All the reasons above leads one to the conclusion that the prices are too high for the current state of the market. |
Everything comes back around.
It’s going to be cool to see what happens with dsp. There are so many things that can be done with it. I’m looking forward to the endless tweeks that a system of 10 self powered “audiophile” quality dsp enabled speakers will provide. |
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. |
I don't think there is any question that the trend is downward. But, the question is abut the current cycle. Sales are very slow, possibly slower than they were after the financial crisis in 2008. How is that possible? I personally believe that most sellers are wildly over-optimistic in setting their prices. I am always surprised to see items I sold 7 or 8 years ago routinely listed for 50+ percent more than I sought. Part of that is the growth of dealer listings. I do see well priced, popular items selling in a day or so.
If you are not in that category, well, you might as well be playing the lottery! |
Not only are we dying off, but the up coming generations are going deaf early from blasting their ears out with earbuds. HEA, LEA, a good chunk probably don't have the ears to appreciate it
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roberjerman
Fewer people are listening to two-channel audio. Television viewing and on-screen gaming are more attractive to younger folks. They don’t just want to sit in a dimly-lit room listening to music from a pair of speakers! They look at this as an old geezer activity!
>>>>>That’s very observant of them. 👀
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Fewer people are listening to two-channel audio. Television viewing and on-screen gaming are more attractive to younger folks. They don't just want to sit in a dimly-lit room listening to music from a pair of speakers! They look at this as an old geezer activity! |
Audiophiles are starting to wake up to the benefits of active speakers and are holding out for some of the manufacturers to start building the upper end speakers as active. |
As the HEA market goes out of favor, please feel free to send all that worthless equipment to me. |
I have noticed, the audiophile is selling less here as most of the ads are from audio retailers who have turned to Audiogon to sell because they have little to no foot traffic. I am tired of seeing the same ads for equipment by the same seller at 3-4 times a week. You click on "new today" and you have 60+ ads from TMR that were the same they posted a day or so ago. I am not picking on them as I have bought from them 3 times and have been extremely satisfied with them but they and like 6 others make up the bulk of the Classifieds.
A lot of people asked me why I sold a $1970.00 Tuner for $400.00. The simple answer was no matter what Blue Book and Hi-Fi Shark said, 400.00 is all it was really worth in today’s day of streaming and internet radio. Most sellers here including the pro ones are pricing the equipment way above what their worth is. If you are selling an amp you bought off someone who made maybe 5 of them and is now deceased, you can’t expect to get 5K for it!
I used to look at the ads daily. Now, it is 3-4 times a week as the ads are mostly the same. I stay here for the forums now and to learn new things & sometimes argue.
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I'm glad you have that high opinion of yourself. |
Right, the real engineer suddenly appeared. But don’t let me interrupt your posedown.
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Yes I easily engineered the right person to appear at the right time.
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mapman, are you wearing your “engineer’s” hat when you make that statement? I’m sure the newbies are eternally grateful for your diligence and watchfulness. 🤡
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High end audio may also have a bit of a credibility problem especially with newbies given some of the nonsense that goes around in forums like this. This can't help. |
Millennials. I don't think many of them buy new or used HEA. The older generation audiophiles are dying off. Most of the younger generation I talk to have little to no interest in HEA. They like music mostly of the portable variety and seem to listen more as a distraction than anything else. I do believe there are a few younger ones out there that like HEA, but no where near enough to support the hobby. JMHO. |
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Yes, the size of the market continues to age and ebb away. It’s not gonna get any easier. In fact with the economy rolling right now, this may be as good as it gets by far.
Some new blood is coming up from the high-end headphone crowd, but it’s not feeding into 2ch staples like speakers and monoblocks (maybe just DACs, at best). And Audiogon lost a good chunk of its traffic to the site rewrite some years ago -- older folks don’t like to adapt to tech, and get easily/permanently frustrated. Maybe they should’ve kept both systems up while they refined the new site (which I do like, now that the bugs have been worked out).
But also, a lot of sellers don’t seem to have a clue that they’re pricing items way too high. You gotta be realistic, and the #s you find in the BlueBook/etc are often FAR off a sellable price. And the worst trap is getting stuck holding the bag with at item that was a "flavor of the month" flash in the pan. A couple years on, and you may find you can’t even give it away.
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The HEA of the 80's can't realistically survive in 2018-forward. It's decline has been happening since the mid 90's, no surprise here. I can't imagine folks thought the over built over priced hobby was going to interest the modern Audiophile. Audiophiles are getting out of the trophy collecting and into their listening, movies, games or whatever. I'm seeing an increase in the hobby, just not the way over the top build hobby. It's not the early 90's where the magazines pulled off that amazing revolving door of plug & play. That was insane, literally! The pitch was "My system doesn't sound right so I'll buy another component". That's pretty crazy but they managed to sucker folks into it. Now after a couple of decades of that (whatever that was), hobbyist are not buying into it anymore, why should they? Michael Green www.michaelgreenaudio.net |
Has been discussed regularly on Audiogon. Here are some prior responses/thoughts:
1. Culture places less importance on musical activities, thus less demand for HEA
2. Listening has migrated to streaming and quality is sometimes unavailable, sometimes not of interest
3. Listening styles have moved away from demanding content (such as classical and jazz) to pop and hip hop that requires less HEA
4. Americans have less disposable income (paid your health bill recently?)
5. Younger generations are visually oriented and prefer video games over straight listening sessions
6. And get ready for the "no everything is great and HEA is thriving like never before" responses -- worthwhile checking to see if these are made by industry people...
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Depends upon what you mean by "recently". Seems like it has been a buyer's market for several years now, and perhaps worsening with time. Has it gotten much worse particularly lately? |
