[Editorial] The follies of the HiFi market: the number of components continues to increase

Let me continue to analyse the crazyness of our HiFi market, following the trend of my recent articles after the Milan 2023 HiFi Show reportage (also see here and here).

The new edition of the 2024 YEARBOOK edited by the Italian HiFi magazine SUONO has just been released, and there you can find an analysis on the state of the Italian market, thanks to a giant list of all components and accessories regularly marketed and distributed in Italy. This list does not include all those products that can be purchased online and which do not have regular Italian distribution. For example, the majority of ChiFi components are missing. Consequently, what follows is an underestimate.

I've stolen the table above from my Suono colleagues, because it allows me to make a certain number of considerations, but first let me take the opportunity to compliment them on this incredible amount of work that they take on every year. The two editions, paper and digital, differ in the type of components listed: they are equivalent as long as they deal with digital or analogue sources, but they differ on the rest of the components. The digital edition, in practice, has more amplifiers and speakers, as well as an entire additional section dedicated to cables and accessories. As far as I know, this kind of HiFi Yearbook is not available in other Countries, but please let me know if something similar exists in your Country, as I'd like to compare the data.

Let me start with analogue sources: we discover that 373 different turntables (!!!), 377 cartridges, 168 tonearms and 315 phono preamps are regularly marketed on the Italian market. Even those who are not good at mathematics and combinatorics can estimate the huge number of possible combinations of all these components, even discarding senseless combinations (top turntables with basic cartridges or vice versa). It is understandable that a buyer finds himself at least disorientated. And the task is no easier for us reviewers, who will never, ever have the chance to listen, evaluate and compare all these products and their almost infinite combinations. Even without reviewing/testing cables and accessories, there would still be 5444 different components to review. Allocating even just 30 days to each component to evaluate it and write something meaningful about it, it would take 5444 months or 453 years to test them all. Even dividing the task among several reviewers doesn't improve things much, because in the meantime the market would churn out hundreds or thousands more new products. So, don't ask us why we haven't yet reviewed that component that interests you, because there are another 5443 waiting, at least theoretically. Consequently, allow me to pose a simple question: is it possible that the Italian market, with its limited numbers, can justify - for example - the presence of almost 400 (four hundred) different turntables? Let me answer: no, it's not possible and it doesn't make any sense, in fact.

In the digital sources department the situation is no less paradoxical, with a total of 613 different components, including DACs, CD players, streamers, music servers etc. The situation becomes even crazier in the speakers and cables areas: 1785 different speakers and 2179 cables. We are beyond, well beyond, any level of ridiculousness. This is simple insane.

As I have written on other occasions, the tiny Italian HiFi market, with its few tens of thousands of enthusiasts, cannot keep so many different brands and products alive, if we take into account that even the most avid compulsive audiophile can't purchase and resell more than a dozen different components per year. Moreover, to better understand what numbers we are talking about, we should include into the equation the huge number of second-hand components.

All of the above makes us understand, in part, why HiFi companies - let's call them affectionately so, though they are often one-man bands - pop up like mushrooms in the woods after an autumn rain. Everyone hopes to make a splash by selling one or two very expensive components a year. The unfortunate buyer, who is often incapable of estimating the real value of a component, will be in serious trouble. The magazines should help buyers to extricate themselves from this Dante's circle. Unfortunately, the reports from the HiFi shows and the reviews don't help much since, from what I read around, it seems that everything is wonderful, indispensable, new and better sounding than the component that just went off the list. A simple reasoning would therefore lead us to imagine that after years of increasingly better and wonderful products, the level of what we hear around is stratospheric. Unfortunately this is not the case. The only thing that has really improved over the years is the quality of the entry-level products, the others are definitely lagging behind.

However, to keep the whole bandwagon alive, the experts have to write that everything is fantastic, that the rooms at the exhibitions are all beautiful and interesting (a polite way of saying that they sound bad, though looking good) and that the components being tested are ready to make you touch the sky with a finger. For how long will this system be able to sustain itself?

TNT-Audio's down to Earth approach is not enough to rebalance such a distorted and simply unrealistic market. In my opinion, enthusiasts must also do their part. And this is where the whole system collapses. Indeed, and sadly, I read of enthusiasts who, stupefied by aspects that have nothing to do with sound (weight, cost, materials and finish of the components), play the game of this crazy market, going so far as to ask shopkeepers to write reviews on the products they sell (!!!). As a result, many dealers are releasing, both on their social media or YouTube, reviews of what they sell. It's like a drug addict asking his pusher if the stuff he deals is of good quality. Believe me, the comparison is much less bizarre than it seems, because even the language they use is the same. I will return to this topic shortly. In the meantime, try drug rehab.

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February 2024 editorial

Almost 10,000 different HiFi components and accessories on the Italian HiFi market. That's pure nonsense!