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.