What's going on with the audio market?


Recent retail sales reports are very bad and I am hearing that sales for audio equipment have been nonexistent over the past few months.  I also see more dealers putting items up for sale here and on other outlets.  Even items that have traditionally sold quickly here are expiring without being sold. 

To what would you attribute the slowdown?  Have you changed your buying habits for audio equipment and, if so, why? 
theothergreg
I'll  go out on a limb and say many of those young people streaming music from phones and tablets today will be doing something similar in 20 years or so but also to a very good sounding home setup ranging from good quailty powered wireless speakers to things as good or better than anything around today depending on their goals and discretionary income. 
No, many of today's high end products are seriously overpriced. Some great values like never before, but lots of exaggerated, hyper dollar stuff being pushed. Some of it sounds fine, but not worth the price. I suppose I am so turned off that this colors my view of the industry in general. 

Bad service is also rampant and really upsets me. The gear quest has stopped for me. I am on a new music quest! 


If you were to look inside the gear sold today and see the parts quality used for the prices asked, assuming you know about electronics and parts, you would begin to feel as sick as I do about the industry.  No reason for the prices charged on many high end pieces.  No reason other than only a relative few of us will ever buy this stuff. I can no longer support this dying model as I have decided to enable it no longer. 

$1 resistors and $10 capacitors in $15,000 speakers and on and on! 

Again, I know we have exceptions, but we need open our eyes as we are being charged ridiculous prices for what is actually inside the gear. Yes, including R&D etc... 

We do have some  companies selling nice sounding gear for reasonable prices like Emotiva and others. These are genuine great values that we should take notice of and there are others.