High-end audio is on the rocks because the differences between high-end and mid-fi aren't shockingly discernible in many cases. Cynical expoitation of customer ignorance, through insane prices on cabling, power conditioners and other silly audio mysticism, is another reason. The term "audiophile", which should imply "person intensely interested in sound quality", now implies some pseudo-religious fanaticism about audio magic.
I am going to go outside and beat myself up for my part in destroying the hifi world. This is such tripe. I get Audio Mart ads for $5000 cables and $20,000 amps and $100,000 speakers and I am terrible for not feeling that I need to pay that price for differences that can be demonstrated on scopes but not heard by anything but bats. I have good equipment that was built to last, which is great because I could never afford to replace it. HiFi is now a rich mans bragging game, not a sound game and I applaud those who have the good ears and tell you about great sounding affordable stuff. You need to notice that the real interest for the masses is music that comes to a cell phone and goes to ear pods. The high cost of the good home systems is very very influenced by how much needs to be made off of one sale as not as many people are buying. Gotta go kick my butt.
The real asshats are the people who go to brick and mortar dealers to demo stuff - find what they like, and then go home and purchase from some other online dealer. That is just downright sleasy.
What contributed to killing high end is the ridiculous prices consumers are asked to pay for "high-end" gear. Even when many of these manufacturers moved to China in the 1990's to save on production costs, those savings were never passed on to the consumer. Audiophiles are indeed dinosaurs and I don't see millenials forking over thousands of dollars for audio gear. They are quite content with listening to music from their iphones. Make it a more financially accessible hobby and maybe things will change.
Things have changed already! Speakers are more affordable than ever before. The savings have been passed in the entry level - mid tier segment. You can buy a decent set of speakers of $200, and there are plenty of amps ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars. You can build a great little system under $500 and that's affordable compared to most other hobbies. Ultimately, most people don't give a care about "hi-fi" quality sound. Even ages ago people were content with small crappy radios with tinny little speakers. Throughout the years people used boomboxes and portable CD speakers, none of which sounded great. So phones and bluetooth speakers are just the continuation of that. Heck, there's even a case for soundbars bringing an acceptable "home theater" experience for not much money or fuss. It's just that decades ago, people weren't advertised to as much. Things were built to last. These days you buy a system and immediately want to get something else because your internet feed is bombarded with "informative reviews" hyping up the next best thing. So yeah, things are cheaper than ever these days but also more disposable.
In my perspective, "money" killed the audiophiles high end audio space. The average salary have not been increasing with the global inflation rate for the last 30 plus years which means consumers have less money to support and buy audiophile gears. Which to be honest we're all very lucky to be a part of this luxury hobby. Additionally, the declining value of the US dollar also means stuff in general just costs way more than before. I bet most of the people who say "back in the days, audiophiles were better" are consumer that was fortunate to make a living when America's dollar was stronger and the US dollar was on the gold standard (not fiat) plus that era was possible for 1 parent to make a decent living to afford everything for an entire family which is now no longer the case. Nowadays, both parents has to work to earn the equivalent income of the golden years. This, in my opinion is the catalyst for everything we're experiencing. But you are correct Andrew when you say, we all participated in the decline of the audio dealer store cause we want to pay less. Same reason why you rarely have really great mom and pop grocery stores because they cost more than Costco and Walmart. The economy moves and reacts based on consumer purchasing habits.
I look at gear made in 60/70ties and it looks as very hard to do - a lot of amall metal parts very accurate , moving mechanics, hard to form materials like wood and metal. Connections each separate wire - no any printed boards made with robots. Today products are not like that - plastic parts made in thousands from forms, boards selfmade in seconds - people do not wanrt to work 12 hours in production,, even on that with climatization . They have problems with their free time - that is why they need so many serials and channels on TV. They choose to have not to be.
For the most part, I agree with you, Slamboogie88! What you have expressed is at least 90% correct! Although Audiophile - whatever that term is actually about - or even High End was very expensive, it was still affordable. From my experience, and observation, in the late 1980s, nineteen nineties there was expensive, but very well made hi fi audio equipment. Now we have got to pay at least two times more time, and money! That's one of the reasons why I lately purchased Vintage audio equipment in very good condition. Although an SACD/DVD Player of 2003 may not actually be called vintage, it is still well designed, and correctly built. Furthermore, that's why I bought an HK T25 turntable, Cassette Deck from 1980s; and a couple of CD Players from 1989, and 1990s. Precise, quality electronic components, and built well.🔉🎵🎶
In Japan there are brick & mortar stores stocked by manufacturers where ppl can try the stuff and buy somewhere else. The manufacturers pay for the display and they don't mind where ppl buy their products. I guess that's the new way of dealing.
It's a vicious cycle, you see it in department stores. In the last year and a half, JC Penney, Sears, Macy's and other smaller retailers are closing their doors. Years ago I bought my first nice system from a place called Woodbridge Stereo. And I spent $1100 for an integrated amp, tuner CD player, and 3 piece speaker system by a company called 3D acoustics and it was a really good quality system . But I agree with you whole heartedly. In 2007 I was laid off from my computer job making 90k so my days of dropping 2k on new goodies were over. Online has definitely hurt the retail market. What can you do. Enjoyable and thought provoking as usual. Thanks Andrew
100% agree. In my case, it was guitar stores in Miami in the 90s... yeah, I'm looking at you, Ace, Sim's, and Abe Music. They were septic pools in every metaphorical sense. Their destruction could not have come soon enough.
It was like they were trained to make patrons feel as small and unworthy as possible. "Kid, you're never gonna make it... what kind of guitar strings do you want? I gotta get back to dusting off this guitar case, which by the way, you'll never be worthy of." :)
Has anyone mentioned greed? Why has audio electronics not gone down in price like all other electronics? I think the fate of our hobby is in the hands of the audio engineers. We all want better sound and better prices.
Those high prices wouldn't exist if people didn't pay them....the audiophile market as more people willing to buy $100 cables and other snake oil more than any other market....the prices wouldn't exist if people didn't pay them
Well to be honest.. i used to go to brick and mortar stores but as soon as i tried to talk to them, they mostly made fun of me for even having an interest in equipment which is CLEARLY not meant for "me" so that's why i stopped going. This was not always the case mind you, but more often than not.
I was in the market for a turntable. No way I would have ordered one. I went to my local hifi store, did my homework, and bought a 'table I am happy with. I told the store owner, "Look, I want to put your mind at ease: I have every intention of buying my turntable from you. I'm not going to pump you for info and order something online..." That paid off. The guy knows me and we have a good rapport.
redstarwraith This is exactly my mindset, I believe in building a relationship with dealers and of the five spread out dealers in my area, I picked one. It has taken over ten years of cultivation, but I remembered telling him that I wanted an all Audio Research system after hearing it, but I told him I would be buying used from him, he said no problem, we will get you there. The only thing that hasn’t come from that dealer is my turntable, my prior one did and my 2nd cassette deck, my Nakamichi did. I’m able to walk in and home edition what I want without leaving a credit card. My dealer offers special deals and has first of the month Coffee sessions where we just come in and listen. He has industry guys like Garth Leerer and Richard Vandersteen come in and there is food and beers flowing like there will be today when Leerer shows off his new AMG turntables from his new line. He has done listening sessions from a bar that hosts live local bands in a particular room. All of this has proved successful and has increased his business in both highend audio and home theater and the used market. Building a relationship has become a lost art in this day and age and when you build it you will get much more than the perceived deal in return.
Andrew...a very nice, well-thought out video. However, one thing that you may not have considered, is that when a product category matures to the point of performance excellence that people trust it completely...demonstration in a store becomes unimportant to MOST people at first, then eventually, unimportant to EVERYONE. For example, when Color TV was in its infancy, folks wanted to see the picture themselves because not all Color TVs were that good. Vacuum cleaners didn't always perform too well, and vacuum cleaner stores (YES, there was such a thing in the 1960s when I was a kid!) demonstrated the pick-up quality of their wares with sawdust etc. to prove performance. Today, someone would look a bit crazy if they insisted on seeing a vacuum cleaner demonstrated before they bought it...or insist on actually viewing a TV before they bought it. Today, the performance/price ratio of audio equipment is so dramatically better than it was 20-40 years ago, that it is a lot harder to buy truly bad equipment. Add to this, the abundance of online reviews that are available for most any product...and it is simply just not necessary for most people to have a performance demonstration. Audio salons are not the only casualty of "product maturity"...there are no Color TV specialists or Vacuum cleaner stores to visit either! People even buy $50,000+ cars without seeing/driving them first, because the quality of the product category has improved so dramatically over the same 20-40 year period of time. How many people bought their 1965 Cadillac without even taking a look? Today, new Cadillacs are sold everyday to folks who see them for the first time in their driveway! In sum, I am sorry to say it and "burst the bubble" of your video...but product maturity coupled with internet one-touch availability has done a lot more to put the audio salon out of business than cheap audiophiles worried about the salon owner's margins. If audiophiles had a greater fear of buying a product without a demo...the audio salons would be here. They are not afraid to buy what they trust without seeing and hearing it. It would be "nice" to go to an audio salon, but it is no longer necessary. We went to salons when we felt we had to "hear it first" AND because that was the ONLY way to buy the brands they carried. Continual product improvement and the internet changed EVERYTHING for many many more product categories than just high-end audio. "It is what it is" and it ain't goin' back!
Sorry, I think a real demo is just as important as ever. People need to stop trying to to get something for nothing. Some people even think tech replaces trying on clothes in person. You can do it, but you will end up with an inferior wardrobe.
Murphman there actually are vacuum cleaner stores and they sell hi-end vacuums! I happen to love vacuum cleaners for whatever crazy reason and there are still some similarities to audio salons you described. Keep your eyes peeled for a vacuum speciality shop. They are out there!😊
I liked Bang Olufsen equipment, my audiophile friends made fun of it and considered me foolish for the choices I made. Sure, their systems were over the top in performance, but I didn't want a system that took up a whole room in the house. So, I stopped hanging out with my audiophile buddies and upgraded on my own without consulting my "expert ears" friends.
When was the last time a reviewer said that this 4,000 dollar cartridge was a overpriced piece of garbage or a 25,000 dollar amp was no better than a 1,000 dollar amp? Every single review tries to shoehorn the word BARGAIN into these hyperbolic sales puff pieces.Thats why a couple million audio buffs said "screw this...."
Absolutely, you can also try to pair the speakers you bought for exemple with mutliple amps you have, in your rooms, with music you like and you know, much better than in a store... and sand it back for no cost if don't like the product ;)
Showrooming is the future. Brands should set up zero inventory pop up stores regularly all over each country and then people can go order from wherever they want afterwards. Everybody wins
I'm 71 and just completed my final (yeah, right) 2 channel System. So I've been around the block a few times and I've watched things evolve since the late '60s. 1- To quote you: "The only one who has to like your system is you". As I went through the years, every system I put together was the best I could afford at the time, and funny how each was always the best sounding (until the next). 2- I have fond memories of hanging out at dealers drooling over eqpt. Such as the Shop in Cleveland where I heard Klipschorns for the 1st time (1976). The dealer knew I could not afford them but was more than happy to demo them for me. He helped educate me on the efficiency of horns and I was sold. In 1989 I finally bought a pair of Klipsch Forte IIs that I still use today (now a bit modified). That salesman may not have gotten the Klipsch sale, but he did get the sale of a Thorens TD-160 w/ Shure V15III which I'm still using today, which was a big splurge for me in 1976. I was paying for quality, his time, and an EDUCATION. 3- People failed to realize how valuable the knowledge these small stores were able to share. Such as why a speaker power rating was useless. These guys could quickly set you straight that you can do more damage by overdriving a 20w amp than with a 100w amp that has plenty of headroom for the louder passages. 4- These same shops once they realized I was someone who'd return were usually more than happy to give me a discount. 5- I Totally agree that the biggest damage to smaller dealers was the internet. But I can't blame the consumer totally. We're dealing with a commodity item. If I walk into a store and want a Yamaha RX-Axxx, and I'm not abusing the Salesman's time with demos, I see no reason not to ask for a discount because we both know it will be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper online. Now if he's adding value by showing me the shortcomings of a particular amp and explains why another would be better then we're talking a different situation. 6- Most recently (2021) in putting together my latest 2 channel for my retirement home. I decided to go with McIntosh. A local dealer showed me the MA252 and MA352 integrated amps. Because I was able to demo them in the store, I decided on the MA352 for several reasons he helped explain - more power, capacitance adjustment for the phono, EQ among others. he added value and I paid for it. Boy did I pay for it. LOL 7- Shortly after, I discovered that the MA352 had 2 independent outputs and that 2nd output could be used for a 2nd power amp. Here the dealer wasn't as helpful. I had to calculate the power levels vs Db levels for each set of speakers and figure out how to balance them. I put in the order for an MC275 with the dealer anyway, unfortunately, Mcintosh was back-ordered. After a year's wait, I happened to walk into Magnolia and asked if they had an MC275 in stock. They check the computer and found one in NY. I did not feel guilty canceling the order and asking for a refund of my deposit. 8- There is nothing wrong with asking if they have any B stock or open box items for a discount So if you're curious about the final system I'm running: - TT1 - VPI Prime with Ortofon 2M Black LVB using the McIntosh Phono input - purchased as B stock from an online hi-end dealer - big savings - TT2 - Thorens TD-160 with Shure V15III ($276 for the setup in 1976) using Project Tube Box S2 phono preamp (open box discount from Crutchfield). - Amps 1- Mcintosh MA352 output 2 feeding McIntosh MC275 - Niles Speaker control box to balance the 2 amps/4speakers Speakers 1 - JBL L100 Classic - purchased online from a high-end dealer for a small discount - These are running off the 300w output 1 of the 352 Speakers 2 - Klipsch Forte II - running off the MC275. Niles speaker control lets me balance the speakers if I want the 2 outputs running at the same time, it will also let me mix and match. The MA352 allows selecting output 1, 2, or both. The results are awesome but we need to refer back to statement 1. LOL
I love everything about this video except for the title. I wish you had called it "Audiophiles killed High-End Audio SHOPS" High end audio is alive and well! 👊 Thanks for making this video and I will continue watching.
Consumer ignorance killed high end audio. Full stop. Even today, consumers are still satisfied with inferior MP3 audio, which was functionally obsolete about 15 years ago, when memory card storage became cheap. In 2021 every consumer sound device should be playing 96 KHz lossless audio. Instead, consumers are satisfied with MP3 audio that is inferior to CD audio from 40 years ago. Ignorance is bliss.
The well off folks who could afford going to decent shops preferred being cheapskates and now complain about the disappearance of said shops. Small town in northern Germany. The center had decent shops, bakery, groceries , fish shops, cheese shops and such, run by people you knew.you had everything in walking distance. Then the super markets and discounters turned up and replaced them. Then the discounters moved to the outskirts with lower rent forcing everyone to go there by car. The center now has some shops selling cheap junk and not a place where you’d like to go for a walk or meet neighbors like it was before. You could say every cent or dollar saved contributed to the ugly end result.
I've been a salesperson and a manager of 'mid-fi' shops. The costs are substantial for having a place to compare products. Commission sales are a hell to make a living. If you are standing around after dusting the shelves, desperations sets in. The one item that always stuck in my craw, quite often the lesser priced product KILLED more expensive gear. I always sought to give good value and it ran contrary to my principles to do otherwise.
I got out of high end audio about 7 years ago and frankly I wish I had done it much sooner.I would usually spend about 10k a year making changes. I would sell off a few pieces and try something new and so the merry-go-round would continue.I would always buy new, keep it a year or two and sell. I never got into the WIRE game as frankly I just never really heard an improvement. Sometimes it would sound different but I don't know about better. Let's be honest too, the price of high end audio is insane . Some of the things that really turned me off of high end was dealing with very very opinionated people and arrogant attitudes. People would really be upset that I didn't think WIRE "A" was any better than dollar a foot generic stuff. It would really set some off. I just thought they were crazy.
one important thing not too many people are looking into is that having STORES to go into also creates new audiophiles. and im pretty sure a great way to start selling more is to increase the amount of potential customers. this is exactly how I got into audio. im 26, usually do my shopping online. I went into a local dealer of tv and audio when I needed a tv. I asked about a sound bar and a sub and the sales person showed me. he then went on to show other speakers and let me hear the difference between $500 klipsch rp 600 and $15,000 k horns and everything in between, knowing full well I wasn't going to buy them, and probably not even gonna buy the 500's. he still got my commission on the tv, and opened up an entirely new world for me. I didn't even know $5000 speakers existed at the time. So what did I do when I was ready to upgrade and purchase new speakers and get into that world? I went right to amazon and said FU to that dealer! lol, just kidding, I go to that dealer for mostly everything I need, unless its far cheaper on amazon or im looking for a niche product they dont have. my point was this is how a lot of people got into speakers and audio back in the day. Not all high end dealers only sell high end audio products. A lot of them, like the one in my town sell everyday shit that people need from tv's to hdmi cables to Sonos crap etc etc. and getting people into the store for small stuff like that, gives the sales person an oppurtunity to show off some cool shit that not even a young tech savvy guy like myself new even existed. Now im sitting in my house with a tube amp and some heresy's listening to two channel audio for hours every day. the more people that you can show that this stuff exists, the more people are going to potentially sell to, and the more audiophiles there will be.
also, i dont see this misconception that buying from a dealer is more expensive anyways? that same dealer I was talking about sells on amazon as well, and any product I look up they have the cheapest price on amazon, tied with 2 or 3 other companies in the country that all offer free shipping. so if I want to buy online I can from that dealer (through their website or amazon) and if I want to learn more about a product I go in learn then buy, and the price is the same whether I go in or buy online.
