@thecablepro
That's what they see today, but there are real signs of life in the high end market also. As an early adopter of the Pono player, I am also active on those forums. Since that community first got started, I can't tell you how often members who have "tasted" high-resolution music via the Pono engage in discussion over how to take their initial headphone high resolution experience and turn it into a righteous room-filling musical experience.
Those little high res players (how many brands are there now? Plenty!) are the proverbial "gateway drug" into good sounding two and multi-channel systems. That trickle will turn into a stream when the current crop of iPhones, iPods and similar Android phones shift into high resolution mode — don't kid yourself, it's coming and the manufactures will cater to it because it means more sales.
What our community sees today is really interesting in multiple dimensions. First, the Internet undermined break-and-mortar sales. But it also unleashed a number of Internet-only audio companies that sell higher quality product for the same price as the marked-up brick-and-mortar stores ...because they can! ...And that's good for the consumer. Secondly, music reproduction took a major detour with the advent of portable music players ...remember the Walkman? The iPod/iPhone/Android phones are Walkman-on-steroids. Instant gratification. Then the streaming services, which went from low resolution to now having some high resolution choices as well.
There are a lot of changes afoot, and with this many people listening to music on the go, I think we can expect to see a real revival in high end audio as well. What am I saying? There IS a revival well underway: Vinyl. Vinyl! For god sake we are buying more vinyl these days and it is absolutely growing. Reel-to-reel is back too.
