May 2025

The Future Of Our Audiophile Hobby Part 4
Concerning the things to come… and what will make them better!
Article By Roger Skoff

  In Part 1 of "The Future Of Our Audiophile Hobby", more in Part 2 of The Future, plus Part 3 last month, the necessarily lengthy articles about our hobby and the industry that serves it, I told about how our hobby was once what computers and cell phones are today: the state-of-the-art, the thing that everybody knew about, loved, and had to have. I also wrote about how it has, since then, fallen from glory, and become, for most people, at best a curiosity, and at worst, a sort of utility (everybody uses water, gas, and electricity, but nobody gets excited about them), and that the problem has gone so far that – even though they are constantly surrounded by music of some sort and some quality at practically every turn, many people don't even know what the words "hi-fi" or "stereo" mean, yet they know "immersive" as there are various new state-of-the-art immersive experiences for entertainment.

To a very great degree, I wrote, our hobby has become one for a declining number of old men and is in current and specific danger of following the electric train (Remember how there used to be one of those circling every Christmas tree?) into nostalgic oblivion. I'm neither the only one to notice nor to comment on this, and it's been going on for a good number of years, with a good number of audiophiles, manufacturers, dealers, and high-fidelity audio publications expressing mounting levels of concern. Now, though, we finally have the opportunity to do something about it that will work:

The real problem we have to overcome is that the general public – the great bulk of people that we have to reach and interested in revitalizing our hobby and industry – simply don't know or notice that we're still around. It's not a just matter of them not caring about better sound (although, until it knocks their socks off, a lot of them seem to not know, and perhaps don't care what they're missing); it's more that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, they're just perfectly happy with what they've got.

To change that, we're going to have to, even before anything else, get their attention. Then, once we've got it, we have to give them a reason to want what we're offering. And, perhaps surprisingly, just good sound may not be enough. If you've ever shown off your sound system to uninitiated friends or others, you know that a common response is that, even if they're mightily impressed, they're not impressed enough to actually go and do something about it by buying a system of their own.

Learning the joy of music and the pleasure of hearing it in great sound is a life-changing experience and, if we want them to change their lives, we have to give them something that makes that worthwhile.

If blue is a pretty color and a person likes blue, they might buy blue clothing. But if everybody is wearing blue, and it's this year's "fashion" color, and a person who isn't wearing it will feel "out-group" and "uncool", you can bet money that most people will be wearing blue clothing, living in blue houses, and driving blue cars as long as the fashion lasts.

People are social animals and, whatever it may be, however it may be manifest, and to whatever degree, you can be sure that people will respond to social pressure, either positive or negative. If something is popular, they'll embrace it, wanting to be popular too, and if it's uncool, you can bet they'll avoid it. Nobody wants to be a pariah.

And how does that happen? How does something become either this week's hot setup or something to run away from? Sometimes it's just natural – somebody wears, says, or does something and everybody just picks it up, Or somebody posts something on the internet and, whether for good or for bad, it goes viral. Other times, though. in fact, far more often, it happens because of clever or skillful advertising or public relations done quite on purpose, with a goal to achieve and a budget to go after it with.

That's what we need to do with our hi-fi hobby and industry. We need to make hi-fi sound and the hi-fi hobby "cool" again, to make it a necessary part of everybody's lifestyle, and to make having an exceptional system – like having a great house, the "right" car, or "designer" clothing – a way to demonstrate to the world that you really are the person you want them to think you are.

As I mentioned in Part 3 of this article, the obvious thing to do as a hi-fi industry association. But, as I also mentioned, all efforts to do that thus far, have failed. Either the organization (EIA, CEMA, etc.) has been too big, and we've gotten lost in it and been ignored in favor of bigger or more lucrative parts of the electronics industry, or the organization (AAHPAV, for example) had been far too small, focused on the wrong things (self-serving awards and banquets, instead of actually promoting our industry to the world), or insufficiently skilled, directed, and funded, eventually to die or wither away without effect.

