Absolute Sounds ££

[Tony L]

But who gets to decide what’s good and what’s bad taste?

Me. It is what I was born to do.

 

[Frizzy]

Seems recently the majority of hifi goes thru ‘high end’ retailers, to high aged and incomed folk.
The yoof buy online and largely buy headphones and active speakers. which are generally good enuf to shame most hifi from the last century.

 

[Tony L]

I suspect Richer Sounds get a fair bit of young traffic too. I’m also convinced increasing numbers of people are doing what so many of us do here and living in the second-hand/classic markets. No matter how much money I have to spend on hi-fi I far prefer to buy stuff used and pre-devaluated unless it is a consumable like a cartridge or something where hygiene matters e.g. headphones. The only new boxes in any of my three systems are CD players as I tend (possibly wrongly given how many early CD players are now highly sought-after) to view those as having a transport/laser lifespan and wanted to be sure not to get stuff from a smoker’s house or whatever. Beyond that second hand all the way. The internet has totally democratised this market; it has removed the sales spam, groupthink etc, and in most cases placed all the information to service and restore classic kit into the public domain. Effectively making owning high-end hi-fi free as one can do it for investment alone.

 

[Yomanze]

Some people “pay for the price”.

There is some wonderful gear in that list though.