[quote="Fnuckle, post: 760845"]Difference is, when you were a child, when people reached the age when they would get married and settle down, they'd buy hi-fi. Even when that became buying micro systems, they still bought them. That has all stopped. There is no mass-market anymore. Even the budget micro hi-fi systems sold in Currys don't sell these days. If they are a glorified iPod dock, perhaps. But otherwise, the numbers are tiny. Improvements to the high-end, discussions about vintage audio or single-ended amplifiers... you might as well be discussing gas lighting to most people under 40. This hobby doesn't just die with us. It dies before us. Before the end of the decade.[/QUOTE] So we go back to our sheds, pick up our soldering irons and take whats left of the hobby back to the roots? Reconcile ourselves to the fact that we lost the battle, things have moved on and accept our (tiny) place in the grand scheme of things? One big potential problem we haven't yet covered is what might happen to mastering quality as the market continues to change. Leaving the classical output to one side, things are already pretty dire with everything mastered to sound good on portable/small speaker kit. Us old gits could end up with a situation where modern music releases are unplayable on our super revealing, full range systems. ...and i thought your post was depressing!