Audio Advisor did drop the price of the Cambridge 840c cd player by $100. Understand what your saying though. Think its too soon. Companies know people are getting tax refunds back. They are hoping that kicks in for more sales. Also highend buyers may no be as affected by the slow down as others. Who knows.
thanks
barondla

it used to be considered unfair practice (restraint of trade) for manufacturers to force dealers to sell at a paticular price point (though no one ever did anything about bose). last year, our supreme court torpedoed that venerable idea and said that it is now OK. i am not an insider, but i believe that one reason you do not see many audio sales is that the manufacturers are exerting subtle pressure (threatening to drop the dealer) on the sellers to keep the prices up. i think this has been the case all along, it is that just now, it was not restraint of trade and potentially actionable. however, you will see sale prices if the manufacturer's inventory starts to clog up and they want to keep their factories operating. because most of the makers are small privately held concerns, getting employment numbers would not be likely so there is no real way to tell when that point is reached. recently, the musical fidelity 550 superchargers were offered for 50% off through one of the online vendors. have also seen Mac offering 75% of purchase price for Mac trade-ins on new equipment. i think we will see more. prices can only be kept artificially high if there is a market to pay it. i can't say it will get to the desperate state that you see with the car companies, but i think it will come.

tom - Judging from your comments, you probably know all this, but:
First, several state (I just happen to know NY) antitrust laws still disallow this practice (manufacturer price-setting), and the Supreme Court ruling doesn't affect it (it was just interpreting federal antitrust law).

Second, the price-setting practices are just no longer illegal per se under federal antitrust law, but they still could be illegal. Before, you just had to prove that the manufacturer set the price and it was automatically a violation of antitrust law. Now, you have to prove more than that.

But, yeah, it is much easier for a manufacturer to do this than it used to be. But I'd still be paranoid if I was a manufacturer - the damages for this are huge.

I cannot speak to your locale but Audio Adviser has routine sales and clearance items. I get their catalogs and their web site is full of good deals. My local audio store had at least one pretty good CD player, the Rotel 1072 on sale over the holiday's at almost 20% off their regular price.

That said, the used market is where the deals are found.

Profit margins in high end audio are much lower than many luxury goods and the transaction is much more time intensive. Retailers can't afford to discount much from retail on a consistent basis and hope to stay in business.

You are spot on with the 40-50% spread for most high end gear. There are a few that are as low as 30% off retail.
But when you consider the low volume and high overhead it is much harder for the specialty shops to give large discounts and survive.
The profit margin can be pretty slim after their expenses.

I think we don't see advertised sales b/c that doesn't fit in with the high end concept/image. I suspect shops might be more willing to negotiate than a year ago and may likely be even more willing in months to come.

Low prices may be good for us buyers short term but I would hate to see the ever dwindling specialty shops grow even smaller.

But, like houses, if no one is buying, the price must drop.

Absolutely, and I would never say don't try to make the best deal you can.

uh oh, we agree on something, JIMV.

But don't think that means I'll vote republican

I was reading a neat article about sustainable fishing and biology, and its modelling worries me a little about Hi Fi.

In the fish analogy, if there are 5 fish that weight 500 pounds each (2500 total pounds of fish,) not feeding them for a week or two will cause them to lose some weight, but they will survive lean times.

If there are 2500 fish at one pound each (making for the same biomass) and you don't feed them for that time span, all 2500 will die.

The fish article was talking about leaving large fish to avoid the boom bust cycles, but the Hi Fi industry's beating heart, to me, is made up of many smaller sized fish.

If an owner/operator of a small audio company basically pays himself living wage per year (like many do) then there really isn't room in his business world for deep discounting.

I hope the lean times don't kill all the great small audio fish!

That is the problem.
As consumers we all like a good deal, but I would hate to see some of our best cos. go down.

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I hope the lean times don't kill all the great small audio fish!

