Hi AMG
I see the Audiophile world as strong and growing. I see vintage audio as having a great following. Gaming is exploding in the theatre setting.
What I don't see is the next generation with huge amplifiers sitting in front of them with an audio rack in between a set of super expensive speakers. If HEA was going to turn the corner of luxury audio it would have done it by now.
Here's my point of reference. When you say Mercedes, everyone knows what your talking about. When you say Audio Research, no one has a clue what that is. High end audio hit a peak in the 60's, 70's, 80's even, that hasn't carried through to today. When was the last time we saw a TV ad for a high end audio component?
Remember when every town had a stereo store, and bigger towns had several, and one or two of them were high end shops? When you take that away it's like a town not having a car dealership. In time the buzz looses it's sting. That's not a bad thing, it's just the modern audiophile is not going to be looking for the same things that were appealing back in the 70's and 80's, past the collectables. It's like when TVs went from tube to flat screen.
Michael Green