Audio's 20-Year Fall from Grace
By Robert Archer
Manufacturers continue to maneuver to keep quality audio on the minds of younger consumers.

Many people within the consumer electronics industry remember when audio was a major entertainment pastime. Since the 1980s, however, the audio category has seen its consumer base erode while newer hobbies like gaming, home videos and web-based technologies have risen to prominence.

Put in a reactionary position, manufacturers in the consumer electronics audio categories have been trying for the past several years to retake their slice of the entertainment market.

As audio manufacturers re-assess their position in the consumer market, many of them have finally come to the realization that they must adapt to today's market conditions to capture the attention of a new generation of consumers that have little loyalty to their products and entertainment capabilities.

What Went Wrong?
The consumer electronics audio industry allowed itself to fall into a state of commoditization in which it's price-shopped next to computer products, according to Alec Chanin, president of KEF America.

Chanin suggests that it was actually more than the development of the gaming and Internet markets that facilitated the fall of the audio hobby. He theorizes that it was a combination of those factors and the audio industry's lackadaisical approach to sales that led to the audio community's current situation.

"Manufacturers and even retailers allowed the notion that ‘CDs all sound the same' to be accepted," he says. "I also believe that we lost the passion for our products by not conveying excitement through demonstration.

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