Edmonton, AB
Quoted from nate1981s:High end audio will never come back. I am a audiophile too but pinball is very different. Starting about 10-15 years ago the problem is the law of diminishing returns because cheap crap sounds so good for so little money. People I have shown my system too (about $50k) say it great but even if it was free they would not want it in their house due to the physical size never mind the cost. To 98% of people they can get theater/concert sound with a sound bar attached to their flat panel display with plenty of bass from that little cube on the floor. Another problem is no one really listens to music anymore. Who do you know actually buys a CD-SACD-whatever and sits in the sweet spot of a stereo system just to listen to music?
I was one that used to listen to music in the "sweet spot" - but that was many, many years ago. For the most part I now just listen to music more in a sense of having background noise. I still appreciate good sounding equipment and have spent some coin on my current system (not insane amounts like I use to) - but I will admit I also have had to compromised music sound quality as I use the same system to watch tv/movies with as well. I had to find a balance between the 2 and currently don't see the need to have 2 separate systems 'tuned' for their peak performance for either music or movies.