The dealers have also played a huge part in putting themselves out of business. The thing that always pissed me off when I walked into high-end dealers was the fact they RARELY ever had their products with prices on them. They all assumed if you were walking in their store, that price was no option to you. You would have to say upfront what your budget was. F that and f those guys. I'm not made out of money but I have always spent a great deal on my audio equipment. I started buying online 15 years ago and haven't looked back.
On top of that, I noticed that no matter my budget, the salesman always seemed to recommend the most expensive pieces within the budget. Even when there were reviews touting how good something less expensive (that they carried) was, they always argued for the more expensive piece. Made me feel that they were not interested in helping me create the best system within my budget constraints, rather they wanted me to select the most expensive system within the budget. This of course also ignores the snake oil sales pitches to get me to buy something with a really high profit margin.
I've bought mostly second hand gear. You get to demo it, usually talk to an enthusiast and not a salesperson. And it costs far less ;p The downside - you have to wait around checking online or even go through a lot of gear depending how fussy you are.
Here’s why I stopped going to the only brick and mortar store I’d been going to for almost 20 yrs. About a year ago, I was looking for new speakers. So, between my only local store and a few friends who owned a good amount of different brands of speakers, I auditioned close to 15 pairs of speakers from different brands going up into the $15K range. Then it happened. I heard a pair of Tekton Pendragons at a buddy’s house, and knew they were for me. At only approximately $2K, I called up Eric Alexander from Tekton (who still picks up the phone), bought em, got em, set em up, and I love em to this day. I went back to my brick and mortar store to buy a new almost thousand dollar cartridge, and I happened to mention I’d bought a pair of Tekton speakers, only to be belittled and practically yelled at by them saying things like, “Oh, Tekton, the new Bose” and, “You made a huge mistake. Return them”. after them finding out Tekton’s return policy online while I was standing there basically being abused verbally by people whom I’d bought many thousands of dollars worth of gear from over the years. Needles to say, that was the last time I stepped foot in this store, and I feel justified not supporting said store any longer after seeing their true colors and agenda. These were people I thought I’d become extremely friendly with, and they treated me like a friend and almost like family for many years, but it ends up I was only a dollar sign to them in the end. I guess they were just doing their job, but c’mon now...
Hey how would you feel if your meal ticket told you one day it wasn't paying you? I bet you'd be pretty irate about it too! You're just a wallet on legs that walks in to them.
Paul Frederick My meal ticket is my job, which I’m not on commission at, and I’d never yell at a customer anyway. I also would’ve continued to be their $1,000 cartridge buying meal ticket that day, if it weren’t for the being yelled at thing. I also used to hang out at my sales guy’s house, and had dinner with he and his wife numerous times, hence the almost like family part, but at least friends. I understand what your saying though. Emotions can run high, especially when your business has almost fully changed from HiFi sales to mostly A/V installation. The entire situation is and was unfortunate. Have a great rest of your weekend, Paul! 🎶👍🔊
@@NickP333 at the end of the day money can have a funny impact on relationships. I really try not to let it get involved. But maybe they were just having fun? Sometimes folks can take jokes too far. I've seen people get bent way out of shape there too.
You wake me up. I am one of those people who used to go to the store, listen to gears, make up decision, then go online and make the purchase. Your words also remind me when I was young, I saw a picture of Bill Bruford, who wears a T shirt written "Support Your Local Group", I was not aware of what that mean. Now I understand.
It's important to factor in the wage stagnation that's occurred over the past few decades. People will always look for deals when it's the only option they can afford.
@@scrambaba I define afford as "making only so much money and having other things that must be paid for first" (housing, bills, medical care, kids, etc., etc.).
People looking for a deal is typically isnt a person looking to not pay what it's worth it's that they want to pay what it's worth. a lot of people know the value of a product and they just hate ro pay inflated prices. Classically B&M fleeced people so folks turn to online dealers. I'm into car audio and Personally I don't miss retail stores they gouged and tried to push products you didn't want. On top of that in store demos are pretty useless it could sound great in the store take it home that's very likely different and it may sound not so hot in your listening area. It's all a crap shoot no matter where you get it.
When I was a little kid I remember going to hifi and home theatre stores with my dad and having my mind blown listening high end speakers in the demo rooms. It’s a happy memory I think of from time to time and I’m thankful that my dad passed this hobby onto me.
I don't think it helped dealers very much that they tried to sell us magic mpingo disks to put under our turntables, $2000 cables, $10,000 triode amps, and lots of mystical bullshit stuff that did absolutely nothing but suck money from wallets. Not the only factor, but just one of them. You've mentioned others. Personally, I was disillusioned when I learned that the $100 speaker I heard in the store only cost $20 to make.
I opened a store in 2010 and found the buying public buying online, wanting deals and eventually had to convert the store to vinyl new and preowned. No matter what I carried, it wasn’t enough or they would shop online to save a few dollars. You are spot on!
Back in the day, we needed to see it, listen to it, ab with other items etc etc before We could buy. So we needed a store for that. Nowadays, we can watch UA-cam, read 100,000 reviews online, and usually, from other experiences, we could easily order something that’s going to be the best our money can buy, without even having a Listen ourselves. Only reviews we could read back then, were in a magazine, and that’s usually just 1 or 2 reviews from the editor or sometime the audio company paid to say something about their product. Now we get thousands, even millions of online actual first hand experiences with the item, and their take on the item. That’s helps us to determine which item to buy for ourselves.
I felt like I just watched 7 min 12 sec of the Carl Segan of high-end audio. So deep about nothing really. Which actually is a pretty good reflection of high-end audio for many these days.
Dunno about anyone else, but when I used to go to stereo stores and attempted to "audition to my heart's content", I soon found a salesman hovering beside me making it clear that my heart's content and HIS heart's content did not coincide if I wasn't writing a check or signing a credit card receipt. Never mind that most places had an extremely limited selection of anything that wasn't mass-marketed, and the brutal reality is that the dealership experience offered only a very small opportunity to truly try out different manufacturers' gear against each other (unless, of course, you were listening to stuff made by the big boys, in which case it pretty much didn't matter where you went. I think high end audio was essentially killed off by home theater, and to a great degree rescued, if anything, by the internet. When HT exploded, the interest in stereo-only equipment essentially evaporated. And it's only in the very recent past, with niche audio manufacturers selling direct or through online distributors, combined with the explosion of "experts" of varying credibility/capability creating masses of critical, educational, and comparative content, that the popularity of high end audio appears to have re-emerged.
Excellent post, totally agree. I think there is a new 'hi end but not hi end' enthusiast group growing strongly with head phones and great gear at sane prices easily available on the 'net. Hi end was always and still is elitist.
My personal experience is this... I bought lo-fi and mid-fi for a long time because that's all I could afford. Dealers sold me stuff, but there was never any support with it. I was never the "prime customer" for them buying $300 - $1,500 pieces. So to me there was no difference who I bought from, no value add. Now that I can afford hi-fi, I bought my McIntosh gear new from music direct and my VPI online from upscale audio. I don't feel bad about it. If you don't invest in your customers when they are small customers they will never become big customers. Just one person's opinion. Also, upscale's online service was excellent.
I think you are missing the bigger picture. While everything you said is true, compared with say 40 years ago, there is no hifi market today. It is only the 40ish and older clients keeping this industry alive whether with new purchases or buying used models of kit they lusted after as kids. The younger generations are simply not interested in separate hifi components and in my experience even when you demonstrate the fantastic sound gain moving from their mobile phone or Bluetooth speaker, it still means nothing to them. That for me is mainly why there are hardly and brick and mortar stores anymore. The mass market that once supported them simply isn’t there anymore. There are still some great budget components and plenty of telephone number price ticket high end items but the mass mid market of hifi in my view has gone forever. Sad but true.
That is only partially true. The average person has access to much higher quality audio at a much lower price than anything we could have dreamed of 40+ years ago. The $49 google nest mini sounds better than most of the compact sound systems of the 1970s and ’80s. The Apple home pod offers insane audio quality for less than $200. Zero hook up. You can ask either to play almost any song you can think of. You can even stream high-quality audio if you are willing to pay for it. You need zero audio knowledge for either product. Most young people,( under 30) buy a horrible sounding soundbar when they get their first nice home or apartment. Anyone that cares anything about sound quickly upgrades to a receiver and a minimum of a5.1 system with a subwoofer. Most understand that is what they need long before they buy one. A large percentage of teenagers and twenty something's own Record players . How in hell did that happen? They start out with cheap record players because of cost and Simplicity. They quickly start looking for better equipment as they grow older and have a real income. I won't even go into the media quality of Tvs and computers. Both play music. There were $99 computer speakers that produced insane quality audio 20 years ago. Most truly high end audio today honestly has gone down hill. It is more about marketing and perception than true audio quality. The mid 1990’s to mid 00,s is when pure audio quality seemed to be at it's peak.
I’m old enough to remember the golden age of Hifi. I was only a child, but my most distinct memories involve pushy, condescending salesmen trying to make a fast back. And for the privilege, you got a 20-40 percent mark up! As for innovation, the reality is that hi end audio hit the law of diminishing returns a looong time ago. You implicitly acknowledge this by stressing aesthetics in your reviews. And honestly, don’t the internet direct retailers like Schiit do a fair amount of innovation? The market evolved. No one is to blame.
Thank you! Rarely do we see content from someone that is knowledgeable, not overhyped, eloquent and has common sense. I agree with most of this and saw a similar dynamic starting in the musical instrument space over forty years ago. I worked for a small independent store that offered brands, not usually the big 3 or 4, that were a good value, but not overhyped. We put the real discounted sale price on the products and didn’t barter. While some appreciated that, most could not understand that we wouldn’t “deal” on the already discounted price. We had regular customers that came in because of our relaxed atmosphere, fairness, customer service and knowledge that would go to a competitor and buy because they got a “deal” on an over-inflated list price and had a set of strings thrown in only to realize that our displayed price was actually cheaper. 🤷🏻♂️ Fortunately, he was able to stay in business(until he retired and sold his inventory) because of the frugality, honesty, great customer service and a knack for nailing down solid brands before they were well known. To my knowledge there isn’t another store like it in my area, period.
This is a fantastic and logical explanation… thank you! I have had the experience of working in the Cycle Trade and I’m also an audiophile. I previously worked in the musical instrument trade and watched that collapse during the early 2000:s. It reached a point where you got sick of people saying “but it’s only £££, on line” and when you try explaining how a business works they just didn’t want to know… every word and opinion you have put forward is true! There are a few really good hifi stores still in business and these a few and far between, this is a shame as the knowledge and experience of the staff and ability to see and hear a product is invaluable! Personally I would never buy blind and respect the margins dealers need to keep the doors open. Next time people are shopping, spend some time talking to a staff member! By all means ask if there is a deal to be done but… don’t squeeze them to hard and look at the outlay and commitment they have made so you can shop there! Perhaps then we may have a store network once again? Also consider where you are going to take something if it goes wrong?
i have worked in a hifi store and get to try out all the gear and cables. i just built a speaker cable with duelund wires with viborg bananas for about $100 and it kills the $1000 cables. my humble $5k system kills the $20k systems I used to sell.
Thank you Andrew for addressing an issue that is not only related to high-end audio but also to pretty much everything we buy these days. Keep up the awesome work you been doing.
Most people in Australia buy second hand due to the absurd costs of buying new speakers,you hear speakers in USA costing $600 but the cost in Australia would easily be $3000...
Because in Australia the sole importer of the audio gear can and does mark up the price to make a huge profit. It's a monopoly were if you want the imported product you have to pay their mark up. We call it the Australia tax.
I think the reason for the decline of audio is different. We did not use to have a million cable channels, computers, the Internet, smartphones and game consoles. People have more choices in entertainment and this has diluted the amount we listen to music. Another reason is the decline of radio in the US, especially the decline of Top 40. There is no real top 40 in the US anymore, and there really is no bestselling album chart. There still is in the UK because of fewer radio stations. Probably because of this, the British still like to listen to their "tunes." Even car hi fi has been in decline for a long time. People spend part of their time watching UA-cam. MTV is essentially dead. Artists do not make music videos any more. In conclusion, people are not spending as much time listening to music.
I like the perspective but suggest we have to go back a little in Time. High End Audio was doing well and thriving until Apple invented iTunes and the iPod came into existence. At that point people decided that convenience and the ability to walk around with Thousands of their songs with immediate downloads killed the Hi-Fi industry. The 2nd big hit was the from 2008-2015 where the economy in the United States was horrible and people just didn't have the money to spend 30k on a new system pushing people again towards lower end commercial equipment. Many of the brick and motor stores died. The final gut punch was Amazon. The reinsurrgence of Headphones/Dac-Amps, etc. today is a direct response to that and the lack of money that people did not have but were looking for a cheaper alternative to full-blown equipment. Just my $0.2.
I hate to say it but this is the root of the problem. Once I got my first iPod I started listening to music while going for walks in the neighborhood. Rather than spending time in the house listening on my stereo, I'd rather go walk for exercise and listen while walking. My current iPhone can hold so much music that I have most of anything I'd ever want to listen to with me. It's something that was just inconvenient before the iPhone/iPod age. I still have a great audio system at home but it doesn't get used like it used to (only when I have to be inside and can't get outside).
@@3Cr15w311 thanks for reaching out and commenting. I totally agree with you. I put a 1TB card in my Android phone and I load nothing but WAV, FLAC and 16x44.1 as well as alot of music that I have that is 24x96hz or better. I bought a pair of FIIO FH5 IEMs and with a little EQ I am in heaven. Stuff sounds great! Not as good as my home system but then I can't take my home system with me to the beach!
There's nothing wrong with convenience. Most young people need to be mobile and the idea of taking a couple of hours to sit in a sweet spot and listen to gear eludes them. I'm right there with them, too. I'd rather be listening to my favorite music than missing out because I couldn't do it in a pristine listening environment.
And even people who can afford a $30K system, can't afford a large house with a large dedicated listening room. Speakers need to be 10 feet from the nearest wall aren't worth much if you have to make do with a 10 foot by 10 foot listening room. Or maybe you have a 20 foot by 20 foot room, but it can't be a dedicated listening room, instead being your living room, dining room, and listening room. Either way, headphones, and/or small speakers with a small amp, are the obvious solutions.
Collectors with a lot of money tend to ruin everything they touch for the regular guy. Some things would be record collecting, custom and hot rod cars, certain knife collecting items, book collecting etc. I can accept it but I despise it.
Straight to the point~ Andrew Robinson is one of the most straight forward, honest reviewer on UA-cam. Audiophiles did NOT kill High-End Audio. High- End Manufacturers KILLED or are killing the industry somewhat. Manufacturers understand and are fully aware of the demand and supply of the audio consumers. And the audio industry is STILL at its infancy. The reason I say it’s still at its infancy is because of the technology involved in high-end audio. [ I rather NOT get into the technological advances in audio ] but people who have been and has been an audiophile for some time know that EXPENSIVE or state-of-the-art audiophile equipments are NOT high-end. [ nor do I want to get into the system I have owned to make any justification of my experiences. ] Vintage equipments from the 70’s still sound as good as the one’s coming out presently. I have heard much older equipment or even some DIY setups that sounded better if not on par with today’s high-end system. To get back to the subject, high-end manufacturer’s are killing the industry, if not, helping its demise & not creating any excitement in the industry . [ Audiophiles create the excitement] Later technologies like DACs or streaming devices have improved, [ but in my opinion], they are not helping the industry. Some of these devices rely on good [& good marketing, example: 24-48-98,000 - 164,000 tap-length-filter] but NOT BETTER technologies to achieve their end goal of ‘profit ‘ I fully understand that in business, profits help fuel and enhance the industry, but in most cases of HIGH-END audio or in particularly in this discussion, NOT audiophiles, but the so called, High-End audio manufacturers are hurting the industry. High-end manufacturer’s have no clue or idea how they can recruit new people or young people into the industry because that is NOT their end-goal. WATCH [ RMAF-2018 ] creating the future of the HIGH-END. These people in the industry have NO CLUE in the future of HIGH-END audio. Neither do. There’s a brand, many, I mean many audiophiles worship, and for the sake of this brand, I’ll just leave the first letter of it. The M brand. It’s been around for a very long time. It’s what some people call, very “High-end.” There equipment cost a considerable amount. It’s all made in the U.S.A. But their technology hasn’t changed much. Rather, I think there are many other companies that build better systems at a lesser price or even at on par to their system for the price. The fact is, even the mature or the much established audio manufacturers don’t invest heavily into R&D to improve the technology that will inevitably help the industry. Like I mentioned, 70s audio systems sound as good as systems we currently have today. [ of course this hobby of ours is very subjective ] It tells you, the technology hasn’t changed much, but rather how the manufacturers market their products as being justifiable. After spending tens of thousand into this hobby, not to mention [ snake oil products ] I don’t even want to get into that, it’s the justification of the value and the performance that’s at stake for the future of high-end audio. I do give props to passionate audio manufacturers that, that justify their products in performance for their value. High-end manufacturer’s dictate ALL aspect of the industry AND most importantly, its value. NOT audiophiles. We are merely waiting for that, that great product, that justifies their performance.
I stopped going to local Hifi stores about 10 years ago when I experienced salespersons not helpful to justify the margin I am paying them. Instead I make purchases online with lower costs and no need for unpleasant salespersons.
