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Current Trends In Home Audio

This is not a question, but a personal observation.

For the past few weeks I've been house hunting in the Ann Arbor area and consequently I've walked through about 25 homes. Not a single audiophile setup in any of the houses. Not a single phono rig, though one household had about 100 albums next to their CD collection. There also weren't any elaborate home theater setups. The most common audio systems were mini systems with built in CD/DVD players and computers with satellite/subs. Also saw a few Bose Wave radios. In talking with our broker he stated in the new subdivision construction, which he specializes in, that whole house audio systems are a big selling point. He also stated that in the high end housing market ($1 million plus in Michigan) that dedicated media rooms are the norm, but all the speakers are in wall/ceiling types.

Apparently audiophiles are a small chose few.
128x128onhwy61
viggen
838 posts
 
Not surprised at all.

I've already assumed a small percentage of consumers will devote noticeable percentage of their disposable incomes toward a certain hobby. And, smaller percentrage of these will build a decent stereo system.

One problem is there are just too many damn expensive hobbies out there competing with hifi. As I read from one member's post on this forum, narcotics, alcohol, cheap sex and fast cars seem to take priority over his stereo. Tsk tsk.

I was selling home audio about 10 years back. I'd have to tell'ya you'd have to be pretty slick to turn an ordinary person into a malcontent audio video fiend. In my one year of service, I am proud to have done that to 5 individuals.

I think the internet will get more people into hifi, but the most brick and mortar dealers will never know it.
rbstehno
1,407 posts
 
in my area, most of the nicer homes we have been looking at lately have had dedicated home theater rooms. for example, we have been to the 2 local home shows (first group of homes were in the $1.3 - $2.0 million dollar range and the other home show had 12 homes averaging around $700,000). 90% of these homes all had dedicated home theater rooms, some of them were pretty nice. most of them had seperate cooling systems, acoustical treatments, nice lighting systems, and the equipment was contained in its own seperate room.
jdcrox
119 posts
 
A few years back I lived in a nice planned community north of Houston. Houses ranged from $100,000 thru many millions. Average was probably around $300k. I was seriously considering opening a high-end HT and 2-channel store. After much research, one comment kept coming up: "Disposable Income". Many of the people who live in these nice areas are not only financially house-bound, but the Beemer, and Mercedes wagon for the wife, plus the new cars for the kids to drive leave precious little money left-over for high-end audio. Sad commentary on society when we are more concerned on impressing the neighbors than on enjoying life the way we would truly like it.
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
I agree, I think the design of these new houses are of a demented modern day Ozzie and Harriett cookie cutter variety. And their prices in Los Angeles are beyond ridiculous.

I am one of the highest ranking senior exponents of Frat House Decor Meets Audiogon Addicted Audiophile Ryu in the country. If I were to employ the services of Rives, he would first have to figure the crew of Clean Sweep into his budget in order to begin the project.
musicslug
430 posts
 
it will be interesting to see if the increasing stream of Chinese audiophile-like equipment has much impact on the hobby. if the parallels with CD and DVD player pricing are any predictor, it could have quite an impact on the more 'boutique-y' audio stuff. it is, after all the price tag that keeps most people away from this stuff.
it could both help and hurt....
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