Where Do We Go From Here?

That sounds like a rather cryptic question for an A/V review website to be asking, given that it’s just celebrated its 30th Anniversary.

This has been an interesting year both for Secrets as a website and for the A/V industry whose products we cover. With the malaise wrought by the COVID pandemic being officially over, the A/V industry woke to a new reality that a few expected but most did not.

No longer being bound to their homes and immediate locales, people wanted to get out and do other things with their money. Enthusiasts, already having updated their home systems while stuck during lockdowns needed to feel and experience the real world again. And they did just that. Short-haul, long-haul, and every length of travel in between we got out there and started to live again, but this wasn’t the only distraction at play. Economically speaking, on the home front things were not firing on all cylinders this year either. The only saving grace for the USA was that things were generally worse in most other places around the world.

As we touched on earlier in the year, when looking at the industry as a whole, it was apparent that Ultra-High-End Audio and Video was doing well as their clientele always seems to have disposable income. This is not some sort of dig at the wealthy, it’s just the facts. Announcements of new uber-expensive gear were happening like clockwork throughout these past 12 months with no signs of abating. And talking to high-end manufacturers one-on-one confirmed that their market seemed plenty solid.

The ultra-value end of the market also seemed to be doing well this past year, with plenty of new products to appeal to those looking for maximum bang for the buck. And let’s face it, everyone feels good when they’ve spent only a little and gotten something that was significantly better than they expected. There is never an off-season for that set of circumstances.

No, the pain this past year has been felt where the rest of us, the “normies” shop. That $2K to $5K per pair of speakers or for a single component “bread basket” area of the biz. There have been several other things competing now for that (what seems like) ever-dwindling margin of middle-class disposable income, and manufacturers have been feeling it. Companies that saw unexpected win fall sales during the pandemic and banked on that behavior being the new norm, ramped up production and paid higher production costs due to supply chain issues. Subsequently many found themselves with high levels of expensive inventory that were increasingly becoming difficult to move post-COVID.

Personal audio has remained a resilient bright spot in the industry, with the desire for higher quality headphones, players, amplifiers, cables, and accessories showing no sign of abating. Every level of personal audio from cheap-as-chips to nosebleed expensive is equally on fire. From New York to Munich, to Tokyo this past year I have yet to encounter a poorly attended headphone show. This reinforces my belief that those incessantly squawking about the imminent death of the audiophile hobby are being premature with their eulogies. Newer audiophiles have been cutting their teeth and training their ears on the personal audio side of the business. However, they have yet to encounter the catalyst, that pivoting point in their lives, that will bring them over to the home audio side of the fence. That requires an improvement in general economic conditions, higher wages, lower housing prices, etc. Whether the incoming administration can effect positive changes in those areas remains to be seen.

Should economic conditions improve in tangible ways, my gut tells me we will begin to see a substantive shift. Where the personal audio enthusiast will want to extend their experience into the home A/V and possibly automotive area. And having been weened on the good stuff in personal audio, they will not want to settle for just a passible home experience. All we can do at this point is wait and see but I tend to find myself being cautiously optimistic at the state of things going forward. It’ll take a little time for sure, but I can’t help having faith that things will get better.

Jumping down an adjacent rabbit hole for a moment, I also find this talk about the death of physical media predictably premature. Yes, according to the RIAA’s mid-2024 Industry Report, revenues from streaming services are still king, making up 84% of revenues ($7.3 billion) while physical media made up only 11% of revenue ($994 million). Of that physical media percentage, vinyl outsold CDs by only 6 million physical units, but the kicker is on the revenue side. With vinyl averaging $30 per unit versus CD at $14 per unit, vinyl’s revenue intake turns into a bit more of a cash cow at $740 million to CD’s $237 million. And we aren’t even talking about the used physical media market at all here. Additionally, numerous manufacturers this year have announced new CD players and transports. Heck a few personal audio companies have even announced new cassette “Walkman” style devices too.