Just imagine how many such "clients" he served before he wasn't too helpfull for you . My colege goes from store to store, asks to show gears out of box and finally he finds and pays best offer for it in net. He alweays requiers to sell him in sealed box. I was quite pleased when he lost much money with unfair net seller. It do not working for him any more because he is recognized by sellers everywhere
Terry, that’s exactly why brick and mortar can’t survive. On-line companies have no overhead, inventory, salespeople, and insurance! All you need in your scenario is garage or room space. In fact, in your response you may not even need to store any product’s. You wait for an order in one hand, call the manufacturer and have the product dropped shipped. Who is able to compete on that level. Just something to think about. Cheers, Chris
I'm a bit lost, is this issue of "no more stores" an American thing? Here in Melbourne, Australia, we have at least 5-6 reputable dealers. Also, yes, as someone who works in a store - Stop thinking I owe you a deal. Seriously. I'm not doing to discount an item to bastardise the product and devalue it. You'll pay what it's worth, and yes, sometimes, I think that's less than the listed price. Also, part of making yourself worthy of a deal on a system is partly on you. There, I said it. I'm not contracted to do you a favour and help you out with a price because you walked into my store. I appreciate your business, but that doesn't mean I'm going to bend over for it. Your business doesn't help me if it doesn't make my store money. Entitlement is often way too high. Another point - over here, margins also are never higher than 30%, so I suppose the margin issue is definitely not one here, if anything, our margins are super slim because there's always industry players discounting online, which everyone else who is online needs to match. I'm surprised to hear of stores selling at a 70% margin, that's INSANE.
haha in melbourne too. the specials come for me when building a system with a reputable dealer. you get three pieces of kit of course you should get a deal. its like buying something anywhere we have added a lot of mysticism to it.
Geez, I’m surprised that the margin is only 30 percent. Seems to be such a large mark up on products from USA and England. Schiit, jbl and Klipsch seem to be greatly marked up by distributors in Australia even accounting for exchange and import.
What killed hi-fi for me was the loudspeaker industry and their obsession with speakers that were difficult to drive! This meant having to buy high powered amplifiers and the costs went up. I remember reading reviews on the best speakers only to read that it needs an expensive amp. I therefore kept my very efficient wharfedales until they died with an inexpensive NAD amplifier.
From my past experience i felt that stereo sales people were vultures. Very pushy and with a masters degree in bs. Many worked on commission so they had to be this way. It was a big turn off for me. It was rare that you actually found someone that didn't want to sell you the world who actually listened and helped you find good gear for a good price. On the internet you don't have to deal with this.
Another issue is the manufacturers themselves, not driving buyers to their representing brick-and-mortar dealers to experience their goods. A few brands did and still do, but the majority didn't.
IMHO the mid and lower high end market has dried up. Now true audiophile systems are prohibitively expensive. These are the systems that high end stores like Harvey's made their living on.There are still brick and mortar stores for super expensive high end equipment. I have McIntosh equipment (purchased at Harvey's) that I bought in the 90s. Now I want to get a new redbook player. The Macs "start" at 5.5 grand. Kids today aren't going to spring for that kind of money. I don't know any young audiophiles. I was an audiophile at 12 years old. Put my first system together at 19 years old. Is there even any audiophile worthy popular music today. I haven't heard any.
I think audiophile systems are cheaper than ever. As a dumb reference you can put together a Sterophile A system together from probably well under 10k, maybe even 5k... I do agree that 99.5% of the population couldnt care less about good sound. I have no audiophile friends...
There's more audiophile worthy music than ever today, due to the internet. It might not be all over the radio or whatever counts as the new radio today. But it is more accessible
We stopped buying because: 1. As tech grew more commonplace, so di the need for the manufacturers, even those who "future-proofed" their equipment, (I'm talking to you, Anthem Statement D2), did such a poor job of it, they expected you to pay thousands for another box just to get better HDMI, or DACs or something. 2. Internet sales would allow you to buy these later tech toys at a discounted price, since you were being forced into begrudginly buying something new to keep up with technology in some cases, why not try to save as much as you could, when left stinging for paying a high price for the thing you are now replacing due to obsolescence 3. Some dealers would not stand behind the products they sold, or they misled people into buying things they didn't need 4. Dealers steered people into buying snake oil due to the high profit margins instead of buying common sense equipment Just my personal take on the situation. So, you can try to blame the audiophile, but we were trained by the greedy industry
I used to work in stereo stores around Pittsburgh. The reason I had to get out of the business was home theater. That's what killed 2 channel high-end audio around here.
While I agree, I went to a local hifi store the other day. I understand they have expenses. But they had their products marked up about 100% over what I could find for it online. I'd like to support my local dealer but that's a lot out of my pocket to just support them. That and the aggressive sales tactics which no one likes
But does it really matter that showrooms are disappearing? I'll be up front. I am too young to have been part in the "golden age" of the hifi hobby. I'm really just now getting interested. As a result, I'm spending a lot of time on UA-cam learning about it from reviewers like yourself. I've heard time and again in their and your videos, that listening to equipment in a showroom does not actually tell you how it will sound in your home space with your other equipment hooked up to it. So, it seems to me that at the end of the day it will always be and has always been somewhat of a guessing game. So does any of this really matter all that much? Granted, there is value in having a place you can go to rub elbows and ask questions to people who are interested in the same things you are. But, is that enough to justify paying the inflated prices that come with maintaining brick and mortar spaces? I don't know the answer. I'm just thinking out loud based on what I've been hearing over the past few months trying to wrap my head around this hobby and how I should approach it as a newbie.
I disagree. When a good amp Cost more than my truck, well you get the picture. If equipment was less expensive they might sell more. So I blame it on the manufacture. You offer a good argument. You actually answered your own question. It’s too expensive, period. Those who have that kind of cash, great, but they are not the majority of your customers base. A lot of us barely make 60 thousand a year and that’s why we look for deals, we have to. I buy used from those who have the cash to throw away. There is enough good gear to recycle till the end of time so if the manufacturers go out of business too bad. They were good designers but poor businessmen.
Well said, plus by being a guy who builds audio equipment as a hobby, I have had the opportunity to have a look inside some of this so-called high-end equipment. That $10,000.00 amp "may" have $500.00 (or less) worth of parts in it.
My problem with "High-End Audio" is the question of whether or not a pair of say Polk L800 actually has $6,000 dollars worth of technology and real value in them or not. Based on your review of them, and your overall impression that they function well ONLY in a narrow operational environment, I'm just not sure that products in that and higher price ranges aren't exceeding the point of diminishing returns thing that you have also talked about. I also wonder if a lot of High end audio is not priced the way it often is (Sky high) at least partly because a small subset of 'purists' are willing to pay for the privilege of being one of few to own 'product X.' Both of these factors really make high end audio extremely difficult if not unreachable for the average working person with a pay-day to pay-day wage.
What you said speaks to my heart. I lived for stereo components and speakers since a young child. I invaded my older brothers rooms, took apart and put back together their stereos while they were out doing what teenagers did in the early 80s. I built my own home and car stereos once I was a teen even though the only shop we had in my small town was Radio Shack I could do my best with Realistic and Optimas gear. I moved out of town and eventually got a job at a local store owned by two brothers. The store was a legacy in the town and offered an incredible shopping experience with state of the art demo rooms and we prided ourselves with the product knowledge and time, effort and care we would put into everything from an accessory sale to a whole house audio/video plan proposal. It was the funnest and most rewarding job I could dream of. It lasted nearly 14 years. I had started in 1999 and I left late 2012. I had started a family in 05 and had my second child in 09. It was getting to the point that it wasn't rewarding anymore because everyone that seemed to come in refused to see the value of our time, efforts and experience. They felt entitled to a deal but I don't dare feel entitled to compensation for the consultation i gave them for fear of alienating the prospect. We operated on a 40 point margin on most of our products which is not outlandish whatsoever. People would say they don't like pushy salespeople when the salesperson simply asks for the sale. What do they think the salesperson is there for, to entertain and educate them for free? Anyway I saw the writing on the wall and left for a more lucrative sales position in a different market. But I sure miss those days of watching my client turn on their new setup and seeing that huge unavoidable grin on their face. It was like magic and I was the magician. I see some of my old customers from time to time and they ask me "Why did that store close down?' "It was so awsome." I ask them why they think it closed. Most say that the public didn't realize that the value extended beyond just what the product purchased was and they only looked at the bottom dollar was, instead of the over all value of the shopping experience and services were. Those times are gone now and they don't come back. I'm blesses to be able to have those experiences and friendships made at that time of my life and even more blessed to better support my family with what I do now. Which I would not be as good at if I hadn't had that time working at an awesome hifi store those nearly 14 years.
This sure as hell didn't just happen to audio. Most of us are perfectly willing to trade our neighbor's middle class job for a "deal" every day of the week. The "free trade" agenda was a divide and conquer strategy, and it worked to get millions of idiots to vote to send "someone else's" job to China. Like Russian Roulette, you save on your Walmart crap, and you "win" if you aren't the one getting downsized. The exception was food production. Since we literally couldn't export all those jobs, instead we brought in immigrants to undercut the wages of Americans. The politicians that demonize those workers today are the same ones that looked the other way for decades while corporations exploited those workers without legal standing at the expense of American farm and food industry workers.
Whoa Buddy ! When I was in college I worked at a HiFi shop... equipment cost hundreds and thousands of dollars... I made $6/hour... + 2% commission (which almost never happened since i was delivery setup guy). The owner was always talking about how ... "hope we sell enough to stay in business". Audiophiles did not kill HiFi shops... the Best buys, circuit cities killed hifi shops. Guys who buy Wilson speakers and McIntosh... still buy them. But the guy who scraped and saved to buy a amp+speakers from hifi shop, instead at electronic super store... they were able to FILL den with stereo + TV from super electronics store... with some compromise on sound. It is the same reason we NO longer have dedicated Appliance stores.
Well said, Francisco, for the most part I agree with your comments. I've been in retail for a long time, and I worked at a department store; they sold very good electronics, mostly computers, and excellent jewelry. However, where was the hi fi audio equipment?
There is so much wrong about this video. Audiophiles didn't kill the dealers or the high-end. Let me state the obvious that seems to have been forgotten. Many (most?) of the high end dealers back in the 80's, at least in Austin, were complete jerks and had terrible customer service. Buying a piece of stereo equipment was just like buying a new kitchen appliance or vacuum cleaner. The only reason some of these dealers were able to stay in business for so long is because they were, literally, the only dealer in town, or maybe the state, for certain product lines. There was no used market, price lists were often mysterious, and alternative sources of information did not exist. When the internet opened up the market, and there was finally some competition, many traditional dealers suffered....and rightly so. These dealers blamed the internet and the consumer for trying to save $, and not understanding the value of their "service", instead of facing the reality that they needed to change their business model, build relationships, and offer something more that what they did before. Some dealers got it....some didn't. The next most obvious change was the emergence of custom integrated A/V systems and home theater. Wealthy prestige oriented consumers did not want high-quality 2-channel audio. Instead, they wanted in-wall speakers and touch pads in every room, plasma TV's, a rack of 'professional looking' electronics in a control center, and custom built 'surround sound' home theaters with projectors. If they had a pair of freestanding speakers, it was probably part of a 5.1 home theater system from B&W or Wilson in an luxury automotive paint finish. Since these consumers were spending very serious money, it's where many high-end dealers focused, and don't blame them. By the mid-2000's, people who still preferred 2-channel audio, and needed a new cartridge for their turntable, were clearly in the minority with very few options other than a handful of dealers around the country who were 2-channel enthusiast themselves (probably flat-earth people), and lovers of high qualify vintage equipment and classic turntables. Fortunately -- think situation had become better for 2-channel audio enthusiasts over past 5 years due to the decline of custom A/V and rise of high-end personal audio. Seems like those specialty 2-channel dealers, who often trade in high quality/refurbished used equipment along with new equipment (online and in-store), are doing just fine, and new ones are popping up because it has become very hip to own tubes, classic analog receivers, a turntable and boxy style speakers from 70's.
You’re bang on with your commentary.... same can be said for almost any distribution/retailer with a physical location, qualified staff, inventory and “overhead” as you’ve identified. It’s a shame but the desire to drive cost down overrides most consumers value of support in all its forms 😞
We don't need dealers anymore since we don't care about sound at all, we care about piano finish and chrome casings, and since the dealers have no clue and the manufacturers give a crap about sound quality it is completely pointless to go to a dealer. If you want good Hi-fi build it yourself.
Hi. That is one of the best videos I have seen about the state of the Hifi industry. I personally won’t buy a piece of kit without listening to it. I know a few people that will spend time in a hifi shop and decide what they want and go home and order online. That makes my blood boil.
I had this experience when shopping for an amplifier around the turn of the century. I'm in the shop listening to an amp with the salesman. There's a knock on the door and the salesman steps out of the room. He comes back shortly and asks me if I "typically play music that loud." I said 'not always but much of the time. Why?' The salesman says to me. "That was my boss. He says he's not going to sell you that amp if you play your music that loud." After stating 'your boss doesn't know the size of my room or the efficiency of my speakers.' I added. 'He's right. He's not going to sell me this amplifier or any other amplifier in his inventory.' I went down the street about a mile to another audio shop and they were only too happy to sell me one of their NAD C340 amps. Which I still own and use today. If audio shop owners were all as pompous, pedantic, supercilious and insulting to customers as this guy was it's no wonder there are no more brick and mortar audio shops.
My cousin had a brick and mortar high end store in the Phoenix area. He used to tell me many horror stories. There were so many people that would come in, spend a lot of time listening on multiple occasions. Then come back in weeks or months later, complementing my cousin on his help and knowledge, then mention that they found the item cheaper on the internet. As if they actually believed my cousin's job was to educate people, so they can buy elsewhere. They wouldn't even contact my cousin to see if he can match the deal.
I agree with everything said, except I would replace the word audiophile with "everyday-day Joe consumer who thinks its cool to have a stereo in the living room" ... those are the people looking for discounts...to be a true to this hobby you would have to have some measure of success already just to afford the equipment even if just shopping on the low end. However a $50 bluetooth speaker doesn't require a sales man nor does it make you sacrifice much of you hard earned money. If there were more consumers genuinely concerned about sound quality like they are about how their car handles, we would still have brick and mortar.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Brick and mortar never thrived on the hobbyists. It was the average consumer that came in just two or three times in a decade to buy new or replace broken pieces that kept those stores in business. No hobby industry has ever really made more than a few people a decent living. When reliable home audio got much more affordable it took the wind out of the sails (sales) of retail HiFi stores.
Or.... and it might be a crazy idea..... maybe times are changing and most if not all of these "brick and mortar" stores never really adapted to new customer needs and experiences. They kept doing the same and charging the same without providing anything new or of value for their customers. There are multiple reasons people have fled to online shopping, I don't think prices or deals is the main one.
The thing I really don't like about the high-end audio Market is that people call themselves audiophiles because they have more money. ... as if the rest of the world is excluded and couldn't possibly know as much about Sound and Music as they do. Then they go listen to some horrible record that either doesn't sound good, or they play a record they don't like just to show off how it does sound. It loses its luster and becomes more about the price and the finish on the speakers than the actual sound. As a guitarist I always tell people this, using MDF for speaker cabinets is probably Superior to solid wood or plywood but people want fancy fancy. It all comes down to room shape, your ears, and what you can afford
@@cb2000a Sometime it may be called the price of knowledge. It is pity that people who do not know try to set for people who know standards up to their poor experience - do not confuse please with poor vallet .
Well said, CARPO719. However, besides the speakers, I believe that the source; a turntable, cartridge that plays back a very good, if not excellent recording of the music is at first very important. Same thing goes with a Compact Disc, and a pre-recorded Cassette Tape. I'm not against a very well designed CD Player that's a bit expensive, but I cannot comprehend the reasoning to pay so much to the thousands of dollars for a CD Transport, for example; more than a couple that are used up to a dozen, or 20 years are far above $2000! Remember, there is not DAC inside. Whereby it is understood that the CD mechanism Laser assembly is more accurate, robust, and a Transport has specialized electronics to further REDUCE JITTER. However, at a very high cost.🔉🎵🎶
Being blessed with growing up during the silver face/wood case era, and then into the eighties, I was fortunate enough to have carried in my hands, equipment and gear, in the boxes out of brick and mortar stores, after listening for sometimes hours to a demo model. Nothing can replace the actual interaction with the equipment before you buy it. No specs sheet (but it does help), no online review, no opinion made by another can give you that one on one taste you get with actual interaction with the gear. Because let's face it, and you've said it, Andrew- as long as it sounds good to you, that's what is important. You can't really tell if you like it, from another person's opinion.
The law of deminishing returns is steeper than ever with a $3000 loudspeakers performance not too dissimilar to a $60k loudspeakers. Companies like Q Acoustics, Tekton, Revel and SVS have been a disruption. And that is a good thing.
That’s almost every industries problem right now. People are crazy about saving the last penny. They want the best for the lowest possible price. That‘s a toxic selfish attitude for a society. I do buy online and sometimes I do buy used (especially in Hifi) but I would never go to a dealer, try their stuff and get counselling there only to later buy somewhere else to save another 10%. If I want to buy something and want to try it before and get counselling then if I decide to buy the product I will buy it at that store. That‘s only fair. Everyone (including me) loves a good deal but it‘s so much more satisfying to buy at a good store from a knowledgable salesperson. And this luxury costs extra. There is no shortcut. Nothing is free and good work deserves good payment.
I am luck to live in the Chicago area where we have quite a few great hifi stores. I try to support them exclusively. I have become friends with one of them and enjoy visiting the shop. These store do cater to folks with systems that start at around $7k at the cheapest. When you build the relationship you are able to borrow items to audition at home. There is no way that I would have bought my Magicos without having been able to audition them. The same goes for anything in my system. I also feel like if you are going to spend over $5k on a hifi item you owe it to yourself to find a way to audition it.
Excellent perspective Sir. As an individual who manages a large retail music store, what you are saying crosses over to our world. “Show rooming” became a new world to overcome. Interesting times for sure. Thank you for this.
