This is very timely...

It would seem that Goodwin's High End (near me) is doing fine...nice guys (recently repaired and tuned up my Linn table for relatively very little money). Is Goodwin's killing audio? Somehow I doubt it.

...from all the trash talk about Lyric, I'm surprised some driven soul didn't 'enhance' their sign into Livid Adiots...but I'm like that....*g*

No, never had that particular displeasure....but did and have had the same sort occur elsewhere.  Guess they only liked clientele that can dish back the dis' and then some...*shrug*

A few years ago I read in the "Letters" section of The Absolute Sound about a guy who was asked to leave an unnamed,  hi-end shop in NYC because he was listening to an iPod with little earphones  while browsing through the store. I wonder if that was Lyric Audio.

Thanks, @edgewound for the link. Trying to keep a spirit of decorum, Butterworth’s first paragraph seems to betray his entire article? He seems to be saying that only he and perhaps we’d conclude brick-and-mortar high end audio stores know anything. Yes, a lot of YouTube / podcast opinions & reviews may not be the best. Yet I have learned a lot from John Darko, Hans Beekhuyzen, Joshua Valour, Currawong, and the infamous Zeos, et. al. I enjoyed a YouTube Hans recently put together, " Audio myths & dogmas #2: comparing audio sources"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqBYB6kEKec

OP -- thanks for sharing. The piece raised a lot of issues.

@jjss49 

"media churn, media bias, all driven by structural fragmentation and its own self serving financial incentives, is a real problem, and is a major contributor of many of the big problems in our world today, reaching far beyond hi fi"

You super duper nailed it. Churn is the word. Where's Thoreau when you need him? He stuck in the 18th tab of a browser, maybe...