A key concept here is that as convenient as the whole streaming subscription model is, one never really owns their content. And people aren’t buying digital music content in droves either as digital downloads are only 2% of overall music revenues this year ($173 million) and that figure has been steadily declining for over a decade. There is also the issue of the content you like can’t always be depended on to stay on a streaming site. Classical music lovers in particular complain of desired content frequently disappearing from streaming sites. It’s for these reasons, along with the basic concept of collection, that people like to own their favorite content. I think this behavior with the music industry media presages what will happen with video content too. Yes, even though LG and Samsung have stopped producing Blu-ray players and stores like Best Buy and Target have either stopped or reduced their Blu-Ray disc sales, if vinyl (and CD) has shown us anything it’s that demand comes in cycles. Video streaming has especially onerous issues, with increasing subscription rates, mandatory ads, no guarantee that what is available to view one month will still be there the next, classic content is edited to meet current views and biases, digitally purchased content may not remain so with “Terms & Condition” changes. George Carlin said it best, “We all need a place for our stuff,” and slowly more people are realizing that the “Cloud” doesn’t count.

I think one of the biggest mental connections that I have made this year is that all audio manufacturers have a story and that more of them need to leverage it. I was fortunate enough to travel and visit several manufacturers this year (both large and small) and learn more about where they came from, and what they were doing, getting past the marketing materials and meeting the people on the production floor putting products together was a very enlightening experience. It made me start thinking about where my money goes when I make an audio or video purchase. Is getting the best deal I can still the most important thing, or is supporting a company with a history or tradition that they continue honoring and living more important? Our stereo and home theater systems can provide tremendous musical and visual satisfaction and I find that I would like to know more about what is behind the design and development of the gear that appeals to me. The back story of the product and the company for me becomes an increasingly more valuable part of the equation and, if compelling enough, I will make the extra effort to seek out those particular brands with a story to tell.

So, bringing this back around to my opening question, “Where do we go from here?” My friends, we continue to move forward. This industry we all love (and sometimes love to hate) evolves in interesting ways. We have recently seen the news of the McIntosh Group, which includes Sonus faber and Sumiko along with the US distribution of Rotel and Pro-Ject, being purchased by Bose Corporation. Auto accessory manufacturer Gentex just picked up VOXX International (Klipsch, Onkyo, and Integra), and in a smaller but no less interesting maneuver, Paradigm/Anthem/MartinLogan just acquired the GoldenEar brand from the Quest Group. I’m sure that we will see more such purchases and mergers of well-known audio and video companies by larger groups to ensure survival and viability in this world. Look at automotive giants Honda and Nissan, as of this writing they are exploring the possibility of merging into the world’s third-largest automotive brand.

We here at SECRETS will head into year 31 with the same intent and dedication that we have always had, and that is to provide you with compelling and timely product reviews, many with an eye to the technical. We will continue to expand our audience by steadily growing our YouTube channel, maintaining a healthy balance between it and our traditional written output. No reason in the world why a good A/V website can’t do both! Beyond our regular reviews, we will continue to bring you our in-depth show reports and factory visits along with exploring new ways to engage with you, our audience, and bringing you more useful content. Some “How To” and product clinic videos may not be out of the question.

At the end of the day, we are just a bunch of quirky, somewhat obsessive, but generally normal people who are trying to have fun with audio and video while sharing that all with you. That being said, we are not a charity operation and need more than our own good intentions to run this site and keep it going. So, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors whose support we depend on to keep things humming along. Their continued support for what we do means that we can bring you more of the stuff that we want to share, and that means the world to us. I also would like to thank our web hosting team at Advontemedia without whom we would not have this jazzy website that is our platform to you.

And finally, I’d like to thank all of you, our readers and viewers who continue to frequent our website and our YouTube channel. Thank you for considering us important enough to invest some of your valuable time with. We do not take you for granted and we try to keep the content relevant and enjoyable. Speaking of which, I just made phone contact with the last two prize winners from our 30th Anniversary Giveaway today, you’d be surprised how hard it is in this digital day and age to give away stuff because everyone is worried about online scams and email phishing! One fellow was from St John’s Newfoundland and the other was from New Orleans and they were two of the nicest and most engaging people I’ve chatted with in a while. Both are longtime regular readers of ours who asked questions and gave me some great input on what they like and what they’d like to see on the site going forward. So, in closing, I’m going to extend the invitation to all of our readers and viewers out there. Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]. Say Hi, tell me what you think of the site, and let me know if there is anything you’d like us to focus on or have questions about. We want to know what our readers care about.

May you and yours have the Happiest of Holidays and a safe and peaceful New Year!

Photo courtesy of Jason Thorpe.

Carlo Lo Raso
Editor-In-Chief
[email protected]