BTW, This is not a "downer" just reality and this is not the only business that this applies to. WE COLLECTIVELY ARE TO BLAME. I'm 61 years old and you and I are absolutely correct. Simple economics 101. Thank you.
The consumer always wants the best value they can get. At the end of the day the more cash I still have in my pockets the better off I am. And that's just reality. It ain't never nearly enough either. But like everyone else I make due.
This is exactly why I try to support local 100%, and buy American whenever possible. All of my paradigm equipment i bought from a local shop (well, 50 miles away) and loved their service so much I went back and dropped $3,500 on a system for my mother for a Xmas present. However, I do buy used when possible as well, as this will give the seller $ to go buy what he/she wants as well.
There was no golden age. It is easier for me to access extremely high quality audio at insanely low prices (in comparison to what the same quality cost in 1975) than it has ever been. In my view, the biggest factor is that it is becoming difficult or impossible to hear any difference AT ALL between astronomically expensive audio gear and equipment available from Amazon and at big-box stores like BestBuy. Some of that is because much of the new material distributed today is overprocessed rubbish -- compressed so that its all at 99.9% loudness, recorded by amateurs singing through processing machines that "correct" their pitch (and destroy the human quality of their voice in the process), backed up by bands who are barely able to manage or in too many cases even tune their instruments. It doesn't help that high-end audio is now completely synonymous with paying exorbitant prices for "speaker cable" that CANNOT HAVE any audible differences from plain everyday zipcord used to wire lamps. Snakeoil about "audio grade power strips". Are you KIDDING ME? Con artists claiming that minor variations in the analog shape of a digitized audio signal will have any impact on audio output whatsoever. People with too much money to spend buy super-duper "high quality" 3ft HDMI cables believing that they hear a difference. The eagerness of both producer and consumer to embrace superstition like this has a great deal to do with why high-end audio is dead -- there are a shrinking number of true-believers. Audio gear, like automobiles, was always sold in a marketplace chock full of liars, charlatans, and cheats with a few honest actors mixed in. Life was always tough for those honest actors, and predatory practices of their competitors and customers alike made life more difficult for them in even in the illusory "golden age". In my view, the biggest challenge facing anyone who is truly passionate about high-quality audio is finding and supporting high-quality source material. I don't mean garage bands who think that selling their material on vinyl means that it's "high quality". I mean artists and their producers who are truly passionate about delivering the very best sound that 21st century technology can provide. I use Magnepan speakers that are nearly 40 years old. They sound better than anything I've heard since. I periodically update the rest of my audio chain. I use a subwoofer because the Maggies really can't handle the low end of synthesized music, movie soundtracks, and so on. I get virtually all my audio material from high-quality downloads using a gigabyte internet connection and decent hdmi warts. I keep my analog cables as short as possible. The audio material I enjoy in my living room every day is WAY better than it has ever been. It is MANY TIMES better than it was in the "golden age". That's good enough for me.
It is symptomatic of a larger problem with the overall music industry. Streaming has killer commercial music - musicians no longer make money from producing music. Moreover, computer produced music has killed demand for real musicians. Music is a throw away commodity. People want convenience, rather than quality. Cheap portable Bluetooth devices cater to this market.
No, streaming has not killed anything. If anything, streaming has opened up music to a HUGE population ACROSS the world, and yeah, countries other than EU and the USA do exist bdw, and thus has brought in people from backgrounds who in the earlier days may never have listened a particular artist because their CDs either don't sell in their country [ as is the case with most countries in South East Asia ], or are sold at high prices after importing them, which the average person cannot afford. The RECORD labels, have always made the lion's share of the money from album sales anyway, while exploiting the artists. There is a reason Taylor Swift fought tooth and nail to get rights to her OWN music back. As for computer generated music, please don't kid yourself. Not everyone likes EDM or its offshoots. I find a lot of whining in this video because now OTHER countries are also making audio gear at competitive prices, and the "homegrown" brands who used to charge outrageous prices cannot keep up. I see this as an absolute win though, from my PoV. If manufacturing hifi audio gear remained a monopoly of a few western companies, then people from the majority of the world would never have experienced what good quality music may sound like. And chi-fi has enabled lots of new , budding audiophiles into getting into this hobby with the sheer affordability. If only the audiophile boomer community were not a bunch of snobs who wanted to keep being exclusive and special.
I spent my entire life in the retail trade selling Hi Fi equipment. Back in the 1960s rents were affordable and margins were good. As time went on the rents started costing more and the margins were starting to drop. I was quite fortunate hat my customer base was quite wealthy. I wound think nothing when it came to doing home demonstrations and installations. Fortunately my customer base was extremely loyal but there again I didn't have competition from Amazon or Ebay but I did have the mega stores to compete with. My customers knew they could rely on me and on occasions customers would send a car round to pick me up in the evening if they had a problem. I found that if I put myself out I was rewarded and I remember on one occasion I had a customer knocking on my door as I was locking up. He had tried his luck with a store across the road from and the had refused to open the door. It was a simple problem and I walked up the road with some equipment and the man was happy. It turned out he was the Chairman of company that drilled for oil all over the world. He came into the store the next day and ordered 50 Television sets for export. The company over the road would have been sick if they had known who they had turned away. So my recipe was be nice and talk and listen to people and you get rewarded. These days the world has gone mad with upgrades and selling. You can survive in retail bricks and mortar if you won the shop and don't have to pay fro a 5 year lease and rent on top. I did have a philosophy and that was to not sell rubbish. I never sold anything that I would not have been happy with myself. I also found that selling all the high quality extras like cables and accessories helped boost my margins. People used to think that if you sold something for £500 that you would probably make £250 profit. Far from it. But I could make a good margin on extras. Jeremy Travis Formerly Teletape Marble arch London.
That's always a good idea: only sell products you'd be happy with yourself. That way you know you're selling something the customer will be satisfied with, and you can sell it with faith!
I tended to buy equipment from the stores that sold them. I bought Kyocera electronics, Magneplanars, and B&W Matrix speakers at Myer-Emco in DC, a Rega turntable at a place in Kensington, MD, Paradigm speakers from a store in Pittsburgh. But all those stores disappeared. I don't feel personally responsible for this. I wasn't one who only came to listen. In even earlier years, I never went stereo shopping unless I was planning on stereo buying. Never. I did embrace online shopping early on, though. It just made sense. In my home, those B&W speakers sounded nothing like the way they'd sounded in the store. I also found I could buy things second-hand online. That probably was the biggest difference. I'd never thought to look for second-hand equipment previously. I got to try Spendors, Spicas, different B&Ws, California Audio CD player, conrad-johnson, and other brands of equipment I would never have gone shopping for in person. I'm glad so much more is available online now. Crutchfield has become my number one source of audio equipment. Do I miss Myer-Emco and other stores? Sure. But having my listening room be the only listening room in which I audition equipment works quite well for me.
i was fortunate to live in the USA for two years ... about 20 years ago. Atlanta, Georgia. while i was waiting for my work permit i got a job at a "mom and pop" computer store at a strip mall near Marietta ... so the one day the owner was watching me chatting to a customer, then when the customer left we had an interesting chat ... he told me that I was giving the customers too much info, and that they would then leave and cross the street to some big chain called "Computer Warehouse" or something like that ... he'd even so i was a little baffled and asked him what i should do to try make them buy from us ... he said that instead of giving lots of friendly advice [and lots of info for them to take across the road to the big box store, where they bought in bulk so we could never compete on price] that I should just look at the customer's software and then take them over to one of our display computers and show them the computer and say "this is the computer you need..." Then, if they asked "but why do i need this computer?" [trying to dig for more info to take with them to the big box store] i should simply say "because it can run your software." His advice is that if they had any intention to buy from us that would be enough to close the deal. If they were only with us to milk us for the info they needed to cross the road to the big box store they would probably just leave when they realised the game was up. While his advice was 100% correct it was pretty sad that folks could be so essentially dishonest, deceitful and even devious. He'd actually been watching this for some while. I was so young and nice [and gullible] I didn't even realise this was going on. I even had a lady come in and buy several computers from me ... we refurbished second hand computers as well as custom built all new gaming computers ... and then she wrote me an email that she couldn't buy any more computers as she had more than she needed at home and at he work, but that she actually fancied me and wanted to date. She was okay looking but i had just come out of a tough break-up with a girl i had followed to USA so i respectfully declined her offer ... but said that in spite of my being on the rebound and therefore not ready to get involved again that she should continue to be bold in looking for a partner as she would be able to make some lucky guy very happy ... because too often we would rather wait for someone else to make the first move. So i met some great folks and made some good friends and learnt some important things. One of the ironies in this little tale is that the owner of the business was a senior buyer for Wal Mart ... who had set up the computer store to keep his wife busy .... on a sad note y'all will remember AOL so what happened is they launched that deal where if you subscribed to their service you got a computer free [you actually paid it off over a few years in the subscription] which put the mom and pop computer business out of business almost immediately. Fortunately I got my work permit around that time and stayed on in the USA for a little longer working for a great little software company until i returned home. So, what's all this got to do with audiophiles and sound dealers? Well, I do believe there are some similarities. At the end of the day, unless one really hates other people, we all crave a certain amount of human contact, but one of the problems of modern life is that we no longer spend our lives in villages, and meaningful human contact is less and less, and dramatically so with the arrival of new problems like COVID-19. However, I do think that at the end of the day to try use a retail dealership of any kind to overcome one's loneliness [or find a life partner] is problematic in the sense that the folks who are there are there tying to make a living, and might even be under a great deal of pressure to make sales by the owners of the business who may be under considerable pressure to pay a lot of rent. So, in conclusion, and thanks for sticking around if you have read this far, i think the real solution here might be to start a social club in your area with folks who have similar interests, for example why not have regular audiophile equipment "swap meets" etc. On a final final note, i can remember when i was just a boy [in the 1970s] one of my teachers read us a science fiction story where everyone lived separately in "pods" and their only contact with other people was through a television screen and intercom. On one level it was fascinating to imagine a future world as bizarre as this ... but on another level I do remember being absolutely horrified at how sad and lonely it seemed. Now, here we are in 2021 and that ghastly future does not seem so far away...
This is pretty ignorant of social and economic trends OUTSIDE of the audiophile community that definitely have more of an impact than audiophiles alone. Prices keep rising while wages hardly follow. Most people only care about being able to survive nowadays; so when it comes to entertainment, they generally pick what's convenient and within their budget. There's also a huge lack of knowledge in the public sphere when it comes to audio quality. "Audiophile" tiktoks are a great example of that, as they often just spread misinformation or sales reads.
The general public does not listen critically to the sound coming into their ears. Plus, best buy, circuit city... killed the market. Especially with a center channel. Your pair of speakers should create a soundstage where the center channel becomes unnecessary.
Amen. Perfection that goes way beyond the audiophile. This needs to be broadcast country-wide. Beautifully written, Andrew, brilliantly presented, and I hope it hits home with even those that claim this to be hogwash. This video speaks to so many things way beyond the scope of audio.
The council wanted to shut out local library but the community came out to protest the closure. They won and the library remained open. Empty but open.
Hi Andrew, I think you are correct in many things you say. We the customers must rethink about buying behavior, Not only in hifi but everywhere, buy meat at the butcher not in supermarket, and hifi and photo at the smaller dealer. I know the meat will cost more but then: buy a little less.
This is so on point. I live in a town that had Virgin, HMV, guitar stores, musical shops, hi-fi stores, everything and not one of them is left. Once Amazon start delivering to our country that was it. My towm is also the first to ever close down a McDonald's and a GameStop. That's how bad its gotten now. Such a shame. But alas we are human and why would I buy a guitar 300 other people tried that week for €500 when I can get a brand new one from Thpmann with free delivery for €350. Or a book or CD off amazon for half the price. We are regular people that have to spend our money wisey and every pound or two ads up.
I think your town may have bigger issues than Amazon making deliveries. I'd ask your town council what they're trying to do to keep it from becoming abandoned.
I worked for Hi fi dealer in the early eighties. Even then just about everyone wanted to bargain the price down. We also spent many hours demoing gear to guys who just wanted to "play" with the latest gear. Ok, many eventually came back to buy. Now you just click a mouse a few times and your shiny new gear arrives in a couple of days. As you say, the staff have to live. There are still physical dealers in the UK but far fewer. I guess that's just the way the world turns. I agree that we are partly to blame. I last bought my amp and CD player from dealers back in the mid nineties. Both Rega models which I still use. It's my fault too.
I think you need to mention that Home Theater played a big role in having an affect on high end audio sales. Also, please keep in mind that high end audio accounts for about 2% of all audio sales. Online sales also played a big role in what has happened. Many customers would take up a lot of time at dealers seeking advice and auditioning gear only to walk out and order the product online. I accept no responsibility for the current state of high end audio. Why? Because I have been extremely loyal to two local dealers. They both offer me a standard 10% discount and I never try to negotiate the price. I believe their existence, expertise, and quality of service is worth the small extra cost. In the event I ever have a problem or need assistance with a product, they are always there when I need them. They have both told me repeatedly how much they appreciate me as a customer and wish they had more customers like me. I’m very happy to support them. Perhaps I’m the way I am because I’m a local business owner and understand what it takes to survive I today’s market.
I guess people vote with their feet. If they were truly happy with the stores then they would have continued to support them. I buy online and in a local store. Most of the prices are pretty similar so it's largely down to convenience.
Not just in hi-fi. Too many people have no loyalty to stores or sales people in many hi-end products. They shop, use the salespeople’s time and energy to get educated, but if they can save a nickel elsewhere for the same product, original seller be damned
I live in Bangkok Thailand, the high-end audio retailer is alive and well here. These shops are filled with granite slab turntables and $1000 AC power cables, along with all the most expensive amplifiers and the rest. Thailand is not a rich country, but the folks at the top have a massive appetite for luxury goods, these customers are not trying to save money, they want the exclusive Audio Church experience.
As a former dealer and store owner myself and as someone who watches your videos and disagrees with a lot of your opinions on HiFi, you are 100% on target with what happened to stores, basically customers wanted the convenience but not to patronize the dealers with their dollars. In many cases I would have people try equipment and then go and buy it elsewhere using my expertise and store, but then buying it used. It’s not like automobiles this is a niche industry and if you don’t have enough customers who will do Win-Win business with you then there will be no stores. That’s what happened within the last decade.
Patronize the dealers? What's this medieval times? Who are you, ze artist? Them days are over pal. If your expertise is so easily co-opted by others for their own use then perhaps it isn't the commodity you think it is. The whole high end audio business is such a crock of crap anyways it stinks to the high heavens!
This is the first video of yours that I’ve watched and I’m seriously impressed, so much that I’m subscribing. I’ve been saying this to people on other products for a longtime now. People always pull up crap like, the BOM is only $xx, no one looks at R&D costs, transportation, storage, licences, staff costs and all that.
I dealt with the High End in the 1990s, and pondered making the step to being a partner with my friends in a salon. I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed it from the fringe, I solved technical problems in the shop, and at customers' homes, and I have to admit, I did not do it for the money. In fact, I made nothing. Zero. The experience, and the friendships, were what mattered. I went to CES every year back then. I had a separate business. Going to CES, I wore a Manufacturer badge. For those who have been there, this opens a completely different experience at CES. The salesmen in the booths and High End displays (these are not at the Convention Center, these are in the hotels) would spy this, and the attitude was very different. Guys, the snobbery really pissed me off. Talking retail, the shop has to make a profit. I cringed when a salesman looks down on a customer, you really cannot know the whole picture. Sometimes, that dude in jeans and a tee shirt has the means to buy what he likes. Especially if he is an audiophile, he'll figure out how to purchase the gear he knows will fit his needs. He can hear the difference, but he has a wife to answer to, hehe. But, this was year ago, times have changed. Just subscribed. Thanks, Andrew, you speak the truth. Looking forward to watching your videos. Bobby
Great hifi dealers are like great museum curators, the put things together in a way that enhance the experience. That is what hifi synergy is all about. Most hifi dealers that still exist focus on the uber high end as that is the end of the market where the customer is prepared to pay for the dealer’s expertise. Our pursuit of the deal has lead to us buy individual products at a better price that work together to produce an inferior sound than if we had a good dealer on our doorstep. The result... switching component more regularly and spending more money. A good dealer said to me recently, how many times do you want to upgrade this product before you get it right! Welcome to the future, I guess I will see you online at the next virtual art exhibition as I doubt many of us want to pay the price of entry to visit a real one!
High-end audio is on the rocks because the differences between high-end and mid-fi aren't shockingly discernible in many cases. Cynical expoitation of customer ignorance, through insane prices on cabling, power conditioners and other silly audio mysticism, is another reason. The term "audiophile", which should imply "person intensely interested in sound quality", now implies some pseudo-religious fanaticism about audio magic.
There is a HUGE amount of mysticism in High End audio, all intended to convince consumers to pay large amounts of money for essentially nothing.
I am going to go outside and beat myself up for my part in destroying the hifi world. This is such tripe. I get Audio Mart ads for $5000 cables and $20,000 amps and $100,000 speakers and I am terrible for not feeling that I need to pay that price for differences that can be demonstrated on scopes but not heard by anything but bats. I have good equipment that was built to last, which is great because I could never afford to replace it. HiFi is now a rich mans bragging game, not a sound game and I applaud those who have the good ears and tell you about great sounding affordable stuff. You need to notice that the real interest for the masses is music that comes to a cell phone and goes to ear pods. The high cost of the good home systems is very very influenced by how much needs to be made off of one sale as not as many people are buying. Gotta go kick my butt.
The real asshats are the people who go to brick and mortar dealers to demo stuff - find what they like, and then go home and purchase from some other online dealer. That is just downright sleasy.
