What's going on with the audio market?

Yup.  This is not a political discussion. But I tend to feel a lot of back in the day vibe here. Failure by companies and the older audiophile communityto step into the new times is also key.  This generation wants choice of music over sound quality. I think that pricing has really gotten out of hand. Listening habits have changed.  Same old rock Same old jazz and same old blues or country is not doing it for the new audiophiles.  You have them listening to other genres and people doing streaming and or computer audio more.  The straight up 2 channel market is suffering.  Eventually you got to accept that and that Obama has nothing to do with it. Lol. There is an eroding audio middle class. 

Don't start bringing social class into the discussion...

calvinj- I agree that younger listeners aren’t listening to the same "playlist" of geezer-pleasers, but they pick and choose- they may be doing metal (that seems to be the guy-rock of the 20 and 30 somethings) but every once in a while, a question like "Anybody heard the James Gang’ will pop up. My read is that two channel at the moment is back, but of course that can and will change. Look, I think we’re all speculating here in part on what the future will bring, but the one thing we can be certain of is that the hobby will keep changing. Does that mean the death of what AVSJerry called "Serious" audio? I don’t think so, and that branch was always a little bit of a rich man’s game (though the numbers in today’s dollars do seem staggering for some components). I’m also not sure about the class distinctions- some of the nuttiest audiophiles I’ve known have been poor as church mice, but spent what they had, and wrangled, to get "serious" gear. (Many worked in the industry to do this). On the other hand, the wealthy folks I know seem to have little interest in purist audio (another elitest term but you know what I mean) and have computer controlled whole house systems.... We’re geeks, that’s all.