What's going on with the audio market?

Very stagnant economy the past 10 years with a feeble recovery. Middle class income wages diminishing, true unemployment rate is high. Look at the Labor Dept statistics u6=the full picture, u3 of 5% is misleading and incomplete. Our economy needs a major boost and approach. Many people lack discretionary income. National debt has ballooned from 9 trillion to 19 trillion in only 8 years, not good.

. Charles pretty much hit the nail on the head. This "hobby" is a luxury for most, not a necessity. Most people do not have discretionary money to spend on non necessities due to the lousy economy which grew at less than 1% last quarter. And frankly, in order to get a satisfying result one most spend a pretty big penny. My 2 cents.

Changes in listening habits, formats etc.. You have to replace the older audiophiles with new ones eventually and the price of some of this gear is crazy. I just want to enjoy the music and not obsess over it. Streaming, high prices, less real musicians,less discretionary income declining two channel market is killing the hobby

As a buyer I want stay away from any upgraded  or modified speakers ,cd players,amps:) No insults or offense to people who doing it.Just bad experience when bought modiefied cd player.
 

@extravaganza , 
you would need to research whom is doing the modding. There are couple of great people out there with experience and integrity whom mods audio equipment because of passion for music but not for commercial reasons. Hopes you can continue to support them so these small group of people survives. 
-philip

Lots of great responses here. Obviously its a combination of several things such as format changes, economy, baby boomers getting older and their kids not catching on to 2 channel audio, outrages prices, saturation, etc...  One thing I do think is cool, vinyl has been making a comeback and I have seen younger generations gravitate towards it. There's nothing like having that big vinyl disc in your hand and watching it spin. Hopefully when the market stabilizes we will see things come back around. I have never seen in my life the economy, racial relations, greed and many many other crazy things happen as it has the last 8 years or the Obama era.  Not starting a political discussion but in my opinion lots of areas of society and business have gone to crap. Hopefully some of it can recover. :)