Why Don't More People Love Audio?

Most everyone involved came on board when the ground was fertile and the crops couldn't fail. Now that there is a shrinking market and an inexplicably expanding manufacturing base, times are getting very tight.

If audio had been more welcoming and less elitist, perhaps the customer base might have expanded laterally. Now the only hope of survival seems to require reselling, rebadging, renaming, regurgitating the same stuff to the same people over and over ad infinitum. But the rancidity is becoming difficult to ignore. The excitement is gone. The superlatives have all been overused. The ultra dream stuff is no longer a carrot dangling just out of reach. It now requires a powerful lens to be seen because it is so far out of reach. Big disincentive.

My own theory on the astronomical pricing is this: sales are scarce at every level but if you can sell just a couple of items at twenty times their cost (and there are enough zeroes involved) you can stay in biz and continue to dream about the return of those halcyon days of Levinson and Krell. Heck, when you're not busy you may as well dream.

I'm retired.

How about "audio galleries" where companies loan their equipment? People pay $10-20 and can listen to the "B&W" room or the YG Acoustics room.
There would be no pressure to buy, the entrance fees covers operating expenses, and no overhead like a dealer who has to buy the stuff as it would be on loan.

Hmmm. Audio galleries. People bringing in their favorite music just to hear it the best way possible. A 3-D listening experience, or the best they'll ever hear.
Some would get the bug and want to take the experience home.
Something to think about.

You guys are silly. Even in areas of the country where we enjoy some hobbyist density, there simply are not enough of us to keep this imaginary enterprise running. Ordinary non-audio people who have no interest in this stuff and don't care about specs, tube complements, driver technology or sampling rates are not going to pay admission to this place any more than I would pay to look at guns and camo fashions at Cabelas. Don't care is don't care.

Another point to consider is that the few places in our vast country that have the audiophile numbers to make this enterprise even remotely plausible happen to be the places most likely to have dealers.

Last point, and I hope you can at last grasp this:

You are in fantasyland. You come off like religious zealots who simply cannot imagine that anyone could experience the holy ghost or holy grail or holy sound as you experience it and remain unmoved. Fact is, though, they can. Even though you have discovered the one true short cut to heaven, they still will prefer to watch the TV, surf the net, hunt and fish, refinish furniture, paint the back porch, go bowling, read the wisdom of OchoCinco, collect stamps, sail their boat, plow their fields, etc. This is because we are all different. We all have areas of interest and they can be mutually exclusive. Some people even prefer to make their own music.

We need to get over ourselves. I'm sure there are threads out there wondering how the hell you manage to live a happy life if you don't make your own sauerkraut.

Macrojack - Thank you so much for that post. Gosh, I laughed out loud. Great points made.