You can forget these sensible economic arguments. Yeah they look good on paper but don't work in practice. The audio market is too small and too weird. Run the numbers and an impossible number of sales is usually required to make everything fall into place.

One thing Audio Note knows is that expensive gear sells...in fact, it can be easier to sell than inexpensive gear. These days, people who have to scrape together $3k to buy aren't buying gear, they are buying food. Rich cats ALWAYS have money to spend. This is why most of audio seems dialed in on the 1%. They are the ones who can and do buy.

We sell all the Silbatone we want to make and it is very pricey stuff. We showed our $100,000 C-100 preamp in a store in Seoul for two weeks and sold seven of them, mostly to ex-FM Acoustics users. If we tooled up to make 1000 of them (at massive capital expense) and sold them for $50k, we would have 975 in stock after a year.

Totally senseless world.

Also, for most North American manufacturers, the real market is in Asia. Importers are more interested in high dollar gear with some profit in it, so that is what gets put on the boat. Once they got to Asia, luxury buyers wouldn't be interested because they are "too cheap." Big cheap horn speakers are a worst case product for this export distribution system.

The most viable business strategy is to play the game as it exists, leading to more of what we already have.

Silbatone is not trying to make a profit so we can play with the rules but for most makers it is a life and death struggle with little room for error.

Thank the gods for the small guys who take a chance, probably not entirely realizing what they are up against. That's where most of the interesting stuff happens and where most of the gear built with love originates.

The most encouraging point I can make is that fancy mainstream "magazine" audio is a shrinking fraction of what is going on out there. DIY and cottage industry is where the real action is, not to mention the FUN!

Most of the folks I hang out with haven't read an audio magazine in ten years or more...