I do hope you are kidding? Bose is mass mid fi, they are in it for the money, and in actuality I see nothing wrong with that, it is what they chose to do. But in no way could a Krell, Martin Logan, Revel compete in that market or do I doubt they even want it. Highly unlikely they even have the means to produce the #'s it would take to capture a % of that market. Then there is the fact that simply put, who buys $3000 amps or speakers, hell who buys $3000 stereos? Less than 10% of the market. You may have 2 out 20 friends that walk into your house and are able to recognize the makes and brands of your audio equipment, people who don't ask you to turn the bass up or why are you still using that old tube amp when pointing at your Tube Innovations amp sitting on the floor. People who aren't internally smug when you tell them it puts out 100 wpc, thinking to themselves, that fool, my Pioneer from Sam's puts out way more than that, smaller too! High end audio is a very small market, and even then highly tiered. And then I feel many are trying to make the market smaller by not educating those who ask the most rudimentary questions about high end, choosing instead to ridicule them for wanting to basically know "Why?". I see too much of that on these pages and way too much of it on the unmoderated groups.
IF and I write IF in a major way, the high end manufactorers want,IMHO, an example to go by, I would send them Magnepan's way. Magnepan builds entry level high end gear, allows decent trade up policies, makes you feel good about yourself for "only" spending $550, and doesn't insult by telling people no way can you use a reciever with their products and expect good sound. It will be better than what they had, and it is a first step toward what I am sure is what they hope to be a budding audiophile. IMHO again, I think a lot of the high end companies are missing a huge market by not building more affordable entry level gear. Its as if they build for those of us that think nothing about spending more on an amp that will some day die than a wedding ring where at least the diamond lasts a lifetime if not the relationship. But most
people will not do that. Most purchasers are going to cap out at around $1500 to $2000(and actually I would love to see the average on this) on an ENTIRE system, not just one piece of gear.
None of the above is to say that there are many of the high end makers who don't build or advertise this way because they are truly intent and content with building the very best product they can, and marketing it knowing there will be only few buyers. I applaud them, it brings audio up to the next level when it finally trickles down. But many can't or choose not to afford their gear. And where I think there will never be a huge high end market, it would be nice to see some come down into the mid fi market and bring it up a notch or two more, as I believe Magnepan and a couple of others do. I applaud the Canadian gov. intheir efforts and in their providing the facilities to allow some very small and very good companies the ability to do just that. By the way, another thread kinda covers the subject with the demise of Sonic Frontier, a high end maker that is being either closed down or sent in a different direction by its parent company because of its limited demand in the market.