What contributed to killing high end is the ridiculous prices consumers are asked to pay for "high-end" gear. Even when many of these manufacturers moved to China in the 1990's to save on production costs, those savings were never passed on to the consumer. Audiophiles are indeed dinosaurs and I don't see millenials forking over thousands of dollars for audio gear. They are quite content with listening to music from their iphones. Make it a more financially accessible hobby and maybe things will change.
Things have changed already! Speakers are more affordable than ever before. The savings have been passed in the entry level - mid tier segment. You can buy a decent set of speakers of $200, and there are plenty of amps ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars. You can build a great little system under $500 and that's affordable compared to most other hobbies. Ultimately, most people don't give a care about "hi-fi" quality sound. Even ages ago people were content with small crappy radios with tinny little speakers. Throughout the years people used boomboxes and portable CD speakers, none of which sounded great. So phones and bluetooth speakers are just the continuation of that. Heck, there's even a case for soundbars bringing an acceptable "home theater" experience for not much money or fuss. It's just that decades ago, people weren't advertised to as much. Things were built to last. These days you buy a system and immediately want to get something else because your internet feed is bombarded with "informative reviews" hyping up the next best thing. So yeah, things are cheaper than ever these days but also more disposable.
In my perspective, "money" killed the audiophiles high end audio space. The average salary have not been increasing with the global inflation rate for the last 30 plus years which means consumers have less money to support and buy audiophile gears. Which to be honest we're all very lucky to be a part of this luxury hobby. Additionally, the declining value of the US dollar also means stuff in general just costs way more than before. I bet most of the people who say "back in the days, audiophiles were better" are consumer that was fortunate to make a living when America's dollar was stronger and the US dollar was on the gold standard (not fiat) plus that era was possible for 1 parent to make a decent living to afford everything for an entire family which is now no longer the case. Nowadays, both parents has to work to earn the equivalent income of the golden years. This, in my opinion is the catalyst for everything we're experiencing. But you are correct Andrew when you say, we all participated in the decline of the audio dealer store cause we want to pay less. Same reason why you rarely have really great mom and pop grocery stores because they cost more than Costco and Walmart. The economy moves and reacts based on consumer purchasing habits.
I look at gear made in 60/70ties and it looks as very hard to do - a lot of amall metal parts very accurate , moving mechanics, hard to form materials like wood and metal. Connections each separate wire - no any printed boards made with robots. Today products are not like that - plastic parts made in thousands from forms, boards selfmade in seconds - people do not wanrt to work 12 hours in production,, even on that with climatization . They have problems with their free time - that is why they need so many serials and channels on TV. They choose to have not to be.
For the most part, I agree with you, Slamboogie88! What you have expressed is at least 90% correct! Although Audiophile - whatever that term is actually about - or even High End was very expensive, it was still affordable. From my experience, and observation, in the late 1980s, nineteen nineties there was expensive, but very well made hi fi audio equipment.
Now we have got to pay at least two times more time, and money! That's one of the reasons why I lately purchased Vintage audio equipment in very good condition. Although an SACD/DVD Player of 2003 may not actually be called vintage, it is still well designed, and correctly built. Furthermore, that's why I bought an HK T25 turntable, Cassette Deck from 1980s; and a couple of CD Players from 1989, and 1990s. Precise, quality electronic components, and built well.🔉🎵🎶
In Japan there are brick & mortar stores stocked by manufacturers where ppl can try the stuff and buy somewhere else. The manufacturers pay for the display and they don't mind where ppl buy their products. I guess that's the new way of dealing.
i think it's a pretty good advertisement method
Sounds good to me.
It's a vicious cycle, you see it in department stores. In the last year and a half, JC Penney, Sears, Macy's and other smaller retailers are closing their doors. Years ago I bought my first nice system from a place called Woodbridge Stereo. And I spent $1100 for an integrated amp, tuner CD player, and 3 piece speaker system by a company called 3D acoustics and it was a really good quality system . But I agree with you whole heartedly. In 2007 I was laid off from my computer job making 90k so my days of dropping 2k on new goodies were over. Online has definitely hurt the retail market. What can you do. Enjoyable and thought provoking as usual. Thanks Andrew
Brick and mortar killed themselves with their snooty, snobbish, patronizing attitudes. I gave up on NYC “salons” after just a couple of visits.
100% agree. In my case, it was guitar stores in Miami in the 90s... yeah, I'm looking at you, Ace, Sim's, and Abe Music. They were septic pools in every metaphorical sense. Their destruction could not have come soon enough.
It was like they were trained to make patrons feel as small and unworthy as possible. "Kid, you're never gonna make it... what kind of guitar strings do you want? I gotta get back to dusting off this guitar case, which by the way, you'll never be worthy of." :)
I bet they all wore skinny jeans too, didn't they?
Paul Frederick, you must’ve been going to the same shops as me, because absolutely.
Canal street with the Internet of the 1980’s
Has anyone mentioned greed? Why has audio electronics not gone down in price like all other electronics? I think the fate of our hobby is in the hands of the audio engineers. We all want better sound and better prices.
Those high prices wouldn't exist if people didn't pay them....the audiophile market as more people willing to buy $100 cables and other snake oil more than any other market....the prices wouldn't exist if people didn't pay them
Well to be honest.. i used to go to brick and mortar stores but as soon as i tried to talk to them, they mostly made fun of me for even having an interest in equipment which is CLEARLY not meant for "me" so that's why i stopped going. This was not always the case mind you, but more often than not.
Never ever happened to me and never ever met any dealer like that. The attitude problem may be yours.
I was in the market for a turntable. No way I would have ordered one. I went to my local hifi store, did my homework, and bought a 'table I am happy with. I told the store owner, "Look, I want to put your mind at ease: I have every intention of buying my turntable from you. I'm not going to pump you for info and order something online..."
That paid off. The guy knows me and we have a good rapport.
redstarwraith This is exactly my mindset, I believe in building a relationship with dealers and of the five spread out dealers in my area, I picked one. It has taken over ten years of cultivation, but I remembered telling him that I wanted an all Audio Research system after hearing it, but I told him I would be buying used from him, he said no problem, we will get you there. The only thing that hasn’t come from that dealer is my turntable, my prior one did and my 2nd cassette deck, my Nakamichi did.
I’m able to walk in and home edition what I want without leaving a credit card. My dealer offers special deals and has first of the month Coffee sessions where we just come in and listen. He has industry guys like Garth Leerer and Richard Vandersteen come in and there is food and beers flowing like there will be today when Leerer shows off his new AMG turntables from his new line.
He has done listening sessions from a bar that hosts live local bands in a particular room. All of this has proved successful and has increased his business in both highend audio and home theater and the used market. Building a relationship has become a lost art in this day and age and when you build it you will get much more than the perceived deal in return.
@@sidvicious3129 that dealer sounds like a genuine asset to your community!
redstarwraith He is man, he really and truly is.
Andrew...a very nice, well-thought out video. However, one thing that you may not have considered, is that when a product category matures to the point of performance excellence that people trust it completely...demonstration in a store becomes unimportant to MOST people at first, then eventually, unimportant to EVERYONE. For example, when Color TV was in its infancy, folks wanted to see the picture themselves because not all Color TVs were that good. Vacuum cleaners didn't always perform too well, and vacuum cleaner stores (YES, there was such a thing in the 1960s when I was a kid!) demonstrated the pick-up quality of their wares with sawdust etc. to prove performance. Today, someone would look a bit crazy if they insisted on seeing a vacuum cleaner demonstrated before they bought it...or insist on actually viewing a TV before they bought it.
Today, the performance/price ratio of audio equipment is so dramatically better than it was 20-40 years ago, that it is a lot harder to buy truly bad equipment. Add to this, the abundance of online reviews that are available for most any product...and it is simply just not necessary for most people to have a performance demonstration. Audio salons are not the only casualty of "product maturity"...there are no Color TV specialists or Vacuum cleaner stores to visit either! People even buy $50,000+ cars without seeing/driving them first, because the quality of the product category has improved so dramatically over the same 20-40 year period of time. How many people bought their 1965 Cadillac without even taking a look? Today, new Cadillacs are sold everyday to folks who see them for the first time in their driveway!
In sum, I am sorry to say it and "burst the bubble" of your video...but product maturity coupled with internet one-touch availability has done a lot more to put the audio salon out of business than cheap audiophiles worried about the salon owner's margins. If audiophiles had a greater fear of buying a product without a demo...the audio salons would be here. They are not afraid to buy what they trust without seeing and hearing it. It would be "nice" to go to an audio salon, but it is no longer necessary. We went to salons when we felt we had to "hear it first" AND because that was the ONLY way to buy the brands they carried. Continual product improvement and the internet changed EVERYTHING for many many more product categories than just high-end audio. "It is what it is" and it ain't goin' back!
Isn't that what Andrew said? We didn't go there so its gone.
Sorry, I think a real demo is just as important as ever. People need to stop trying to to get something for nothing. Some people even think tech replaces trying on clothes in person. You can do it, but you will end up with an inferior wardrobe.
Murphman there actually are vacuum cleaner stores and they sell hi-end vacuums! I happen to love vacuum cleaners for whatever crazy reason and there are still some similarities to audio salons you described. Keep your eyes peeled for a vacuum speciality shop. They are out there!😊
I liked Bang Olufsen equipment, my audiophile friends made fun of it and considered me foolish for the choices I made. Sure, their systems were over the top in performance, but I didn't want a system that took up a whole room in the house. So, I stopped hanging out with my audiophile buddies and upgraded on my own without consulting my "expert ears" friends.
When was the last time a reviewer said that this 4,000 dollar cartridge was a overpriced piece of garbage or a 25,000 dollar amp was no better than a 1,000 dollar amp? Every single review tries to shoehorn the word BARGAIN into these hyperbolic sales puff pieces.Thats why a couple million audio buffs said "screw this...."
Amazon, you can try it in your house and no attitude if you send it back. Way better than a store.
Absolutely, you can also try to pair the speakers you bought for exemple with mutliple amps you have, in your rooms, with music you like and you know, much better than in a store... and sand it back for no cost if don't like the product ;)
Showrooming is the future. Brands should set up zero inventory pop up stores regularly all over each country and then people can go order from wherever they want afterwards. Everybody wins
I'm 71 and just completed my final (yeah, right) 2 channel System. So I've been around the block a few times and I've watched things evolve since the late '60s.
1- To quote you: "The only one who has to like your system is you". As I went through the years, every system I put together was the best I could afford at the time, and funny how each was always the best sounding (until the next).
2- I have fond memories of hanging out at dealers drooling over eqpt. Such as the Shop in Cleveland where I heard Klipschorns for the 1st time (1976). The dealer knew I could not afford them but was more than happy to demo them for me. He helped educate me on the efficiency of horns and I was sold. In 1989 I finally bought a pair of Klipsch Forte IIs that I still use today (now a bit modified). That salesman may not have gotten the Klipsch sale, but he did get the sale of a Thorens TD-160 w/ Shure V15III which I'm still using today, which was a big splurge for me in 1976. I was paying for quality, his time, and an EDUCATION.
3- People failed to realize how valuable the knowledge these small stores were able to share. Such as why a speaker power rating was useless. These guys could quickly set you straight that you can do more damage by overdriving a 20w amp than with a 100w amp that has plenty of headroom for the louder passages.
4- These same shops once they realized I was someone who'd return were usually more than happy to give me a discount.
5- I Totally agree that the biggest damage to smaller dealers was the internet. But I can't blame the consumer totally. We're dealing with a commodity item. If I walk into a store and want a Yamaha RX-Axxx, and I'm not abusing the Salesman's time with demos, I see no reason not to ask for a discount because we both know it will be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper online. Now if he's adding value by showing me the shortcomings of a particular amp and explains why another would be better then we're talking a different situation.
6- Most recently (2021) in putting together my latest 2 channel for my retirement home. I decided to go with McIntosh. A local dealer showed me the MA252 and MA352 integrated amps. Because I was able to demo them in the store, I decided on the MA352 for several reasons he helped explain - more power, capacitance adjustment for the phono, EQ among others. he added value and I paid for it. Boy did I pay for it. LOL
7- Shortly after, I discovered that the MA352 had 2 independent outputs and that 2nd output could be used for a 2nd power amp. Here the dealer wasn't as helpful. I had to calculate the power levels vs Db levels for each set of speakers and figure out how to balance them. I put in the order for an MC275 with the dealer anyway, unfortunately, Mcintosh was back-ordered. After a year's wait, I happened to walk into Magnolia and asked if they had an MC275 in stock. They check the computer and found one in NY. I did not feel guilty canceling the order and asking for a refund of my deposit.
8- There is nothing wrong with asking if they have any B stock or open box items for a discount
So if you're curious about the final system I'm running:
- TT1 - VPI Prime with Ortofon 2M Black LVB using the McIntosh Phono input - purchased as B stock from an online hi-end dealer - big savings
- TT2 - Thorens TD-160 with Shure V15III ($276 for the setup in 1976) using Project Tube Box S2 phono preamp (open box discount from Crutchfield).
- Amps 1- Mcintosh MA352 output 2 feeding McIntosh MC275
- Niles Speaker control box to balance the 2 amps/4speakers
Speakers 1 - JBL L100 Classic - purchased online from a high-end dealer for a small discount - These are running off the 300w output 1 of the 352
Speakers 2 - Klipsch Forte II - running off the MC275.
Niles speaker control lets me balance the speakers if I want the 2 outputs running at the same time, it will also let me mix and match. The MA352 allows selecting output 1, 2, or both.
The results are awesome but we need to refer back to statement 1. LOL
I love everything about this video except for the title. I wish you had called it "Audiophiles killed High-End Audio SHOPS"
High end audio is alive and well! 👊
Thanks for making this video and I will continue watching.
Consumer ignorance killed high end audio. Full stop. Even today, consumers are still satisfied with inferior MP3 audio, which was functionally obsolete about 15 years ago, when memory card storage became cheap. In 2021 every consumer sound device should be playing 96 KHz lossless audio. Instead, consumers are satisfied with MP3 audio that is inferior to CD audio from 40 years ago. Ignorance is bliss.
The well off folks who could afford going to decent shops preferred being cheapskates and now complain about the disappearance of said shops.
Small town in northern Germany.
The center had decent shops, bakery, groceries , fish shops, cheese shops and such, run by people you knew.you had everything in walking distance.
Then the super markets and discounters turned up and replaced them.
Then the discounters moved to the outskirts with lower rent forcing everyone to go there by car.
The center now has some shops selling cheap junk and not a place where you’d like to go for a walk or meet neighbors like it was before.
You could say every cent or dollar saved contributed to the ugly end result.
I've been a salesperson and a manager of 'mid-fi' shops. The costs are substantial for having a place to compare products. Commission sales are a hell to make a living. If you are standing around after dusting the shelves, desperations sets in.
The one item that always stuck in my craw, quite often the lesser priced product KILLED more expensive gear. I always sought to give good value and it ran contrary to my principles to do otherwise.
I got out of high end audio about 7 years ago and frankly I wish I had done it much sooner.I would usually spend about 10k a year making changes. I would sell off a few pieces and try something new and so the merry-go-round would continue.I would always buy new, keep it a year or two and sell. I never got into the WIRE game as frankly I just never really heard an improvement. Sometimes it would sound different but I don't know about better. Let's be honest too, the price of high end audio is insane . Some of the things that really turned me off of high end was dealing with very very opinionated people and arrogant attitudes. People would really be upset that I didn't think WIRE "A" was any better than dollar a foot generic stuff. It would really set some off. I just thought they were crazy.
one important thing not too many people are looking into is that having STORES to go into also creates new audiophiles. and im pretty sure a great way to start selling more is to increase the amount of potential customers. this is exactly how I got into audio. im 26, usually do my shopping online. I went into a local dealer of tv and audio when I needed a tv. I asked about a sound bar and a sub and the sales person showed me. he then went on to show other speakers and let me hear the difference between $500 klipsch rp 600 and $15,000 k horns and everything in between, knowing full well I wasn't going to buy them, and probably not even gonna buy the 500's. he still got my commission on the tv, and opened up an entirely new world for me. I didn't even know $5000 speakers existed at the time.
So what did I do when I was ready to upgrade and purchase new speakers and get into that world? I went right to amazon and said FU to that dealer! lol, just kidding, I go to that dealer for mostly everything I need, unless its far cheaper on amazon or im looking for a niche product they dont have.
my point was this is how a lot of people got into speakers and audio back in the day. Not all high end dealers only sell high end audio products. A lot of them, like the one in my town sell everyday shit that people need from tv's to hdmi cables to Sonos crap etc etc. and getting people into the store for small stuff like that, gives the sales person an oppurtunity to show off some cool shit that not even a young tech savvy guy like myself new even existed. Now im sitting in my house with a tube amp and some heresy's listening to two channel audio for hours every day.
the more people that you can show that this stuff exists, the more people are going to potentially sell to, and the more audiophiles there will be.
also, i dont see this misconception that buying from a dealer is more expensive anyways? that same dealer I was talking about sells on amazon as well, and any product I look up they have the cheapest price on amazon, tied with 2 or 3 other companies in the country that all offer free shipping. so if I want to buy online I can from that dealer (through their website or amazon) and if I want to learn more about a product I go in learn then buy, and the price is the same whether I go in or buy online.
The dealers have also played a huge part in putting themselves out of business. The thing that always pissed me off when I walked into high-end dealers was the fact they RARELY ever had their products with prices on them. They all assumed if you were walking in their store, that price was no option to you. You would have to say upfront what your budget was. F that and f those guys. I'm not made out of money but I have always spent a great deal on my audio equipment. I started buying online 15 years ago and haven't looked back.
