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Can anything be done to save our hobby?

It's pretentious of me to say OUR hobby since a lot of people aren't into what I'm into. But I've been an audiophile since I was 13 years old in 1962. I remember when Stereo was a big deal and when people first starting getting into component systems instead of all-in-one consoles that looked like overgrown coffee tables. I remember McIntosh and Marantz when the founders were alive and tubin' away. Good audio was always expensive but expensive meant about $600 in 1962. That was what our first system cost. That's about $4200 in today's dollars according to an inflation calculator I checked. Now if you wanted top of the line stuff - Marantz, big Bozak speakers etc., it would cost about $1500-$2000 or $6K - $8K in today's dollars. And this was heavy, largely handbuilt tube stuff lovingly designed by audio pioneers. So where do they get off selling $100,000 sculptures for preamps or $200,000 sculptures for speakers. I refuse to believe this stuff is worth the money and at these price points you aren't designing for sound quality but for image and cachet and the designs might not sound as good as a lot of stuff at 1/50 the price, frankly, because the people who design it have degrees in marketing or industrial design rather than physics or engineering like Kloss, Villchur, Klipsch, Walker, et al.Okay enough grousing. I would like to see good components become popular once again. It can't happen at the $50,000 price point. But it's not just a matter of reasonable pricing. It has to become cool to listen to stereos again. People think the Ipod and the computer and home theater have put an end to stereo but they underestimate the power of well-reproduced music. But you aren't going to get people to buy finely crafted components to listen to rap music either. we need to bring back the culture of classical music and other acoustic styles but especially classical, because that really needs a good system more than jazz or folky stuff. Last but certainly not least, there is the online and big box competition that takes all the fun out of shopping for audio. How can we make audio salons for non-rich people profitable again? It's a real brain teaser but I refuse to believe it's impossible. Somehow the stores have to create cachet. And the goddam manufacturers have to support them. I used to be in the book trade and the publishers at a certain point told the independent stores to go fk themselves, that they were going to offer deep discounts to the chains, and it put most independents out of business. I don't know what goes on in audio, but I used to fantasize about having a store and now I know it can't happen and it kind of makes me sad (I wouldn't want a store that sold $20,000 speakers to trust fund brats anyway.)

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Topic - Can anything be done to save our hobby? - Peter 19:39:42 01/13/11 (102)
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