeatedly with your posts and the "conclusions" you make based on incomplete or faulty evidence sited. High end is doing very well but it is doing very well by doing it differently than in the past. Your quote above is respectfully off the mark. What is off brand? The biggest flawed conclusion you draw is since "nothing" is for sale on Audiogon, High End is doomed. Maybe its my "poor understanding" of economics but if not much is for sale that interests you I would submit that maybe those items find satisfied users in the new retail market (they keep the gear) or the used gear that does come available sells quickly. The absence of inventory/items for sale actually indicates a healthy market...not just with audio but with the economy in general. There was alot of high quality gear for sale for peanuts during the recession of 2008-11 but did that make High End healthy or no? Because you walked around Axpona and no one was hauling home the show gear in your presence means High End is in trouble? I don't go to shows to buy, I go to shows to research and hear alot of different gear in one place during a concentrated time frame.

Now to the threads you start, the following are just the past 5 you have started. High end is dead? Schiit not that good? Isolation stands: Snakeoil? Integrateds: Why do they all SUCK? Mapleshade isolation: Does nothing? 

But if I only stop with your last 5 threads started, I would have missed out on these beauties: Cartidges: Complete Scam? Synergistic Research: Scam?  What is your agenda and why the negative posturing and fear mongering?

High end isn't dead just because you didn't see a guy tossing cash on the floor in front of a dealer at Axpona any more than Schiit is bad because it didn't measure up, in your opinion, to an Esoteric stack in the next room. Everything is relative.  I'll go back to my original opinion that while you might not be an actual troll, you have troll-like tendencies as displayed by your repeated introduction of thread topics similar to a 7th grade coach who also is forced to teach a civics class and today's topic is economics. Peace.

@raigl59

Thank you for the recommendation and I'll give it a listen however I prefer Sinatra...

"It's a real good bet. The best is yet to come."

and I am pretty sure I’ve been living here on this planet a bit longer than you ⌣

Robert

A couple of things…many young people attend concerts in droves (actual droves), and not just for electronica, so there’s that. Also, "high end" has always been dead in the sense that the amount of people who "actively listen" to recorded music has always been minuscule, and alleged High End "salons" have no idea how to sell the stuff to anybody but the already interested. Local legends Goodwin’s High End (it’s in the name so it must be good…good…win…high end) doesn’t have a mailing list for events, doesn’t do live music at their shop (a travesty…you can get a great jazz trio to play for less money than the cost of a used cable), and is staffed with both nice people, and self absorbed "experts" with minimal 2 way conversation content absorption skills. "We don’t sell Linn belts (true thing), but here’s a great $5,000 turntable for ya." The good news is that companies like Schiit and Rogue and others prove all night that less precious gear can sound astonishingly good. I run sound for live shows, and attend things when I’m not too lazy to get off the couch, and last weekend saw the Brad Mehldau trio, and the weekend before that saw Yo Yo and the BSO…any reference for my home rig? Hell no…my home rig is tweaked and assembled for me only! Note that Goodwin’s should open a "middle end" and "low end" biz.