" HI; I'm Looking for an amplifier?"
"How MUch Do You Want To Spend??"

Are there enough readers of Playboy and now Maxim (I suppose)
to keep that dream of the swinging bachelor pad alive? We've
discussed before that women find little interest in these topics
so I wonder what 'the pitch' is from the sellers.

And what are these pieces of retail gear to which you
refer?

Not many hobbyists are building cd players for instance.

Many have made turntables.

At a DIY show do the builders of product which is discussed
in the forums here then exhibit their latest creations looking
toward acceptance and sale in the marketplace?

For this a yes or no will do.

Or should a DIY show feature one-off builds by hobbyists
exclusively? This would apply to SET amps, speaks, pre's
etc. And do kits count?

But you bring up an interesting point. When you ask if builders of equipment are looking for sales; I guess if they are ready to put a business model in place they might be looking to market their stuff; it isn't easy. I remmember reading in Stereophile a half-dozen years ago a essay detailing exactly how much capital is required to enter the high end audio business. They said it takes a minimum of 500K$; that includes advertising/product support/manufacturing/insurance/design blah blah.

However; refering this post to the point I made regarding how so many amatuer and DIY forums are beginning to resemble proffessional retailers; in a similar fashion to the state of the industry that existed back in the early 80's; that was my comment on how similar the landscape is becoming to how things were back then. And of course we all know how people feel about those historical conditions; people abandoned the hobby in droves if I remmember it correctly.

I don't see any problem with this BTW; because as I said; I believe the music lovers will always find an outlet for expressing their needs regarding audio and music.
But what precipitates this morphing of a commonality of purpose into a profit driven entity? Thats the really interesting part of this equation. I think what happens is guys begin to try and find ways to finance their hobby by doing or selling little things for small amounts of money to other guys who do audio. Soon they begin to see a little trickle of cash drifting their way and they begin to hoard. They hoard ideas and equipment and tubes and etc; in the hopes that the trickle will grow to a torrent. Thats when the peak threshold is bridged; when they start to manipulate the market of ideas and parts and design. Then little fish grow and begin to require serious business acumen to survive. Many are fleshed out at this point. I read once that most businesses go under at the one million in gross reciepts point.

But I am not a graduate of the Wharton School; I just comment on what I see.

BTW; I just recieved my Last Poets CD shipping e-mail. I should get it soon. In the meantime I picked up some NWA stuff; you know as per our talk about rap and whatever possibilities it might hold for listening.

I always envisioned the DIY audio as open source but now I am
learning otherwise as well. Certain softwares are now on a sort
of subscription basis.

This is what Lessig referred to (paraphrasing) as the privatization
of the commons. In other words, knowledge that was freely exchanged
may provide the basis of a new concept. When that concept goes up for
sale there is a lack of recognition of the commons of information as
a contributing factor.

The other thing about Last Poets... HBO has a new film called
Walkout about student acctivities in 1968. That should be a very
worthwhile thing to follow up on.

I think the upcoming V.T.V. Show in Jersey is what spurred this post. I think about them and the great magazine they used to put out. It just seems indicative of exactly what occurred in the past. At first they share information helpfully with enthusiasm for the hobby then They became known; started charging a fortune for little parts and repairs; putting on a show and boom; the magazine is gone and V.T.V. is a corporation.
Can't be giving that information away if you can sell it now. There we have lots of companies started the same way; why is that a problem? Well; because inevitably once the money enters the picture the quality of the product slips and the arrogance grows. Look at Polk; used to make a nice speaker line.
Lot of names I am sure you can come up with. So some poor schlub buys their stuff based on reputation except they are a corporate entity now. So lots of little shortcuts in manufacturing. Then literally dozens of outfits spring up only to go broke in two years and leave the buyers hanging.
Oh well; when those nice kits and congenial forums with helpfull people and inexpensive and shared designs go corporate;.. it just means eventually we'll have to start searching for new ways of getting at the hobby; a new world with new people and new places.
Keep on truckin'.
There will always be the birth of a new version of Sound Practices; rising up somewhere to pick up the slack. Anyone remmember that great little magazine Audiophila? Or The little pamphlets Bottlehead used to publish? Soon AudioeXpress will die and that leaves one huge hole in the audio press. Start saving all the stuff on the net now before they delete it all on you.