Well, if they can suppress their egos and amalgamate into larger audio concerns (with a resultant improvement of hybrid talent and economics of scale?) they may have some chance of surviving.
With huge competing companies like Marantz now marketing consistently brilliant designs at reasonable prices this could be a hard ask though.
The fact that there are so many small boutique audio manufactures out there, more than in most other industries, tells us something about their peculiar customer base.
If I was a small boutique audio manufacturer I'd be thinking of turning my ideas into salable kits starting with free lessons for my customers on the art of soldering.
My prediction is that's the one area we'll see growing over the next few years.
As to what happens with the ultra expensive high-end, brace yourself for more amalgamation of companies such as Meridian, Krell, Cord etc.

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...Yet whenever I visit my local hi-fi dealer, or Music Direct, Audio Advisor, etc., the prices seem etched in stone. I worked for a number of years doing home theater installs, and know that audio equipment has quite a markup, on the order of 40-50 per cent

If you talk to audio industry insiders, it would seem that from their point of view it will be a cold day in hell before the 40-50% margins change. Well, good luck with that stubborn attitude as the economy continues to contract and consumers just shut their wallets...except for their online purchases of audio gear which doesn't have a stratospheric pricetag.

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...Yet whenever I visit my local hi-fi dealer, or Music Direct, Audio Advisor, etc., the prices seem etched in stone. I worked for a number of years doing home theater installs, and know that audio equipment has quite a markup, on the order of 40-50 per cent

If you talk to audio industry insiders, it would seem that from their point of view it will be a cold day in hell before the 40-50% margins change. Well, good luck with that stubborn attitude as the economy continues to contract and consumers just shut their wallets...except for their online purchases of audio gear which doesn't have a stratospheric pricetag.

Stubborn attitude? Given the expenses any retail outlet has and the time they waste entertaining & educating fools who go away without buying anything only to purchase off the web and then return expecting the retailer to service the stuff they bought on discount elsewhere, I suggest their profit margins should go UP, not down.

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... go away without buying anything only to purchase off the web and then return expecting the retailer to service the stuff they bought on discount elsewhere, I suggest their profit margins should go UP, not down.

Auto industry: dealer new car sales tanking, auto repair shop business in the same dealership is taking off like a rocket - hasn't been this good in 20 years.

Audio industry: new equipment sales up or down?(need data, but I'm bettin' sales are sinking). Audio repair shop business - should also take off like a rocket. Authorized repair center for manufacturer (items RMA'd), and paid by the manu; same repair shop also charging a juicy hourly rate for off-warranty items or repairs to new goods bought gray market or otherwise unauthorized. Distribs - - stock up on parts!

If I was an electronics tech, I'd be seeing good times ahead. If was the owner of a b&m audio store, I'd be morphing the business into 75% repairs, 25% sales.

Give it time. If this goes on long enough, and we all hope it doesn't, even high-end audio components will be jumping off the shelf in "Going-out-of-business" sales. I would dare to guess that a number of audio manufacturers featured in Stereophile magazine don't have much of an impact on the gross national product of this country. Example, how many people really own a $10,000 turntable? If that manufacturer fell down in the forest will it make a sound?

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That is the problem.
As consumers we all like a good deal, but I would hate to see some of our best cos. go down.

On the other hand, the best companies don't go down first. Only the worst companies crumble under the slightest pressure. It's not our fault as consumers that icons like General Motors are in dire straights. It's their fault and as such they need to dig themselves out on their own or fail. No business has a infinite life span. None.

Don't feel sorry for them. They made bad business decisions as prudent business people. It called negligence.

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It's a boutique industry that I am part of, so I hope the economy doesn't do in people and companies I like.

It's not as if a company like Shindo has squandered his employees' pensions and made crap products. Just by the very nature of what he does, something that a crap peddler like Bose can survive, an artisan like him might not.

There aren't 'poorly run' companies, they are just more vulnerable to a down market than another company that makes motorcycles, electronics, and musical instruments.

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It's a boutique industry that I am part of, so I hope the economy doesn't do in people and companies I like.

I hope so too. Boutique shops who operate in all of our local neighbourhoods and who sell all manner of consumer specialty items - - clothing, hand-crafted items, etc - -are closing. Wal-Mart sales are up.

Actually I've seen quite a few sales of medium high-end stuff lately. Not sure you're going to ever get them to bring down the price of a Caliburn TT or Focal Utopia speakers, but hey, no harm in asking.