Thank you! Totally agree
On top of that, I noticed that no matter my budget, the salesman always seemed to recommend the most expensive pieces within the budget. Even when there were reviews touting how good something less expensive (that they carried) was, they always argued for the more expensive piece. Made me feel that they were not interested in helping me create the best system within my budget constraints, rather they wanted me to select the most expensive system within the budget. This of course also ignores the snake oil sales pitches to get me to buy something with a really high profit margin.
I've bought mostly second hand gear. You get to demo it, usually talk to an enthusiast and not a salesperson. And it costs far less ;p
The downside - you have to wait around checking online or even go through a lot of gear depending how fussy you are.
Nice rationalizations.
Here’s why I stopped going to the only brick and mortar store I’d been going to for almost 20 yrs. About a year ago, I was looking for new speakers. So, between my only local store and a few friends who owned a good amount of different brands of speakers, I auditioned close to 15 pairs of speakers from different brands going up into the $15K range. Then it happened. I heard a pair of Tekton Pendragons at a buddy’s house, and knew they were for me. At only approximately $2K, I called up Eric Alexander from Tekton (who still picks up the phone), bought em, got em, set em up, and I love em to this day. I went back to my brick and mortar store to buy a new almost thousand dollar cartridge, and I happened to mention I’d bought a pair of Tekton speakers, only to be belittled and practically yelled at by them saying things like, “Oh, Tekton, the new Bose” and, “You made a huge mistake. Return them”. after them finding out Tekton’s return policy online while I was standing there basically being abused verbally by people whom I’d bought many thousands of dollars worth of gear from over the years.
Needles to say, that was the last time I stepped foot in this store, and I feel justified not supporting said store any longer after seeing their true colors and agenda. These were people I thought I’d become extremely friendly with, and they treated me like a friend and almost like family for many years, but it ends up I was only a dollar sign to them in the end. I guess they were just doing their job, but c’mon now...
David Krist
Haha! You’ve sure got that right!
Hey how would you feel if your meal ticket told you one day it wasn't paying you? I bet you'd be pretty irate about it too! You're just a wallet on legs that walks in to them.
Paul Frederick
My meal ticket is my job, which I’m not on commission at, and I’d never yell at a customer anyway. I also would’ve continued to be their $1,000 cartridge buying meal ticket that day, if it weren’t for the being yelled at thing. I also used to hang out at my sales guy’s house, and had dinner with he and his wife numerous times, hence the almost like family part, but at least friends. I understand what your saying though. Emotions can run high, especially when your business has almost fully changed from HiFi sales to mostly A/V installation. The entire situation is and was unfortunate.
Have a great rest of your weekend, Paul! 🎶👍🔊
@@NickP333 at the end of the day money can have a funny impact on relationships. I really try not to let it get involved. But maybe they were just having fun? Sometimes folks can take jokes too far. I've seen people get bent way out of shape there too.
You wake me up. I am one of those people who used to go to the store, listen to gears, make up decision, then go online and make the purchase. Your words also remind me when I was young, I saw a picture of Bill Bruford, who wears a T shirt written "Support Your Local Group", I was not aware of what that mean. Now I understand.
It's important to factor in the wage stagnation that's occurred over the past few decades. People will always look for deals when it's the only option they can afford.
Just buy a lower end product tho
How do you define “afford”. You define service, product knowledge and the overhead of local dealers right out of the equation.
@@scrambaba I define afford as "making only so much money and having other things that must be paid for first" (housing, bills, medical care, kids, etc., etc.).
That's not to say a dealer provides no value. But you do need to have the means to pay for it.
People looking for a deal is typically isnt a person looking to not pay what it's worth it's that they want to pay what it's worth. a lot of people know the value of a product and they just hate ro pay inflated prices. Classically B&M fleeced people so folks turn to online dealers. I'm into car audio and Personally I don't miss retail stores they gouged and tried to push products you didn't want. On top of that in store demos are pretty useless it could sound great in the store take it home that's very likely different and it may sound not so hot in your listening area. It's all a crap shoot no matter where you get it.
When I was a little kid I remember going to hifi and home theatre stores with my dad and having my mind blown listening high end speakers in the demo rooms. It’s a happy memory I think of from time to time and I’m thankful that my dad passed this hobby onto me.
I don't think it helped dealers very much that they tried to sell us magic mpingo disks to put under our turntables, $2000 cables, $10,000 triode amps, and lots of mystical bullshit stuff that did absolutely nothing but suck money from wallets. Not the only factor, but just one of them. You've mentioned others. Personally, I was disillusioned when I learned that the $100 speaker I heard in the store only cost $20 to make.
AGREED BROTHER! PREACH! 💯
I stopped buying because I buy once and done unless it breaks. Good stuff lasts decades. I hate the upgrade sickness.
I opened a store in 2010 and found the buying public buying online, wanting deals and eventually had to convert the store to vinyl new and preowned. No matter what I carried, it wasn’t enough or they would shop online to save a few dollars. You are spot on!
Back in the day, we needed to see it, listen to it, ab with other items etc etc before We could buy. So we needed a store for that. Nowadays, we can watch UA-cam, read 100,000 reviews online, and usually, from other experiences, we could easily order something that’s going to be the best our money can buy, without even having a Listen ourselves. Only reviews we could read back then, were in a magazine, and that’s usually just 1 or 2 reviews from the editor or sometime the audio company paid to say something about their product. Now we get thousands, even millions of online actual first hand experiences with the item, and their take on the item. That’s helps us to determine which item to buy for ourselves.
I felt like I just watched 7 min 12 sec of the Carl Segan of high-end audio. So deep about nothing really. Which actually is a pretty good reflection of high-end audio for many these days.
Dunno about anyone else, but when I used to go to stereo stores and attempted to "audition to my heart's content", I soon found a salesman hovering beside me making it clear that my heart's content and HIS heart's content did not coincide if I wasn't writing a check or signing a credit card receipt. Never mind that most places had an extremely limited selection of anything that wasn't mass-marketed, and the brutal reality is that the dealership experience offered only a very small opportunity to truly try out different manufacturers' gear against each other (unless, of course, you were listening to stuff made by the big boys, in which case it pretty much didn't matter where you went.
I think high end audio was essentially killed off by home theater, and to a great degree rescued, if anything, by the internet. When HT exploded, the interest in stereo-only equipment essentially evaporated. And it's only in the very recent past, with niche audio manufacturers selling direct or through online distributors, combined with the explosion of "experts" of varying credibility/capability creating masses of critical, educational, and comparative content, that the popularity of high end audio appears to have re-emerged.
Excellent post, totally agree.
I think there is a new 'hi end but not hi end' enthusiast group growing strongly with head phones and great gear at sane prices easily available on the 'net.
Hi end was always and still is elitist.
My personal experience is this... I bought lo-fi and mid-fi for a long time because that's all I could afford. Dealers sold me stuff, but there was never any support with it. I was never the "prime customer" for them buying $300 - $1,500 pieces. So to me there was no difference who I bought from, no value add. Now that I can afford hi-fi, I bought my McIntosh gear new from music direct and my VPI online from upscale audio. I don't feel bad about it. If you don't invest in your customers when they are small customers they will never become big customers. Just one person's opinion. Also, upscale's online service was excellent.
I think you are missing the bigger picture. While everything you said is true, compared with say 40 years ago, there is no hifi market today. It is only the 40ish and older clients keeping this industry alive whether with new purchases or buying used models of kit they lusted after as kids. The younger generations are simply not interested in separate hifi components and in my experience even when you demonstrate the fantastic sound gain moving from their mobile phone or Bluetooth speaker, it still means nothing to them. That for me is mainly why there are hardly and brick and mortar stores anymore. The mass market that once supported them simply isn’t there anymore. There are still some great budget components and plenty of telephone number price ticket high end items but the mass mid market of hifi in my view has gone forever. Sad but true.
you're spot on bro
That is only partially true. The average person has access to much higher quality audio at a much lower price than anything we could have dreamed of 40+ years ago.
The $49 google nest mini sounds better than most of the compact sound systems of the 1970s and ’80s. The Apple home pod offers insane audio quality for less than $200. Zero hook up. You can ask either to play almost any song you can think of. You can even stream high-quality audio if you are willing to pay for it. You need zero audio knowledge for either product.
Most young people,( under 30) buy a horrible sounding soundbar when they get their first nice home or apartment. Anyone that cares anything about sound quickly upgrades to a receiver and a minimum of a5.1 system with a subwoofer. Most understand that is what they need long before they buy one.
A large percentage of teenagers and twenty something's own Record players . How in hell did that happen? They start out with cheap record players because of cost and Simplicity. They quickly start looking for better equipment as they grow older and have a real income.
I won't even go into the media quality of Tvs and computers. Both play music. There were $99 computer speakers that produced insane quality audio 20 years ago.
Most truly high end audio today honestly has gone down hill. It is more about marketing and perception than true audio quality. The mid 1990’s to mid 00,s is when pure audio quality seemed to be at it's peak.
I’m old enough to remember the golden age of Hifi. I was only a child, but my most distinct memories involve pushy, condescending salesmen trying to make a fast back. And for the privilege, you got a 20-40 percent mark up! As for innovation, the reality is that hi end audio hit the law of diminishing returns a looong time ago. You implicitly acknowledge this by stressing aesthetics in your reviews. And honestly, don’t the internet direct retailers like Schiit do a fair amount of innovation? The market evolved. No one is to blame.
Thank you! Rarely do we see content from someone that is knowledgeable, not overhyped, eloquent and has common sense. I agree with most of this and saw a similar dynamic starting in the musical instrument space over forty years ago. I worked for a small independent store that offered brands, not usually the big 3 or 4, that were a good value, but not overhyped. We put the real discounted sale price on the products and didn’t barter. While some appreciated that, most could not understand that we wouldn’t “deal” on the already discounted price. We had regular customers that came in because of our relaxed atmosphere, fairness, customer service and knowledge that would go to a competitor and buy because they got a “deal” on an over-inflated list price and had a set of strings thrown in only to realize that our displayed price was actually cheaper. 🤷🏻♂️ Fortunately, he was able to stay in business(until he retired and sold his inventory) because of the frugality, honesty, great customer service and a knack for nailing down solid brands before they were well known. To my knowledge there isn’t another store like it in my area, period.
This is a fantastic and logical explanation… thank you!
I have had the experience of working in the Cycle Trade and I’m also an audiophile. I previously worked in the musical instrument trade and watched that collapse during the early 2000:s. It reached a point where you got sick of people saying “but it’s only £££, on line” and when you try explaining how a business works they just didn’t want to know…
every word and opinion you have put forward is true! There are a few really good hifi stores still in business and these a few and far between, this is a shame as the knowledge and experience of the staff and ability to see and hear a product is invaluable! Personally I would never buy blind and respect the margins dealers need to keep the doors open.
Next time people are shopping, spend some time talking to a staff member! By all means ask if there is a deal to be done but… don’t squeeze them to hard and look at the outlay and commitment they have made so you can shop there!
Perhaps then we may have a store network once again?
Also consider where you are going to take something if it goes wrong?
i have worked in a hifi store and get to try out all the gear and cables. i just built a speaker cable with duelund wires with viborg bananas for about $100 and it kills the $1000 cables. my humble $5k system kills the $20k systems I used to sell.
Thank you Andrew for addressing an issue that is not only related to high-end audio but also to pretty much everything we buy these days. Keep up the awesome work you been doing.
Most people in Australia buy second hand due to the absurd costs of buying new speakers,you hear speakers in USA costing $600 but the cost in Australia would easily be $3000...
Why is American audio gear so expensive in Australia?
Because in Australia the sole importer of the audio gear can and does mark up the price to make a huge profit. It's a monopoly were if you want the imported product you have to pay their mark up. We call it the Australia tax.
I think the reason for the decline of audio is different.
We did not use to have a million cable channels, computers, the Internet, smartphones and game consoles. People have more choices in entertainment and this has diluted the amount we listen to music.
Another reason is the decline of radio in the US, especially the decline of Top 40. There is no real top 40 in the US anymore, and there really is no bestselling album chart. There still is in the UK because of fewer radio stations. Probably because of this, the British still like to listen to their "tunes."
Even car hi fi has been in decline for a long time. People spend part of their time watching UA-cam. MTV is essentially dead. Artists do not make music videos any more.
In conclusion, people are not spending as much time listening to music.
I like the perspective but suggest we have to go back a little in Time. High End Audio was doing well and thriving until Apple invented iTunes and the iPod came into existence. At that point people decided that convenience and the ability to walk around with Thousands of their songs with immediate downloads killed the Hi-Fi industry. The 2nd big hit was the from 2008-2015 where the economy in the United States was horrible and people just didn't have the money to spend 30k on a new system pushing people again towards lower end commercial equipment. Many of the brick and motor stores died. The final gut punch was Amazon. The reinsurrgence of Headphones/Dac-Amps, etc. today is a direct response to that and the lack of money that people did not have but were looking for a cheaper alternative to full-blown equipment. Just my $0.2.
I hate to say it but this is the root of the problem. Once I got my first iPod I started listening to music while going for walks in the neighborhood. Rather than spending time in the house listening on my stereo, I'd rather go walk for exercise and listen while walking. My current iPhone can hold so much music that I have most of anything I'd ever want to listen to with me. It's something that was just inconvenient before the iPhone/iPod age. I still have a great audio system at home but it doesn't get used like it used to (only when I have to be inside and can't get outside).
@@3Cr15w311 thanks for reaching out and commenting. I totally agree with you. I put a 1TB card in my Android phone and I load nothing but WAV, FLAC and 16x44.1 as well as alot of music that I have that is 24x96hz or better. I bought a pair of FIIO FH5 IEMs and with a little EQ I am in heaven. Stuff sounds great! Not as good as my home system but then I can't take my home system with me to the beach!
There's nothing wrong with convenience. Most young people need to be mobile and the idea of taking a couple of hours to sit in a sweet spot and listen to gear eludes them. I'm right there with them, too. I'd rather be listening to my favorite music than missing out because I couldn't do it in a pristine listening environment.
And even people who can afford a $30K system, can't afford a large house with a large dedicated listening room. Speakers need to be 10 feet from the nearest wall aren't worth much if you have to make do with a 10 foot by 10 foot listening room. Or maybe you have a 20 foot by 20 foot room, but it can't be a dedicated listening room, instead being your living room, dining room, and listening room. Either way, headphones, and/or small speakers with a small amp, are the obvious solutions.
Collectors with a lot of money tend to ruin everything they touch for the regular guy. Some things would be record collecting, custom and hot rod cars, certain knife collecting items, book collecting etc. I can accept it but I despise it.
Straight to the point~ Andrew Robinson is one of the most straight forward, honest reviewer on UA-cam. Audiophiles did NOT kill High-End Audio. High-
End Manufacturers KILLED or are killing the industry somewhat. Manufacturers understand and are fully aware of the demand and supply of the audio consumers. And the audio industry is STILL at its infancy. The reason I say it’s still at its infancy is because of the technology involved in high-end audio. [ I rather NOT get into the technological advances in audio ] but people who have been and has been an audiophile for some time know that EXPENSIVE or state-of-the-art audiophile equipments are NOT high-end. [ nor do I want to get into the system I have owned to make any justification of my experiences. ] Vintage equipments from the 70’s still sound as good as the one’s coming out presently. I have heard much older equipment or even some DIY setups that sounded better if not on par with today’s high-end system. To get back to the subject, high-end manufacturer’s are killing the industry, if not, helping its demise & not creating any excitement in the industry . [ Audiophiles create the excitement] Later technologies like DACs or streaming devices have improved, [ but in my opinion], they are not helping the industry. Some of these devices rely on good [& good marketing, example: 24-48-98,000 - 164,000 tap-length-filter] but NOT BETTER technologies to achieve their end goal of ‘profit ‘ I fully understand that in business, profits help fuel and enhance the industry, but in most cases of HIGH-END audio or in particularly in this discussion, NOT audiophiles, but the so called, High-End audio manufacturers are hurting the industry. High-end manufacturer’s have no clue or idea how they can recruit new people or young people into the industry because that is NOT their end-goal. WATCH [ RMAF-2018 ] creating the future of the HIGH-END. These people in the industry have NO CLUE in the future of HIGH-END audio. Neither do.
There’s a brand, many, I mean many audiophiles worship, and for the sake of this brand, I’ll just leave the first letter of it. The M brand. It’s been around for a very long time. It’s what some people call, very “High-end.”
There equipment cost a considerable amount. It’s all made in the U.S.A. But their technology hasn’t changed much. Rather, I think there are many other companies that build better systems at a lesser price or even at on par to their system for the price. The fact is, even the mature or the much established audio manufacturers don’t invest heavily into R&D to improve the technology that will inevitably help the industry. Like I mentioned, 70s audio systems sound as good as systems we currently have today. [ of course this hobby of ours is very subjective ] It tells you, the technology hasn’t changed much, but rather how the manufacturers market their products as being justifiable. After spending tens of thousand into this hobby, not to mention [ snake oil products ] I don’t even want to get into that, it’s the justification of the value and the performance that’s at stake for the future of high-end audio. I do give props to passionate audio manufacturers that, that justify their products in performance for their value. High-end manufacturer’s dictate ALL aspect of the industry AND most importantly, its value. NOT audiophiles. We are merely waiting for that, that great product, that justifies their performance.
I stopped going to local Hifi stores about 10 years ago when I experienced salespersons not helpful to justify the margin I am paying them. Instead I make purchases online with lower costs and no need for unpleasant salespersons.
