Once upon a time real products got real reviews in real magazines. Only the wannabees were forced online. Now that situation is reversed, flipped on its head. The internet isn’t just here to stay, it’s constantly spreading and evolving. For end-users that is both an opportunity and a problem. The increased access to advice and information can be as confusing as it is valuable, so a new understanding of sources and significance, weight and reliability is essential. It is also our opportunity to avoid any return to the casual corruption and laissez-faire acceptance of undue influence and bullying of the recent past. The key to these goals is debate and discussion.
Both high-end audio sales and high-end audio publishing are having to adapt to a new normal, in which two-tier product distribution is likely to become the dominant model. With more products, more sales channels and much more information available, the old, tightly controlled market has not so much crumbled as imploded. Like Napoleon’s Old Guard at Waterloo, the previously invincible juggernaut hasn’t just been stopped, it’s falling apart and it’s about to get hurled back down the hill. With it will go those elements of the old order that refuse to adapt. Audio’s glass ceiling hasn’t just cracked, it’s starting to shatter. What that is increasingly revealing is the naked embarrassment of big-name brands who are no-longer wearing their high-end regalia or justifying their high-end price-tags. In their place, new products are already emerging, products that offer new solutions and whole new levels of performance – and not just at the stratospheric price-points occupied by Wadax, Tidal and CH Precision. There’s plenty of products out there from companies like Neodio, Diptych, Konus Audio and Vienna Acoustics (and myriad other, even smaller companies) that might finally start getting the sunlight and oxygen they so richly deserve.