There's also the problem any organization faces of people wanting to enjoy its benefits without committing any of their own time, effort, or money to promote the general cause instead of just their own company interests. (Something like this was mentioned in Part 3, in the story of the hi-fi manufacturer and the two Chinese distributors, neither of whom was willing to advertise in that country for fear of benefiting the other, with the result that neither of them did any business in China that year.)

What we need in order to establish an effective organization for our industry is agreement on several very simple facts.

1. That our hobby and industry is not growing, and experiencing market penetration, to the extent we desire.

2. That promoting high-end audio it to the general public can be an effective way to bring more people into the fold.

3. Anything that benefits the audio / music industry will benefit not only every high-end audio company (manufacturers, distributors, and dealers), that by bringing them new and better products to enjoy we all benefit.

4. That, in order to achieve those benefits, every company in the industry must participate in the organization.

5.That the benefits of participation will be worth the cost.

If we can gain that agreement, we can achieve wonders. Here's how:

Audio Industries Associations, International (AIAI) will be formed and will, by its very nature cause our industry to unite for the advancement of itself and our hobby.

Its sole purpose will be to promote hi-fi, as entertainment, as an essential part of our lifestyle, and as a way of demonstrating economic and social standing. In short, it will present hi-fi as being, all at the same time, as homey as apple pie, as essential to ordinary people as a Ford F-150 or the family Camry, and as prestigious as a Rolex watch, a designer outfit, or an exotic or expensive car.

If other products can do it, why can't we? Transportation, ways of telling time, and even shoes and clothing have all managed to create that double image of being useful, even necessary, and – if it's the right brand, the right model, or the right style – a badge, a membership card, and a prestige item and source of pride and bragging rights, as well.

The way that this will be done will be by national (and eventually international) advertising and PR, showing hi-fi products present (not even necessarily in use) in every kind of lifestyle situation, from "down home" to as far as you can get up-town. With enough money and the momentum it will bring, we can make hi-fi look like everybody has it and couldn't live without it; make High-End Audio immersive hi-fi as cool and FOMO as a Lamborghini or silly-expensive Nike sneakers and, once that's done, the boom will be on.

And that's when people will discover how truly great hi-fi is, start to appreciate it for its sound and its emotional involvement, and a new generation of audiophiles will be born.

As I said earlier, doing this won't require many people – just a small team with large skills and talents, tightly focused on nothing other than just that one goal.

That will be AIAI's operating team – something like Seal Team Six, but in a very different way, and all management people will be drawn NOT from the hi-fi industry (to avoid even any thought of favoritism or bias) but will be Advertising and PR professionals, recruited from top agencies and national firms to give AIAI the greatest possible promotional results from every dollar spent.

Another part of the operating team will have nothing to do with promoting the industry, but will concentrate exclusively on bringing in new AIAI members to fund the Association's activities and share in its benefits.

Controlling the administrative, but not the creative activities of AIAI's expert operating team will be a Board of Directors consisting of seven members, all (after AIAI's initial formation) elected by vote of the Association's membership for a fixed term of office. Their job will be to set the overall course of the Association, to hire and fire members of the operating team, and to judge their progress, both in promoting our industry to the public and in building AIAI's membership and funding.

To consult with them as needed and to aid them in this there will be a two hundred member Board of Advisors, chosen by invitation, and representing both a broad and a deep cross-section of our industry's finest companies. Recruitment of Board of Advisors members has already started, and 100% of those invited thus far have accepted and agreed to participate.

This is crucial, because, to bring in enough membership dues to pay for a truly successful program of promotion, AIAI will need to get as many industry companies – dealers, manufacturers, and distributors – as possible to join, and the Board of Advisors is a major key to doing that.

AIAI will be set up so that dealers can only sell the products of Association member companies, and most or all of the brands they carry or want to carry will already be members, and probably even on AIAI's Board of Advisors.

That will make it an easy requirement for dealers to meet, and with dealers – after a planned transition period in which to sell off any non-qualifying merchandise they may still have on hand – selling only products made or distributed by AIAI members, that, for most dealers will require little or no change at all and will, at the same time, ensure maximum manufacturer and distributor participation.

