The Economy.. will hi end audio mfgs lower prices?


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The state of California just laid off 20,000 employees. National unemployment is at a 30 year high.

Will there be a shake-out in high end audio? Will we continue to see $10k preamps and $30k amps?

According to the article below, prices of most consumer goods, especially big ticket consumer goods are going down.

....copy and paste it into your browser

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/176714/American-Retail-Goods-On-Sale-Now----and-Forever?tickers=sks,%5Egspc,%5Edji,wmt,jwn,wfmi,cost
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128x128mitch4t
Some good points Andr. I agree there sometimes is too much model turnover, and I don't doubt much of it is market driven. Still, rapid model turnover can be of benefit to the listeners, real sonic improvements are often realized over time, model turnover keeps the manufacturer motivated.

As for my present audio purchases, I wouldn't even consider any purchases that didn't give at least 20% off retail, lots of options these days. I wonder if we'll soon see 30%,even 40% discounts.
"High End" Manufactures of non-essential products will go out of business before they lower their prices to the point where people without a basic understanding of economics and general business could afford......
Out of interest, I watch Harman stock (HAR). They have a presence in both the high end and "mass market" sectors through their many brands. Tell you what, that stock has not been treated nicely....
Matti, out of curiosity, can you tell me a stock that the stock market has treated kindly :)
{quote] ut of curiosity, can you tell me a stock that the stock market has treated kindly [/quote]

Gold has done well. I advised this a little over a year ago when I warned A'goners about the coming stock market rout and financial crisis. Everyone laughed at me at the time. My Puts (taken out in Dec '07 betting against the DJIA did pretty well too.