What's going on with the audio market?

Mapman, right on. *G* (Just showing my age... ;)...)

"Serious Audio"...I think I'm 'doing' a variant of that...I'm serious about what I'm about, and I'll posit that the guys with the megabuck systems are, too.  The guy jogging by with the buds in his ears, the musicians posting on Soundcloud, the galaxy of streamcasters, the entire continuum of musical endeavour spanning the globe, all that.  And although I sometimes think the heated discussions that occur over cables get a tad over the top, I'll support the right to do so and applaud AG and any site that gives us the forum and freedom to do so.  So rave on...

I know that I sometimes edge into trollishness in apparent attitude... I feel that there's more important issues of our life and times that should be concerning us, But...  

I'll agree that the 'market' is changing, responding to tech, 'mass market desires', the global production community, economic forces, and whatever the ad agencies can blow up our butts and make one want to drain their wallets/purses/credit accounts.  One picks and chooses their level of co-operation with all that. *L*  'Ell, I'd like a faster 'puter to run my junk on, so I'm not immune, either...

Support your B&M favorites.  Support that local guy.  Hey, I'm a micro-biz type, too.  I like it when the phone rings, or the email beeps.  Answer that ad, call that number, enjoy.  Get behind whatever floats your boat as best you might and may.

Everything changes.  That which remains in stasis is either dying or will get marked down shortly. *G*  Just try to keep the fun factor in it and in mind. ;)

70, 20, 100+

38, 6, hopefully single digits.

I work in music and spend most of my time around people who either work in music or perform or have a voracious appetite for discovering new music. Very, very few have any interest in this hobby and I don't blame them. Not being a part of this doesn't diminish one's enjoyment of music, at all.

Mapman really got at one big driver of Aphile behavior of late. Even the remaining aging Aphile consumers are getting plain old fed up with.....

"Not many buying the hype anymore these days"

Gear is so darn full of hype and at crazy, I mean crazy, high prices.  It is out of hand and many of us are jumping off the crazy train. I blame industry manufacturers and retailers for their lack of creatively and tired ways. Yes, some are doing it right and will survive, but many "high end" companies will be gone over the next 5-10 years.

I am 63. I have been a hobbyist since college, (AR table, Sherwood integrated, EV speakers). Spent a decade in the business. Owned and sold equipment in an age when a Iowa town of 100,000 had 5 local stores, selling ARC, Magnepan, Polk, Thorens, Infinity, Bozak, ESS, Ohm Walsh, a/d/s, Klipschorns, Altec 19s, AR-9s, Tannoy Dual Concentrics, JBL Century, Hafler, Carver Amazing, Epicure, HK Citation, yada, yada. The town has grown to probably 170,000 and now has a single Best Buy. I am sadden by the decline in brick and mortar stores. Part of the decline is the challenge all local retail faces as online options impact our economy. The decline also, more importantly I think, reflects the turn of the fashion cycle between generations. My children grew up with great audio (and left home with systems I put together)-so its not that they were not exposed to quality, its just not as important to them. Conversely my Depression surviving parents must have shook their heads as I became more and more obsessed with musical reproduction, (even had a "career" in it). So much of our identity and preferences are of the time we grew up in. Hey if you were in college in the 70's you wanted the best system you could afford, for status with the guys, and sex appeal with the ladies, (turn down the lights and put on that Moody Blues or It's Beautiful Day you've been hiding). Today's hipsters are measured by their phones, tats, taste in microbrews, etc. -it's not a value thing, it is all equally valid/ridiculous. They will lament when the last "Body Ink Artist" closes shop due to their kids finding their own, necessarily different, aesthetic.