Besides gaining the sales benefits of the Association's promotional activities, member dealers will also receive an ongoing stream of real benefits, including specialized inventory control tips, training for their sales and installation staff members, management, financial, and self-promotional coaching, and a long list of other tips and training to help them build their business and maximize its profitability.

For all that, dealers, regardless of size, will pay only a maximum of $200 a month in dues – far less than the profit on only one additional system sale that AIAI promotion and membership might bring them.

Manufacturers and distributors, too, will pay only modest membership dues to gain what are potentially huge sales benefits. While it's estimated (Microsoft Copilot, April 25, 2025) that the average consumer electronics business now spends between 2% and 3% of its annual gross sales volume on advertising and promotion, above a fixed rate of $200 a month for them, too, no manufacturer or distributor – even the industry's largest – will ever pay more than a fraction of 1% of its sales for membership dues.

Consumer electronics businesses typically allocate around 2% to 3% of their annual gross sales volume for advertising and promotional activities. This percentage can vary depending on factors like the company's size, market strategy, and goals. For example, newer companies might spend more aggressively to establish market presence, while established brands may focus on maintaining awareness with a smaller budget.

Recall that, in the last part of this article, it was calculated that even if our industry's part of the world total home audio market (estimated at US$ 35 billion annually) is only just 5 billion dollars, (about 15%), all it would take for the Association to reach an annual revenue figure of U.S. $2 million from membership dues would be just 1 dollar out of every 2500 in sales, or, to put it differently, only FOUR ONE HUNDREDTHS OF ONE PERCENT (0.04%) of world-wide total gross sales, even at that 5 billion dollar limited rate.

That's if everybody joins, but even if it's really only one company in ten, the requirement to reach that annual budget goes up to only 0.4 percent of the total. And, with all of our industry bound together by an agreement that members will only buy from (or sell to) members, the percentage of AIAI membership will likely be far beyond that, with corresponding increases in membership revenues, the amount that can be allocated for promotion, and, if that promotion is successful, at least a similar increase in total industry sales.

And that's one reason why AIAI is named Audio Industries Associations International.

To at least the degree of any other industry that I can think of, our industry and hobby are truly international. Audiophiles and the companies that serve them are everywhere, in every country, and it's a rare – or even impossible – system whose components (or at least the parts they're built from) can't truthfully boast of having been built on at least two continents.

That means that, for our hobby and industry to truly unite and effectively work together for our mutual gain, AIAI needs to be international. And we're already getting signs that that will happen. Not only are both US and international audiophile publications, dealers, manufacturers, and distributors already expressing interest in becoming a part of AIAI, so, also, are foreign audio trade organizations and local associations, and all are eager to restore hi-fi to its former glory and even raise it to greater heights all around the world.

We've already gotten promised or actual backing from the publications, from a major advertising agency creative director (to head the operating team), from another advertising agency now serving some of the most prestigious brands in the world, and from dealers, manufacturers, and distributors to support the Association during its formative stages, where everything must be done on a voluntary or pro bono basis because money cannot be raised, invested, or spent, and, at this rate, things will be coming together soon.

If, however, you, yeah you out there, are a member or a supporter of our industry and/or our hobby and would like to help things along by making your professional services (legal, financial, accounting, providing contacts or introductions, or writing support or teaching materials to become part of our dealer benefit program, or anything else that will help get AIAI up and running faster) we can't pay anything right now, but will either greatly appreciate your help or if, as with any of the categories of support just mentioned, your help continues to be needed, we will hire you or your firm on an ongoing basis as soon as it becomes possible.

Think about it. Aren't our hobbies and industry worth saving? Wouldn't you like to see them flourish, instead of continuing on their path of decline? Wouldn't AIAI help your business or benefit your hobby if you become an ongoing part of it? If you know of, or are interested in finding out a way to help, or would like to join, once AIAI gets going, contact me, Roger Skoff, through Enjoy the Music.com.

As for me, I want nothing from AIAI other than its success and growth and the benefits its work will bring to our hobby, our industry, and the new customers and audiophiles it will create. I don't need any title or any say in how AIAI comes together or what it does after it's formed. I don't need any compensation at all and will be happy just to be one more dues-paying member, helping others to...

Enjoy the music!

 

Roger Skoff