First the target market is slowly diminishing. Gen. X and Y and Millenials are using iPhones for their primary music source and show no signs of changing. Only the Boomers care about this stuff anymore.
Second, the value proposition that many audio company's offered 20-30 years ago has been abandoned. I am pretty certain, having listened to them side-by-side, that today's turntables, cartridges and tonearms are really not any better than the 1980's versions...in fact in many ways they are inferior. When you can go on Audiogon and buy a dead man's set-up for 10% of the cost of a new rig, and it sounds as good or better, why see an audio retailer at all ?
Third, the price of SOTA equipment in 2016 is astronomical......$100K for a pair of loudspeakers is ridiculous. Just because one can build a speaker cabinet entirely out of CNC high-speed machined aluminum billet doesn't mean that they should, or that they will get better results than Paul Klipsch or Roy Allison or Roger Vandersteen did 30 years ago.
Finally, the audio business is not really offering any technology improvements to materially improve the home music experience to speak of. It has NOT embraced multichannel when it has shown to be clearly more realistic then 2-channel audio, and every improvement to digital playback since the original CD player in 1982 has been met with lukewarm sales at best. SACD and DVD-A SHOULD have taken off, but when audiophiles sat on they pocketbooks, the die was cast and the BIG players said "those old SOB's don't care so why should we ?"
I remain skeptical of digital downloads....the numbers aren't even close to CD sales TODAY, much less at their peak, and the selection is more "austere" than SACD's. Digital streaming (TIDAL, etc.) may have a chance, but...who knows. Let's see what happens with MQA.....can anyone remember the last great digital "sonic breakthrough ?" (Hint, it was called "Pono ?" As is Phono.) Not even Neil Young could sell needle-dragging, vinyl-loving Boomers on that one.
Second, the value proposition that many audio company's offered 20-30 years ago has been abandoned. I am pretty certain, having listened to them side-by-side, that today's turntables, cartridges and tonearms are really not any better than the 1980's versions...in fact in many ways they are inferior. When you can go on Audiogon and buy a dead man's set-up for 10% of the cost of a new rig, and it sounds as good or better, why see an audio retailer at all ?
Third, the price of SOTA equipment in 2016 is astronomical......$100K for a pair of loudspeakers is ridiculous. Just because one can build a speaker cabinet entirely out of CNC high-speed machined aluminum billet doesn't mean that they should, or that they will get better results than Paul Klipsch or Roy Allison or Roger Vandersteen did 30 years ago.
Finally, the audio business is not really offering any technology improvements to materially improve the home music experience to speak of. It has NOT embraced multichannel when it has shown to be clearly more realistic then 2-channel audio, and every improvement to digital playback since the original CD player in 1982 has been met with lukewarm sales at best. SACD and DVD-A SHOULD have taken off, but when audiophiles sat on they pocketbooks, the die was cast and the BIG players said "those old SOB's don't care so why should we ?"
I remain skeptical of digital downloads....the numbers aren't even close to CD sales TODAY, much less at their peak, and the selection is more "austere" than SACD's. Digital streaming (TIDAL, etc.) may have a chance, but...who knows. Let's see what happens with MQA.....can anyone remember the last great digital "sonic breakthrough ?" (Hint, it was called "Pono ?" As is Phono.) Not even Neil Young could sell needle-dragging, vinyl-loving Boomers on that one.