Leif said:
I’ve met numerous people with high end hifi. They were all fairly wealthy. Like posh watches, high end hifi is aimed at wealthy people who want the best. As to whether or not it is the best, you can decide. There are plenty of wealthy people about, so maybe Companiet failed somewhere. Presumably competitors are more appealing. Or maybe the market is saturated. I must admit their kit is very ugly, then again a lot of hifi looks ugly to me.
It seems Electrocompaniet didn't fail as such but there was a glitch in money management for an unknown reason ( to us ).
I don't really consider my HiFi system to be 'high end' it's probably upper midrange but I suppose some people might call it high end.
I am definitely not wealthy being a sole trader self employed car repair / tuning business .
To be honest I don't think very many extremely wealthy people would give two hoots about a high end HiFi system, they would rather spend that wealth on things that are visible like houses, cars, yachts, watches and clothing.
Impressive looking HiFi systems only impress audiophiles and they are like hens teeth, so it is not cost effective when it comes to displaying wealth, plus the fact that most non audiophiles think the whole thing is a little weird and nerdy.
My number one priority is sound quality, the equipment itself could look like the back of a bus for all I care, I listen with my eyes closed anyway *i-m_so_happy* , but I realise many people consider looks to be very important even to the point of sacrrificing ultimate sound quality.
I don't know anyone who has a decent HiFi system apart from people on this forum and a mate who is a serious music collector, I managed to persuaded him to buy a fairly good system to play his 6000 Cd collection on.
In my opinion HiFi companies need to target music lovers if they are to survive, if they can be convinced that replay quality is worth spending money on there there is a whole new market available to sell to.
I guess that the market for good HiFi is shrinking by the day and there will be many casualties in the process all we can hope is that a few of the best ones survive.
I will wager that if you came to listen to my system for a few hours any qualms about the Electrocompaniet challenged / dated appearance would quickly dissapear . *biggrin*