Just imagine how many such "clients" he served before he wasn't too helpfull for you . My colege goes from store to store, asks to show gears out of box and finally he finds and pays best offer for it in net. He alweays requiers to sell him in sealed box. I was quite pleased when he lost much money with unfair net seller. It do not working for him any more because he is recognized by sellers everywhere
Terry, that’s exactly why brick and mortar can’t survive. On-line companies have no overhead, inventory, salespeople, and insurance! All you need in your scenario is garage or room space. In fact, in your response you may not even need to store any product’s. You wait for an order in one hand, call the manufacturer and have the product dropped shipped. Who is able to compete on that level. Just something to think about.
Cheers,
Chris
I'm a bit lost, is this issue of "no more stores" an American thing? Here in Melbourne, Australia, we have at least 5-6 reputable dealers.
Also, yes, as someone who works in a store - Stop thinking I owe you a deal. Seriously. I'm not doing to discount an item to bastardise the product and devalue it. You'll pay what it's worth, and yes, sometimes, I think that's less than the listed price.
Also, part of making yourself worthy of a deal on a system is partly on you. There, I said it. I'm not contracted to do you a favour and help you out with a price because you walked into my store. I appreciate your business, but that doesn't mean I'm going to bend over for it. Your business doesn't help me if it doesn't make my store money. Entitlement is often way too high.
Another point - over here, margins also are never higher than 30%, so I suppose the margin issue is definitely not one here, if anything, our margins are super slim because there's always industry players discounting online, which everyone else who is online needs to match. I'm surprised to hear of stores selling at a 70% margin, that's INSANE.
haha in melbourne too. the specials come for me when building a system with a reputable dealer. you get three pieces of kit of course you should get a deal. its like buying something anywhere we have added a lot of mysticism to it.
Geez, I’m surprised that the margin is only 30 percent. Seems to be such a large mark up on products from USA and England. Schiit, jbl and Klipsch seem to be greatly marked up by distributors in Australia even accounting for exchange and import.
What killed hi-fi for me was the loudspeaker industry and their obsession with speakers that were difficult to drive! This meant having to buy high powered amplifiers and the costs went up. I remember reading reviews on the best speakers only to read that it needs an expensive amp. I therefore kept my very efficient wharfedales until they died with an inexpensive NAD amplifier.
From my past experience i felt that stereo sales people were vultures. Very pushy and with a masters degree in bs. Many worked on commission so they had to be this way. It was a big turn off for me. It was rare that you actually found someone that didn't want to sell you the world who actually listened and helped you find good gear for a good price. On the internet you don't have to deal with this.
Another issue is the manufacturers themselves, not driving buyers to their representing brick-and-mortar dealers to experience their goods. A few brands did and still do, but the majority didn't.
IMHO the mid and lower high end market has dried up. Now true audiophile systems are prohibitively expensive. These are the systems that high end stores like Harvey's made their living on.There are still brick and mortar stores for super expensive high end equipment. I have McIntosh equipment (purchased at Harvey's) that I bought in the 90s. Now I want to get a new redbook player. The Macs "start" at 5.5 grand. Kids today aren't going to spring for that kind of money. I don't know any young audiophiles. I was an audiophile at 12 years old. Put my first system together at 19 years old. Is there even any audiophile worthy popular music today. I haven't heard any.
I think audiophile systems are cheaper than ever. As a dumb reference you can put together a Sterophile A system together from probably well under 10k, maybe even 5k...
I do agree that 99.5% of the population couldnt care less about good sound. I have no audiophile friends...
There's more audiophile worthy music than ever today, due to the internet. It might not be all over the radio or whatever counts as the new radio today. But it is more accessible
We stopped buying because:
1. As tech grew more commonplace, so di the need for the manufacturers, even those who "future-proofed" their equipment, (I'm talking to you, Anthem Statement D2), did such a poor job of it, they expected you to pay thousands for another box just to get better HDMI, or DACs or something.
2. Internet sales would allow you to buy these later tech toys at a discounted price, since you were being forced into begrudginly buying something new to keep up with technology in some cases, why not try to save as much as you could, when left stinging for paying a high price for the thing you are now replacing due to obsolescence
3. Some dealers would not stand behind the products they sold, or they misled people into buying things they didn't need
4. Dealers steered people into buying snake oil due to the high profit margins instead of buying common sense equipment
Just my personal take on the situation.
So, you can try to blame the audiophile, but we were trained by the greedy industry
Very well said
I used to work in stereo stores around Pittsburgh. The reason I had to get out of the business was home theater. That's what killed 2 channel high-end audio around here.
I love my surround sound!
While I agree, I went to a local hifi store the other day. I understand they have expenses. But they had their products marked up about 100% over what I could find for it online. I'd like to support my local dealer but that's a lot out of my pocket to just support them. That and the aggressive sales tactics which no one likes
But does it really matter that showrooms are disappearing? I'll be up front. I am too young to have been part in the "golden age" of the hifi hobby. I'm really just now getting interested. As a result, I'm spending a lot of time on UA-cam learning about it from reviewers like yourself. I've heard time and again in their and your videos, that listening to equipment in a showroom does not actually tell you how it will sound in your home space with your other equipment hooked up to it. So, it seems to me that at the end of the day it will always be and has always been somewhat of a guessing game. So does any of this really matter all that much? Granted, there is value in having a place you can go to rub elbows and ask questions to people who are interested in the same things you are. But, is that enough to justify paying the inflated prices that come with maintaining brick and mortar spaces? I don't know the answer. I'm just thinking out loud based on what I've been hearing over the past few months trying to wrap my head around this hobby and how I should approach it as a newbie.
I disagree. When a good amp Cost more than my truck, well you get the picture. If equipment was less expensive they might sell more. So I blame it on the manufacture. You offer a good argument. You actually answered your own question. It’s too expensive, period. Those who have that kind of cash, great, but they are not the majority of your customers base. A lot of us barely make 60 thousand a year and that’s why we look for deals, we have to. I buy used from those who have the cash to throw away. There is enough good gear to recycle till the end of time so if the manufacturers go out of business too bad. They were good designers but poor businessmen.
Well said, plus by being a guy who builds audio equipment as a hobby, I have had the opportunity to have a look inside some of this so-called high-end equipment. That $10,000.00 amp "may" have $500.00 (or less) worth of parts in it.
I'd love to be making $60 K a year, but yes, your point is spot on.
Beitie Beitie That’s Canadian dollars. I’m one of the fortunate ones that had a trade ticket backing me up. Now retired.
My problem with "High-End Audio" is the question of whether or not a pair of say Polk L800 actually has $6,000 dollars worth of technology and real value in them or not. Based on your review of them, and your overall impression that they function well ONLY in a narrow operational environment, I'm just not sure that products in that and higher price ranges aren't exceeding the point of diminishing returns thing that you have also talked about.
I also wonder if a lot of High end audio is not priced the way it often is (Sky high) at least partly because a small subset of 'purists' are willing to pay for the privilege of being one of few to own 'product X.'
Both of these factors really make high end audio extremely difficult if not unreachable for the average working person with a pay-day to pay-day wage.
What you said speaks to my heart. I lived for stereo components and speakers since a young child. I invaded my older brothers rooms, took apart and put back together their stereos while they were out doing what teenagers did in the early 80s. I built my own home and car stereos once I was a teen even though the only shop we had in my small town was Radio Shack I could do my best with Realistic and Optimas gear. I moved out of town and eventually got a job at a local store owned by two brothers. The store was a legacy in the town and offered an incredible shopping experience with state of the art demo rooms and we prided ourselves with the product knowledge and time, effort and care we would put into everything from an accessory sale to a whole house audio/video plan proposal. It was the funnest and most rewarding job I could dream of. It lasted nearly 14 years. I had started in 1999 and I left late 2012. I had started a family in 05 and had my second child in 09. It was getting to the point that it wasn't rewarding anymore because everyone that seemed to come in refused to see the value of our time, efforts and experience. They felt entitled to a deal but I don't dare feel entitled to compensation for the consultation i gave them for fear of alienating the prospect. We operated on a 40 point margin on most of our products which is not outlandish whatsoever. People would say they don't like pushy salespeople when the salesperson simply asks for the sale. What do they think the salesperson is there for, to entertain and educate them for free? Anyway I saw the writing on the wall and left for a more lucrative sales position in a different market. But I sure miss those days of watching my client turn on their new setup and seeing that huge unavoidable grin on their face. It was like magic and I was the magician. I see some of my old customers from time to time and they ask me "Why did that store close down?' "It was so awsome." I ask them why they think it closed. Most say that the public didn't realize that the value extended beyond just what the product purchased was and they only looked at the bottom dollar was, instead of the over all value of the shopping experience and services were. Those times are gone now and they don't come back. I'm blesses to be able to have those experiences and friendships made at that time of my life and even more blessed to better support my family with what I do now. Which I would not be as good at if I hadn't had that time working at an awesome hifi store those nearly 14 years.
This sure as hell didn't just happen to audio. Most of us are perfectly willing to trade our neighbor's middle class job for a "deal" every day of the week. The "free trade" agenda was a divide and conquer strategy, and it worked to get millions of idiots to vote to send "someone else's" job to China. Like Russian Roulette, you save on your Walmart crap, and you "win" if you aren't the one getting downsized. The exception was food production. Since we literally couldn't export all those jobs, instead we brought in immigrants to undercut the wages of Americans. The politicians that demonize those workers today are the same ones that looked the other way for decades while corporations exploited those workers without legal standing at the expense of American farm and food industry workers.
Whoa Buddy ! When I was in college I worked at a HiFi shop... equipment cost hundreds and thousands of dollars... I made $6/hour... + 2% commission (which almost never happened since i was delivery setup guy). The owner was always talking about how ... "hope we sell enough to stay in business". Audiophiles did not kill HiFi shops... the Best buys, circuit cities killed hifi shops. Guys who buy Wilson speakers and McIntosh... still buy them. But the guy who scraped and saved to buy a amp+speakers from hifi shop, instead at electronic super store... they were able to FILL den with stereo + TV from super electronics store... with some compromise on sound. It is the same reason we NO longer have dedicated Appliance stores.
Well said, Francisco, for the most part I agree with your comments. I've been in retail for a long time, and I worked at a department store; they sold very good electronics, mostly computers, and excellent jewelry. However, where was the hi fi audio equipment?
There is so much wrong about this video. Audiophiles didn't kill the dealers or the high-end. Let me state the obvious that seems to have been forgotten. Many (most?) of the high end dealers back in the 80's, at least in Austin, were complete jerks and had terrible customer service. Buying a piece of stereo equipment was just like buying a new kitchen appliance or vacuum cleaner. The only reason some of these dealers were able to stay in business for so long is because they were, literally, the only dealer in town, or maybe the state, for certain product lines. There was no used market, price lists were often mysterious, and alternative sources of information did not exist. When the internet opened up the market, and there was finally some competition, many traditional dealers suffered....and rightly so. These dealers blamed the internet and the consumer for trying to save $, and not understanding the value of their "service", instead of facing the reality that they needed to change their business model, build relationships, and offer something more that what they did before. Some dealers got it....some didn't.
The next most obvious change was the emergence of custom integrated A/V systems and home theater. Wealthy prestige oriented consumers did not want high-quality 2-channel audio. Instead, they wanted in-wall speakers and touch pads in every room, plasma TV's, a rack of 'professional looking' electronics in a control center, and custom built 'surround sound' home theaters with projectors. If they had a pair of freestanding speakers, it was probably part of a 5.1 home theater system from B&W or Wilson in an luxury automotive paint finish. Since these consumers were spending very serious money, it's where many high-end dealers focused, and don't blame them. By the mid-2000's, people who still preferred 2-channel audio, and needed a new cartridge for their turntable, were clearly in the minority with very few options other than a handful of dealers around the country who were 2-channel enthusiast themselves (probably flat-earth people), and lovers of high qualify vintage equipment and classic turntables.
Fortunately -- think situation had become better for 2-channel audio enthusiasts over past 5 years due to the decline of custom A/V and rise of high-end personal audio. Seems like those specialty 2-channel dealers, who often trade in high quality/refurbished used equipment along with new equipment (online and in-store), are doing just fine, and new ones are popping up because it has become very hip to own tubes, classic analog receivers, a turntable and boxy style speakers from 70's.
You’re bang on with your commentary.... same can be said for almost any distribution/retailer with a physical location, qualified staff, inventory and “overhead” as you’ve identified. It’s a shame but the desire to drive cost down overrides most consumers value of support in all its forms 😞
We don't need dealers anymore since we don't care about sound at all, we care about piano finish and chrome casings, and since the dealers have no clue and the manufacturers give a crap about sound quality it is completely pointless to go to a dealer. If you want good Hi-fi build it yourself.
Hi. That is one of the best videos I have seen about the state of the Hifi industry. I personally won’t buy a piece of kit without listening to it. I know a few people that will spend time in a hifi shop and decide what they want and go home and order online. That makes my blood boil.
I had this experience when shopping for an amplifier around the turn of the century. I'm in the shop listening to an amp with the salesman. There's a knock on the door and the salesman steps out of the room. He comes back shortly and asks me if I "typically play music that loud." I said 'not always but much of the time. Why?' The salesman says to me. "That was my boss. He says he's not going to sell you that amp if you play your music that loud." After stating 'your boss doesn't know the size of my room or the efficiency of my speakers.' I added. 'He's right. He's not going to sell me this amplifier or any other amplifier in his inventory.' I went down the street about a mile to another audio shop and they were only too happy to sell me one of their NAD C340 amps. Which I still own and use today.
If audio shop owners were all as pompous, pedantic, supercilious and insulting to customers as this guy was it's no wonder there are no more brick and mortar audio shops.
Two of the five "salons" within walking distance here in Chicago were staffed by snotty folks like you mentioned. They were the first to go.
My cousin had a brick and mortar high end store in the Phoenix area.
He used to tell me many horror stories.
There were so many people that would come in, spend a lot of time listening on multiple occasions. Then come back in weeks or months later, complementing my cousin on his help and knowledge, then mention that they found the item cheaper on the internet.
As if they actually believed my cousin's job was to educate people, so they can buy elsewhere.
They wouldn't even contact my cousin to see if he can match the deal.
I agree with everything said, except I would replace the word audiophile with "everyday-day Joe consumer who thinks its cool to have a stereo in the living room" ... those are the people looking for discounts...to be a true to this hobby you would have to have some measure of success already just to afford the equipment even if just shopping on the low end. However a $50 bluetooth speaker doesn't require a sales man nor does it make you sacrifice much of you hard earned money. If there were more consumers genuinely concerned about sound quality like they are about how their car handles, we would still have brick and mortar.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Brick and mortar never thrived on the hobbyists. It was the average consumer that came in just two or three times in a decade to buy new or replace broken pieces that kept those stores in business. No hobby industry has ever really made more than a few people a decent living. When reliable home audio got much more affordable it took the wind out of the sails (sales) of retail HiFi stores.
Or.... and it might be a crazy idea..... maybe times are changing and most if not all of these "brick and mortar" stores never really adapted to new customer needs and experiences. They kept doing the same and charging the same without providing anything new or of value for their customers. There are multiple reasons people have fled to online shopping, I don't think prices or deals is the main one.
The thing I really don't like about the high-end audio Market is that people call themselves audiophiles because they have more money. ... as if the rest of the world is excluded and couldn't possibly know as much about Sound and Music as they do. Then they go listen to some horrible record that either doesn't sound good, or they play a record they don't like just to show off how it does sound. It loses its luster and becomes more about the price and the finish on the speakers than the actual sound.
As a guitarist I always tell people this, using MDF for speaker cabinets is probably Superior to solid wood or plywood but people want fancy fancy.
It all comes down to room shape, your ears, and what you can afford
There is a point of diminishing returns where you throw lots of money away building a system that sounds a bit better.
@@cb2000a Sometime it may be called the price of knowledge. It is pity that people who do not know try to set for people who know standards up to their poor experience - do not confuse please with poor vallet .
Well said, CARPO719. However, besides the speakers, I believe that the source; a turntable, cartridge that plays back a very good, if not excellent recording of the music is at first very important. Same thing goes with a Compact Disc, and a pre-recorded Cassette Tape.
I'm not against a very well designed CD Player that's a bit expensive, but I cannot comprehend the reasoning to pay so much to the thousands of dollars for a CD Transport, for example; more than a couple that are used up to a dozen, or 20 years are far above $2000! Remember, there is not DAC inside. Whereby it is understood that the CD mechanism Laser assembly is more accurate, robust, and a Transport has specialized electronics to further REDUCE JITTER. However, at a very high cost.🔉🎵🎶
Being blessed with growing up during the silver face/wood case era, and then into the eighties, I was fortunate enough to have carried in my hands, equipment and gear, in the boxes out of brick and mortar stores, after listening for sometimes hours to a demo model. Nothing can replace the actual interaction with the equipment before you buy it. No specs sheet (but it does help), no online review, no opinion made by another can give you that one on one taste you get with actual interaction with the gear. Because let's face it, and you've said it, Andrew- as long as it sounds good to you, that's what is important. You can't really tell if you like it, from another person's opinion.
The law of deminishing returns is steeper than ever with a $3000 loudspeakers performance not too dissimilar to a $60k loudspeakers. Companies like Q Acoustics, Tekton, Revel and SVS have been a disruption. And that is a good thing.
That’s almost every industries problem right now. People are crazy about saving the last penny. They want the best for the lowest possible price. That‘s a toxic selfish attitude for a society. I do buy online and sometimes I do buy used (especially in Hifi) but I would never go to a dealer, try their stuff and get counselling there only to later buy somewhere else to save another 10%. If I want to buy something and want to try it before and get counselling then if I decide to buy the product I will buy it at that store. That‘s only fair. Everyone (including me) loves a good deal but it‘s so much more satisfying to buy at a good store from a knowledgable salesperson. And this luxury costs extra. There is no shortcut. Nothing is free and good work deserves good payment.
