GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Prices in High-End Audio.

Post Subject: Show me where the money is?Posted by Romy the Cat on: 3/12/2014

Roger Skoff: “A cool half million dollars for a pair of speakers! Certainly impressive, but is it sustainable”

Well, the question about sustainability and reference to the Death Spiral is a good one. However I have more interesting question to ask: where is the money settle down in high-end audio?

Yes, we do have $150K turntables, $200K amplifiers and $300K loudspeakers but let remind to each other that no one pay those price tags and if they do then very few of those high price items are sold (with very minor exceptions) Still, the prices are high, it means there are tone of cash change hands. Still, I do not think that the high-end audio makers here to blame as no one ever seen a reach high-end audio makers. Do not take me wrong- there are wealthy high-end audio makers but 1) they were mostly wealthy before they enter high-end audio scene 2) they do not necessary made money by selling high-end audio. Sure, there are some exceptions but generally if we take let say 100 high-end manufacturers and compare them with 100 business or professionals of the same vintage then it would be very obvious that high-end manufacturing is not so financially lucrative field.

The next state is dealers and distributors. They generally do much better then manufactures. This is true in any other business - salespeople do much better than the actual makers of the goods. Still, I did not see a lot of truly wealthy audio salespeople. They hustle for money but they in my view, dispute that they are leeches of the industry they do not accumulate or collect the industry dough.

The marketing folks, the reviewers, publishers, editors, web sites hosts and the rest industry dirt do not get any money at all. They skim some very immaterial favors from others. Some of them are some cheap, have so low self-respect and that they blow products trumpets for free or for buying discounts. For sure the damage that they inflict to the audio makers is factored into the product prices and eventually delegated to users but the marketing folks themselves do not touch any cash flow in the industry.

So, if the prices in high-end audio are so high then where all industry money eventually get settled?

I do not have an answer but I think I would propose an alternative version: the perpetual Roger Skoff’s Death Spiral. This would explain why the prices are high, why there are mostly no wealthy people in audio, why any product in audio has life-span of year or two and why industry keep entrenching in the audio consumers their brainless need to buy sub-mediocre products.

The Perpetual Sustaining Death Spiral – the PSDS… sound like a great name for $500 volume control knob.

Rgs, the Cat

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