High End Audio-Gaining Higher Ground?

"High End" is pretty much a marketing term for traditional hifi gear and components that target peoples desires to have the best possible sound in their homes.

The term is a lot of the problem. PEople will always seek high quality sound with their music, just to different degrees and in differnet ways to adapt with modern lifestyles. Just look around you and you will see that modern lifestyles are increasingly mobile. Great mobile sound can be had for a pittance in comparison to "high end audio".

It's merely natural selection at play and guess who is the dinosaur and going to lose? Or at least never grow beyond a boutique industry that largely targets wealthy gullible fools? There is a niche for everything I suppose...

High End Audio needs to cut through all the BS and just deliver the goods in a manner that works better for everyone. THen we will all live happily ever after.

I think of "High End Audio" ambivalently.

It has admirable goals yet often questionable methods.

Its like atomic power, which has a lot to offer, but also spawned Godzilla, just like High End audio has spawned entities like MAchina Dynamica. :^)

Mapman, It's all good, but BS is most profitable and more BS implies to more profits. Profit is addictive! What you need to do to get more profit? Throw more BS and see what happens. It's just reality. If one BS doesn't work, think of another one and so on and so forth.
BS is part of any BuSiness.

"High End" has everything to do with *intention*. It is not about marketing or price.

I've noticed a myopic viewpoint here. Go to the Munich High End show and see if you still feel the same way. What you will see there is families with baby carriages and about 4x as many women as you do at shows here. Overall, a lot more kids. There is actually something we are up to here in the US that is causing the mainstream of the market here to be males over the age of 45!

I have two girls, one in HS and one in college. Both love music and spend much time listening and discussing music. They have been with me on many vinyl store trips and have come to really like artists that they have heard me play. They will request I play different tunes on my system for them but they listen from an adjacent room. They like the music but don't thirst for the high fidelity like we do.

I am kind of glad that they focus on the musical and lyrical content.