I am luck to live in the Chicago area where we have quite a few great hifi stores. I try to support them exclusively. I have become friends with one of them and enjoy visiting the shop. These store do cater to folks with systems that start at around $7k at the cheapest.
When you build the relationship you are able to borrow items to audition at home. There is no way that I would have bought my Magicos without having been able to audition them. The same goes for anything in my system. I also feel like if you are going to spend over $5k on a hifi item you owe it to yourself to find a way to audition it.
absolutely.
Excellent perspective Sir. As an individual who manages a large retail music store, what you are saying crosses over to our world.
“Show rooming” became a new world to overcome. Interesting times for sure. Thank you for this.
BTW, This is not a "downer" just reality and this is not the only business that this applies to. WE COLLECTIVELY ARE TO BLAME. I'm 61 years old and you and I are absolutely correct. Simple economics 101. Thank you.
The consumer always wants the best value they can get. At the end of the day the more cash I still have in my pockets the better off I am. And that's just reality. It ain't never nearly enough either. But like everyone else I make due.
This is exactly why I try to support local 100%, and buy American whenever possible. All of my paradigm equipment i bought from a local shop (well, 50 miles away) and loved their service so much I went back and dropped $3,500 on a system for my mother for a Xmas present. However, I do buy used when possible as well, as this will give the seller $ to go buy what he/she wants as well.
There was no golden age. It is easier for me to access extremely high quality audio at insanely low prices (in comparison to what the same quality cost in 1975) than it has ever been. In my view, the biggest factor is that it is becoming difficult or impossible to hear any difference AT ALL between astronomically expensive audio gear and equipment available from Amazon and at big-box stores like BestBuy. Some of that is because much of the new material distributed today is overprocessed rubbish -- compressed so that its all at 99.9% loudness, recorded by amateurs singing through processing machines that "correct" their pitch (and destroy the human quality of their voice in the process), backed up by bands who are barely able to manage or in too many cases even tune their instruments.
It doesn't help that high-end audio is now completely synonymous with paying exorbitant prices for "speaker cable" that CANNOT HAVE any audible differences from plain everyday zipcord used to wire lamps. Snakeoil about "audio grade power strips". Are you KIDDING ME? Con artists claiming that minor variations in the analog shape of a digitized audio signal will have any impact on audio output whatsoever. People with too much money to spend buy super-duper "high quality" 3ft HDMI cables believing that they hear a difference. The eagerness of both producer and consumer to embrace superstition like this has a great deal to do with why high-end audio is dead -- there are a shrinking number of true-believers.
Audio gear, like automobiles, was always sold in a marketplace chock full of liars, charlatans, and cheats with a few honest actors mixed in. Life was always tough for those honest actors, and predatory practices of their competitors and customers alike made life more difficult for them in even in the illusory "golden age".
In my view, the biggest challenge facing anyone who is truly passionate about high-quality audio is finding and supporting high-quality source material. I don't mean garage bands who think that selling their material on vinyl means that it's "high quality". I mean artists and their producers who are truly passionate about delivering the very best sound that 21st century technology can provide.
I use Magnepan speakers that are nearly 40 years old. They sound better than anything I've heard since. I periodically update the rest of my audio chain. I use a subwoofer because the Maggies really can't handle the low end of synthesized music, movie soundtracks, and so on.
I get virtually all my audio material from high-quality downloads using a gigabyte internet connection and decent hdmi warts. I keep my analog cables as short as possible.
The audio material I enjoy in my living room every day is WAY better than it has ever been. It is MANY TIMES better than it was in the "golden age". That's good enough for me.
It is symptomatic of a larger problem with the overall music industry. Streaming has killer commercial music - musicians no longer make money from producing music. Moreover, computer produced music has killed demand for real musicians. Music is a throw away commodity. People want convenience, rather than quality. Cheap portable Bluetooth devices cater to this market.
No, streaming has not killed anything. If anything, streaming has opened up music to a HUGE population ACROSS the world, and yeah, countries other than EU and the USA do exist bdw, and thus has brought in people from backgrounds who in the earlier days may never have listened a particular artist because their CDs either don't sell in their country [ as is the case with most countries in South East Asia ], or are sold at high prices after importing them, which the average person cannot afford. The RECORD labels, have always made the lion's share of the money from album sales anyway, while exploiting the artists. There is a reason Taylor Swift fought tooth and nail to get rights to her OWN music back. As for computer generated music, please don't kid yourself. Not everyone likes EDM or its offshoots. I find a lot of whining in this video because now OTHER countries are also making audio gear at competitive prices, and the "homegrown" brands who used to charge outrageous prices cannot keep up. I see this as an absolute win though, from my PoV. If manufacturing hifi audio gear remained a monopoly of a few western companies, then people from the majority of the world would never have experienced what good quality music may sound like. And chi-fi has enabled lots of new , budding audiophiles into getting into this hobby with the sheer affordability. If only the audiophile boomer community were not a bunch of snobs who wanted to keep being exclusive and special.
I spent my entire life in the retail trade selling Hi Fi equipment. Back in the 1960s rents were affordable and margins were good. As time went on the rents started costing more and the margins were starting to drop. I was quite fortunate hat my customer base was quite wealthy. I wound think nothing when it came to doing home demonstrations and installations.
Fortunately my customer base was extremely loyal but there again I didn't have competition from Amazon or Ebay but I did have the mega stores to compete with.
My customers knew they could rely on me and on occasions customers would send a car round to pick me up in the evening if they had a problem.
I found that if I put myself out I was rewarded and I remember on one occasion I had a customer knocking on my door as I was locking up. He had tried his luck with a store across the road from and the had refused to open the door. It was a simple problem and I walked up the road with some equipment and the man was happy.
It turned out he was the Chairman of company that drilled for oil all over the world.
He came into the store the next day and ordered 50 Television sets for export. The company over the road would have been sick if they had known who they had turned away.
So my recipe was be nice and talk and listen to people and you get rewarded.
These days the world has gone mad with upgrades and selling.
You can survive in retail bricks and mortar if you won the shop and don't have to pay fro a 5 year lease and rent on top.
I did have a philosophy and that was to not sell rubbish.
I never sold anything that I would not have been happy with myself.
I also found that selling all the high quality extras like cables and accessories helped boost my margins.
People used to think that if you sold something for £500 that you would probably make £250 profit. Far from it. But I could make a good margin on extras.
Jeremy Travis Formerly Teletape Marble arch London.
That's always a good idea: only sell products you'd be happy with yourself. That way you know you're selling something the customer will be satisfied with, and you can sell it with faith!
@@AAscensionAnd more importantly you don't have to lie.
I tended to buy equipment from the stores that sold them. I bought Kyocera electronics, Magneplanars, and B&W Matrix speakers at Myer-Emco in DC, a Rega turntable at a place in Kensington, MD, Paradigm speakers from a store in Pittsburgh. But all those stores disappeared. I don't feel personally responsible for this. I wasn't one who only came to listen. In even earlier years, I never went stereo shopping unless I was planning on stereo buying. Never.
I did embrace online shopping early on, though. It just made sense. In my home, those B&W speakers sounded nothing like the way they'd sounded in the store. I also found I could buy things second-hand online. That probably was the biggest difference. I'd never thought to look for second-hand equipment previously. I got to try Spendors, Spicas, different B&Ws, California Audio CD player, conrad-johnson, and other brands of equipment I would never have gone shopping for in person.
I'm glad so much more is available online now. Crutchfield has become my number one source of audio equipment. Do I miss Myer-Emco and other stores? Sure. But having my listening room be the only listening room in which I audition equipment works quite well for me.
i was fortunate to live in the USA for two years ... about 20 years ago. Atlanta, Georgia. while i was waiting for my work permit i got a job at a "mom and pop" computer store at a strip mall near Marietta ... so the one day the owner was watching me chatting to a customer, then when the customer left we had an interesting chat ... he told me that I was giving the customers too much info, and that they would then leave and cross the street to some big chain called "Computer Warehouse" or something like that ... he'd even so i was a little baffled and asked him what i should do to try make them buy from us ... he said that instead of giving lots of friendly advice [and lots of info for them to take across the road to the big box store, where they bought in bulk so we could never compete on price] that I should just look at the customer's software and then take them over to one of our display computers and show them the computer and say "this is the computer you need..." Then, if they asked "but why do i need this computer?" [trying to dig for more info to take with them to the big box store] i should simply say "because it can run your software." His advice is that if they had any intention to buy from us that would be enough to close the deal. If they were only with us to milk us for the info they needed to cross the road to the big box store they would probably just leave when they realised the game was up. While his advice was 100% correct it was pretty sad that folks could be so essentially dishonest, deceitful and even devious. He'd actually been watching this for some while. I was so young and nice [and gullible] I didn't even realise this was going on. I even had a lady come in and buy several computers from me ... we refurbished second hand computers as well as custom built all new gaming computers ... and then she wrote me an email that she couldn't buy any more computers as she had more than she needed at home and at he work, but that she actually fancied me and wanted to date. She was okay looking but i had just come out of a tough break-up with a girl i had followed to USA so i respectfully declined her offer ... but said that in spite of my being on the rebound and therefore not ready to get involved again that she should continue to be bold in looking for a partner as she would be able to make some lucky guy very happy ... because too often we would rather wait for someone else to make the first move. So i met some great folks and made some good friends and learnt some important things. One of the ironies in this little tale is that the owner of the business was a senior buyer for Wal Mart ... who had set up the computer store to keep his wife busy .... on a sad note y'all will remember AOL so what happened is they launched that deal where if you subscribed to their service you got a computer free [you actually paid it off over a few years in the subscription] which put the mom and pop computer business out of business almost immediately. Fortunately I got my work permit around that time and stayed on in the USA for a little longer working for a great little software company until i returned home. So, what's all this got to do with audiophiles and sound dealers? Well, I do believe there are some similarities. At the end of the day, unless one really hates other people, we all crave a certain amount of human contact, but one of the problems of modern life is that we no longer spend our lives in villages, and meaningful human contact is less and less, and dramatically so with the arrival of new problems like COVID-19. However, I do think that at the end of the day to try use a retail dealership of any kind to overcome one's loneliness [or find a life partner] is problematic in the sense that the folks who are there are there tying to make a living, and might even be under a great deal of pressure to make sales by the owners of the business who may be under considerable pressure to pay a lot of rent. So, in conclusion, and thanks for sticking around if you have read this far, i think the real solution here might be to start a social club in your area with folks who have similar interests, for example why not have regular audiophile equipment "swap meets" etc. On a final final note, i can remember when i was just a boy [in the 1970s] one of my teachers read us a science fiction story where everyone lived separately in "pods" and their only contact with other people was through a television screen and intercom. On one level it was fascinating to imagine a future world as bizarre as this ... but on another level I do remember being absolutely horrified at how sad and lonely it seemed. Now, here we are in 2021 and that ghastly future does not seem so far away...
This is pretty ignorant of social and economic trends OUTSIDE of the audiophile community that definitely have more of an impact than audiophiles alone.
Prices keep rising while wages hardly follow. Most people only care about being able to survive nowadays; so when it comes to entertainment, they generally pick what's convenient and within their budget.
There's also a huge lack of knowledge in the public sphere when it comes to audio quality. "Audiophile" tiktoks are a great example of that, as they often just spread misinformation or sales reads.
Pontification about things is why I like your channel.
The general public does not listen critically to the sound coming into their ears.
Plus, best buy, circuit city... killed the market. Especially with a center channel. Your pair of speakers should create a soundstage where the center channel becomes unnecessary.
Amen. Perfection that goes way beyond the audiophile. This needs to be broadcast country-wide. Beautifully written, Andrew, brilliantly presented, and I hope it hits home with even those that claim this to be hogwash. This video speaks to so many things way beyond the scope of audio.
The council wanted to shut out local library but the community came out to protest the closure. They won and the library remained open. Empty but open.
Hi Andrew, I think you are correct in many things you say. We the customers must rethink
about buying behavior, Not only in hifi but everywhere, buy meat at the butcher not in supermarket, and hifi and photo at the smaller dealer. I know the meat will cost more but then: buy a little less.
This is so on point. I live in a town that had Virgin, HMV, guitar stores, musical shops, hi-fi stores, everything and not one of them is left. Once Amazon start delivering to our country that was it. My towm is also the first to ever close down a McDonald's and a GameStop. That's how bad its gotten now. Such a shame.
But alas we are human and why would I buy a guitar 300 other people tried that week for €500 when I can get a brand new one from Thpmann with free delivery for €350. Or a book or CD off amazon for half the price. We are regular people that have to spend our money wisey and every pound or two ads up.
I think your town may have bigger issues than Amazon making deliveries. I'd ask your town council what they're trying to do to keep it from becoming abandoned.
@@willbarnz6960 Most of the world is like this now, towns are mostly abandoned since the online shopping took over.
did amazon start delivering McDonalds in your country lol?
I worked for Hi fi dealer in the early eighties. Even then just about everyone wanted to bargain the price down. We also spent many hours demoing gear to guys who just wanted to "play" with the latest gear. Ok, many eventually came back to buy. Now you just click a mouse a few times and your shiny new gear arrives in a couple of days.
As you say, the staff have to live. There are still physical dealers in the UK but far fewer. I guess that's just the way the world turns. I agree that we are partly to blame. I last bought my amp and CD player from dealers back in the mid nineties. Both Rega models which I still use. It's my fault too.
I think you need to mention that Home Theater played a big role in having an affect on high end audio sales. Also, please keep in mind that high end audio accounts for about 2% of all audio sales. Online sales also played a big role in what has happened. Many customers would take up a lot of time at dealers seeking advice and auditioning gear only to walk out and order the product online. I accept no responsibility for the current state of high end audio. Why? Because I have been extremely loyal to two local dealers. They both offer me a standard 10% discount and I never try to negotiate the price. I believe their existence, expertise, and quality of service is worth the small extra cost. In the event I ever have a problem or need assistance with a product, they are always there when I need them. They have both told me repeatedly how much they appreciate me as a customer and wish they had more customers like me. I’m very happy to support them. Perhaps I’m the way I am because I’m a local business owner and understand what it takes to survive I today’s market.
I guess people vote with their feet. If they were truly happy with the stores then they would have continued to support them.
I buy online and in a local store. Most of the prices are pretty similar so it's largely down to convenience.
Not just in hi-fi. Too many people have no loyalty to stores or sales people in many hi-end products. They shop, use the salespeople’s time and energy to get educated, but if they can save a nickel elsewhere for the same product, original seller be damned
I live in Bangkok Thailand, the high-end audio retailer is alive and well here. These shops are filled with granite slab turntables and $1000 AC power cables, along with all the most expensive amplifiers and the rest. Thailand is not a rich country, but the folks at the top have a massive appetite for luxury goods, these customers are not trying to save money, they want the exclusive Audio Church experience.
As a former dealer and store owner myself and as someone who watches your videos and disagrees with a lot of your opinions on HiFi, you are 100% on target with what happened to stores, basically customers wanted the convenience but not to patronize the dealers with their dollars. In many cases I would have people try equipment and then go and buy it elsewhere using my expertise and store, but then buying it used. It’s not like automobiles this is a niche industry and if you don’t have enough customers who will do Win-Win business with you then there will be no stores. That’s what happened within the last decade.
Patronize the dealers? What's this medieval times? Who are you, ze artist? Them days are over pal. If your expertise is so easily co-opted by others for their own use then perhaps it isn't the commodity you think it is. The whole high end audio business is such a crock of crap anyways it stinks to the high heavens!
Andrew, I've owned my current used speakers longer than any speaker I've owned. I call them my death speakers because I can find a reason to change.
The high prices and limited distribution has been hurting high end audio.
This is the first video of yours that I’ve watched and I’m seriously impressed, so much that I’m subscribing. I’ve been saying this to people on other products for a longtime now. People always pull up crap like, the BOM is only $xx, no one looks at R&D costs, transportation, storage, licences, staff costs and all that.
2 minutes I knew this video was going to be great. Excellent points AR.....
I dealt with the High End in the 1990s, and pondered making the step to being a partner with my friends in a salon. I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed it from the fringe, I solved technical problems in the shop, and at customers' homes, and I have to admit, I did not do it for the money.
In fact, I made nothing. Zero. The experience, and the friendships, were what mattered. I went to CES every year back then. I had a separate business. Going to CES, I wore a Manufacturer badge. For those who have been there, this opens a completely different experience at CES. The salesmen in the booths and High End displays (these are not at the Convention Center, these are in the hotels) would spy this, and the attitude was very different.
Guys, the snobbery really pissed me off. Talking retail, the shop has to make a profit. I cringed when a salesman looks down on a customer, you really cannot know the whole picture. Sometimes, that dude in jeans and a tee shirt has the means to buy what he likes. Especially if he is an audiophile, he'll figure out how to purchase the gear he knows will fit his needs. He can hear the difference, but he has a wife to answer to, hehe.
But, this was year ago, times have changed.
Just subscribed. Thanks, Andrew, you speak the truth. Looking forward to watching your videos.
Bobby
Great hifi dealers are like great museum curators, the put things together in a way that enhance the experience. That is what hifi synergy is all about. Most hifi dealers that still exist focus on the uber high end as that is the end of the market where the customer is prepared to pay for the dealer’s expertise. Our pursuit of the deal has lead to us buy individual products at a better price that work together to produce an inferior sound than if we had a good dealer on our doorstep. The result... switching component more regularly and spending more money.
A good dealer said to me recently, how many times do you want to upgrade this product before you get it right! Welcome to the future, I guess I will see you online at the next virtual art exhibition as I doubt many of us want to pay the price of entry to visit a real one!
Synergy of equipment exists at all price points.Therefore claiming that expensive equipment is more synergistic is simply a hoax to charge more.