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A few weeks ago a person visited me. We had a long listening and interesting conversation. He was extremely surprised that audio is not something that I make money on for living. I less care about his surprise but the argument that he brought up was reasonable:  will it hurt if you do what you do and at the same time someone would pay for your time and for your results?

Of cause it is not so simple and we all know that as soon the subject of our passion get mixed with financial interests then all hell breaks loose. Still I would like to talk a little about the subject of how make money in Audio, of course from my own perspective.

I see again and again in audio that most of the people as soon they get some visibility and some results that they feel might be tradable then they instantly convert themselves into some kind of sales and join the army of multiple audio whores. In reality the conversion takes place much sooner. I consider that EACH SINGLE PERSON who patronages a company or a product not for sake of own use and own benefit but for “good sake of others” is in fact crosses the boundary between the expressing own opinion and participation in ugly marketing efforts. This is why I see difference between army professional dirt that write pre-paid “reviews” and the huge army of “amateurs” who do very much the same, even if they do not have the realized intention to do it.

Still, no one argues that it is nice to get pay for the time we spend in audio. How good if I have some cash flow for the time I write this article, think about some new audio concept, align tweeters or you have some fanatical gratification for the time you read this article. In my work I do get pay sometimes for writing a position a paper and I get paid for reading position papers and technical reviews. So, I wonder if it possible to have some fanatical benefits in audio and to keep the hands and head not dirty ?

Do not be alerted. I ask this question not because I need money. You WILL NOT see tomorrow at my site any hidden promotions of any products, pop up advertisement or any donation buttons (even those I do not mind to solicit money from readers to benefit felines). Just with the things that are going on in my life I am getting bored with my day job and I do look some other opportunity. Naturally some aspects of audio are with me and there are pop ups in my mind that I do have some experience in some aspects of audio, why do not cash it? The problem is that whatever I might do in audio I have absolutely no interest of doing.

So, let see what cash flow opportunity exist in audio.

You can manufacture things in audio. For new people the glory to be an audio maker looks very attractive. Unfortunately  knows among those who was involved with any production the  manufacturing routine has absolutely nothing to do with what we value in audio.

You can sell in audio. Many people do it and it looks like audio community nowadays is nothing more than an army of deaf flea market hoodlums who sell to each other musically impotent garbage. There are different scales of selling, from successful distributors making 1mil per year to silent “amateur” trading online. I know one guy who for years associated with a big name audio reviewer and who sells as “used” the equipment that that reviewer does not return to the manufacturers. This guy supplements his full time job with $50K-$60K of net income trading the “fallen of the truck” gear from his reviewer-supplier. Of course I have no interest to sell anything in audio, not the last reason is that I do not like to socialize with audio people as I consider them to be a defective breed.

You can do consultancy. This market does exist, even it is very small. It however might be developed if it done properly.  I can be very good and surprisingly effective in certain fields but in audio consulting there are some elements that I do not like. I do not want to be involved in any process where the amounts of efforts I spend have direct consequence with amount of gratification.  I would like the efforts and reimbursement to be completely decoupled by nature of operation. If they are decoupled then I can administer my efforts in more and more efficient format in order to have disproportional reimbursement, I am very good with it too in my day-time job.

So, I wonder if somebody can pitch, even as a brain-storm idea, any new way to make money by means of high-end audio?  Again, I am not looking to literally cash my investment into the cable elevators but I rather would like to develop some inspiration how audio can bring some even minor income and do not be revolting mercantile as we see around us. I very much no looking for any grand operation but rather very minor cash flow that would create a multitude of tax advantages  which is my primary interest. I can wait to write off my 439 versions of Bruckner 8 as business expanse, to do so however somebody needs to pay me to for playing the Bruckner 8…

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