First the pride, then the fall

I really like the newest version of the Absolute Sound. Not necessarily because of its insightful reviews or salient comments, but because, this latest copy makes great blog topics for yours truly. If you read between the lines like I do, you can get a really good glimpse on why high end audio is in the state that it is in today - a state of high inventory and declining sales.

The interview with Lyric is especially revealing. Of the elucidating and braggadocio, the article tell us how the Levinson ML-2 achieved the price of $1600 and later $6000. Apparently, Mark came up with a pricing of $700 and, while not throwing folks out of the store (from which I got from the article, is legendary for Lyric) , Lyric convinced Mark that $1600 is the price to go for. Mark took the bait, and high end snobbery was borne.

This is how high end pricing gets done; sell a little to the elite few at astronomical prices, and completely disenfranchise the middle.

Somewhere in the article, HP asked if "High End" was dead. While some say that the patient is on life support, I say that we are in a correction a la the personal computer style.

You better be careful who you throw out of the store though, and be especially careful about it when your market is in a price correction.