[adamw2k]

Another sign of the times. I remember when Oppo's were one of the few (if not only) players to play burned CD's. There's just not enough of a "mid-market" enthusiast crowd left - someone that wants a hardware player, won't splurge on the big names, but willing to spend more than what a local retailer (or Best Buy?) has. Wonder what that says for mid-range speaker makers?

[S_A_P]

Audio seems to be getting more personal now. Now that everyone can have just about every song ever, nobody wants a shared listening experience anymore. Half the reason to have a great stereo was because people couldnt afford tons of content to play, so having a nice room filling stereo meant others could hear and enjoy it too. I have fond memories of my uncles listening room. He was a tube amp hi-fi junky and every visit included at least an hour of deep listening sessions.

[B1FF_PSUVM]

> because people couldnt afford tons of content to play

You'd save for a while to buy a vinyl LP, choose it carefully (besides radio play, you could also ask to play it for a bit at the store), take it home and listen to it a score of times in a row, perhaps in company.

Then lend it to the friend(s) who also loaned you their LPs. Eventually the LP would come to its place of honour on a shelf with a couple dozen others, to be played when the mood struck.

[/Flintstone ;-]

[ebiester]

In headphones? Mid-market is truly emerging. Beats has introduced people into spending more than 50 dollars on a headphone and companies such as Audeze, Sennheiser, Beyer-Dynamic and others are really expanding. The high end is also expanding but headphones are becoming a geekdom.

Just as an example. I guess senn and Beyer are considered big names at this point but in the scheme of things, Senn has 2000 employees and Beyer has around 300.

They have a series of headphone enthusiast conferences called CanJam. I put mid-market as under 500 but others would put it under 1000, where the most interesting headphones are emerging.

[creeble]

Passive speakers are becoming more and more of a niche (compared to various categories of powered speakers, mainly Bluetooth [and Echo]). But it's still a very real market.

As a younger generation starts buying homes, the passive speaker market benefits. But many remain happy with the convenience of portable/small speakers, so it's still a way smaller market than it once was.

Source: I work for a competitor of OPPO (still sad to see them go in a way).