Today's New York Times

I think the end of days prognostications are pretty premature. In all reality there are a lot of subcultures that are getting 20 & 30 somethings into higher quality music... For example, the "pitchfork(.com) hipster crowd" is pretty into turntable based audio, and a number of decent quality manufactures (e.g., Rega, Pro-ject, Music Hall) know how to get money out of those folks. Similarly, the hip-hop crowd cares a lot and Beats audio has been able to sell a ton of "high-end" headphones to this group. Of course the audiogon crowd will scoff that this isn't truly high end, but in the end, this is how the interest in quality audio starts. Those products are the gateway into high end, and most young people simply don't have the cash to spend yet to sample anything else. At some point these folks will have money and grey hair and will be spending $500 on a cable that may not produce anything more than a placebo effect, just like everyone on here now.

$500 dollar cables have helped me retain my hair. Not sure how, but hey.

A rig does NOT have to be expensive to make music, it merely has to be demonstrated to the "great unwashed" that great sounding music is available to everybody who might care even a little, and my gripe about "audio salon" culture is that it ignores this in large part by not trying much to engage people not already signed on to this stuff.

A parallel:

During my (mis)guided youth, there was no place in the world that I rather be than a nudie bar. Eventually, if a guy puts in enough time into these places, he gets a pretty good feel for the business. I came to to understand what appeared to be two different business models at work. In one model, a girl works the room, making the rounds endlessly, asking every customer for a drink or a dance. The fives and tens pile up and she makes a living. In the other model, a girl hates working the room and is only there to meet Daddy Warbucks. She will make the rounds with just enough enthusiasm to keep the management happy, but the last thing she wants is to be occupied with a small timer when someone she thinks she could cultivate into a cash cow walks in.

I think a similar dynamic takes place in high end audio, where a salesmen might be reluctant to be tied down to a guy who walked in with a cool grand burning a hole in his pocket and consequently miss the opportunity to sell a big baller.

I do hate it when greated by nude salesmen in an audio shop.

Wolf - LOL. Now that I think about it, wasn’t there some sleazebag dealer in New York who used to have strippers hostessing in his joint? He used the girls in his ads too.