The reasons are, of course, manyfold with most of them outlined above. I remember in the 1970s I could go to high end audio stores and find all sorts of people, male and female, being turned on to the current good stuff. Not any longer. High end stores service the same customers over and over. However, we all have to face the fact that Americans are, in general, no longer interested in music. Just check out the FM airwaves in just about any major city, almost pure, "wear-dated" crap. What people want is noise with a cool looking boy or girl jumping around in the video. Does everyone realize all pop, rock, etc artists now have to be actors first and foremost? Do you think Britney Spears, N'Sync et al are on your TV constantly because they make good music? Lets all face it, there are no "new" Beatles, Hendrix, Miles, Coltrane, Joni Mitchell; not even a new Shawn Phillips, Tom Rush, or Fairport Convention, for Jeebies sake!! And please don't start telling us about all those "great new bands and singers". 90% of these new recordings are so over processed in the studio and mastering facilities that any sign of life is gone. Anyway, just an aside: One of my wife's students remodeled his house at a cost of $950,000.00. He had, as he puts it, "a state of the art sound sytem" installed in ceilings throughout. The "heart" of the awsome system is a Marantz receiver (retail, as he told me, $795.00) and a comparable CD player. The man doesn't know the brand of bad sounding wall and ceilings speakers installed, his interior designer did everything for him.
