Into which category would those speakers you slide your iPod into fall? I would think that is the fastest growing market.

I'm surprised, though I probably shouldn't be.

If you consider the popularity of Home Theater, slim design televisions and the rapidly increasing role women are playing in the consumer market, you get numbers like these.

I have always thought that even under the best case scenario, speakers are ugly. I'm pretty sure women are even worse about having speakers dominate a room. Couple this with the almost standard feature offered by homebuilders (built-in home theater) and you can speculate the sales are coming from new home sales. Now that home sales have somewhat slumped, I expect this situation to spring back toward the box speakers to a certain degree.

And, of course, there is that 'good enough' mentality that has become pervasive.

Monty-

Stop reading my mind. I knew that I shouldn't have taken off my tin foil hat. It shields my thoughts from the aliens. Now I have nothing to say. Thanks a lot.

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Here's some speaker sales statistics that surprised me, when Matthew Polk gave them to me on a recent trip to Baltimore:

Total speaker sales in 2005: $358 million, up from $294 million in 2004.
Sales of conventional floorstanding speakers: $74 million!!!!

By far the largest-selling category was ceiling speakers, at $115 million, with in-wall speakers at $62 million, outdoor speakers at $53 million, and shelf speakers at $55 million.

I wasn't sure if "shelf speakers" meant stand-mounted small speakers and minimonitors, or something different, but even if does, the 2005 market for "architectural" speakers was considerably larger, at $230 million than that for the kind of high-performance speakers reviewed by magazines like Stereophile.

Food for thought.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

I would venture to say that, here in Baltimore, Polk, along with Def-Tech, are top sellers...beings both companies are based here and you see their speakers everywhere in town.

Home theater surely has done it. Four years ago when I went to Signalpath looking for a Musical Fidelity dealer they provided me with one no more than 20 blocks from me. It was a startup operation operating out of modest digs in a little industrial park - but they ordered in what I wanted, took the gear I was replacing in trade, and provided the new amp and CD player on a 30 day home trial basis. Two years later, they moved to much fancier digs in prime retail space BUT they no longer sell MF equipment or anything else Stereophile will be reviewing. Big television sets, multichannel electronics, custom home theater installations etc. They are apparently doing well enough to cover some pretty significant rent, but they haven't anything I'd want. Music Direct is only an hour's drive away or I'd be in an audio desert.

While I had no idea as to the numbers, I would have predicted the proportion of inwall/ceiling to floorstanders. I attend our yearly Homearama, which, for those not in the know, is the demonstration of million dollar plus homes, which, in the Midwest, buys you a lot of house, anywhere from 5-6000 square feet.

Virtually every home is equiped with a home theater. When I first started going to these shows about ten years ago, approximately 70% of the theaters consisted of separate floor standing front speakers. Now, that number is 0%, replaced exlusively with in-wall and ceiling speakers.

The biggest shame is that the people touring these homes think that these things sound good. And the people buying these homes have a lot of disposable income, and think they sound good.

I can not help but think that the high end has failed to bring these people into the fold.

Man, that guy is a fuckin' genius!

Oh, well, BSR is still the company that has sold the most turntables.

When high end audio is trying to con people into thinking a $15,000 piece of wire is for real, no wonder they give up and get some built in speakers. I seen an install where RG59 in wall coax was used from amp to sub. It doesn''t matter, it played. High end audio has done them selves in, with some of the absurd nonsense, like Mapingo discs, Ayre wood blocks, countless wire fraud makers. Demagnetizing products for plastic, and reviewers who try to convince people it's for real. When MF, reviews his $80K $100K TT's, and declares, this is really so much better than the cheap $10K TT. It gets to a point, where even rich people hang it up. When MF telss us how great a $45K CD player is, and ya can get one that plays all discs, SACD, CD, DVD-A etc etc for much less than $1K I would put money on it, he couldn't tell me which one is playing, if he didn't know it from looking. When an AC line cord can make a Cd player sound better, even rich people give up. If high end makers quit the nonsense, maybe get back to reality, they could keep selling top quality stuff, and leave teh fraud and snake cables and magic absorbers and elixirs out of the mix. When an audio grade FUSE!!! And audio grade wall outlets go away, maybe customers will return to high end. StereoPhile and TAS won't have any readers left, if they keep pushing nonsense (ie full page EXPENSIVE ads touting a magic wire, and magic blocks), they should begin getting back to reality, like JA keeps with measuremnts that make sense, and exposes the crap.

BLOSE sells more speakers than most don't they? Polk is now a holding company or something, the speaker guru, is a business man, more than a speaker guru. Look at the small print in Polk ads, MP sold his major interest in it years ago What's the difference between Polk and blose? Only a few letters. Didn't the big B even copyright the word COMPANION!!! Pretty soon you won't be able to say anything without paying the big B a royalty, or risk being sued for using a copyrighted term. Now that's a speaker company!!!

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BLOSE sells more speakers than most don't they?

I believe Bose is the largest audio company in the US, but is still a closely held corporation, with Amar Bose the owner.

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Polk is now a holding company or something...

Both Polk and Definitive Technology are owned by the same corporation, Directed Electronics: see www.stereophile.com/news/082706polk/. Polk and Definitive together have gross annual sales of >$400m, which makes them third in size, behind Bose and Harman. I am not sure where D&M, which owns McIntosh, Boston Acoustics, Snell, Denon, Marantz, and Escient, ranks. And Klipsch, which owns API and Jamo, is also up there somewhere.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Speakers, not audio. HARMAN is a GIANT now with it's buying up of all brands of stuff. Family members run it, but it's a publically traded co., I think. Harman has got the pro ends all covered, with some of the best brands. D&M might be trying to do a Harman. Wonder why Philips sold off all it's stuff, like Marantz, AKG,B&O,even Grundig was in there amongst many others where all part of Philips at one time or another. Philips coulda' owned it all., since they invent most of it. How does BLOSE sell so much, for so much, and ya get so little? I have used and still do have an AW-1 Acoustic Wave MACHINE, when it first came out, almost 20 years old, I finally had to do the first repair, replace the belts in the cassette. They even sent me a service guide to find all the secret clips and screws, NEAT, I was impressed really It is well built, but highly colored in sound, well made too. AND, they had the belts available, so I didn't have to measure and get them from MCM, which turns out 2 of the 3 came from MCM!!! But now the cassette is good for another 20 years. It fills the room with nice 80Hz bass, no matter what you send it, but it's reliable, small, and has a horrible FM tuner ckt, hisssssssssssssssssssss. But it keeps on going, can't complain for a table radio. Even the Wave Radio got a FREE out of warranty fix by them, some years back when my father had it, now my daughter uses it. So they do something right. But top sound ain't it, but the masses say otherwise. It works, that's about it. Best marketing in the industry, is what they do best. My A6 has in car factory setup, B..E woofers, with Blaupunkt tweeters, guess the big B can't do tweeters in that year way back? Amar sure created an empire, better sales through better marketing. B also did come out with some of the first small systems, now, micro systems from others are much cheaper, with usueable sound. With more functions and stuff. But B did back the stuff up, it's in the high price up front.