What I'd like as a consumer is the antidote to this.
I saw something like this trying to get a replacement plumbing fitting at my parent's house a few years back. The local hardware store with the high-quality stuff had been closed down by the big-box stores. Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just gone.
In consumer audio, I fear that same - maybe we need some way to navigate away from the 7-eleven iphone headphones, from the bose/beats continuum, and to maybe find something like the moondrop blessing2.
Amazon and other high volume low margin retailers are a is pretty good antidote "for this". Good shipped from manufacturer to consumer with smallest markup possible. Of course it kills service, local shopping, city taxes, retail employment along the way but that was the overhead.
If you like Schiit and are willing to trade "Made in America" for "Best audio at any price", but for about the same price, you'd probably like Topping, too. https://www.tpdz.net
Worse selection, less organized, higher prices, and limited online presence? You might be in a local hardware store.
You might snag a deal on some dusty new-old-stock part, but for just about anything else, I much prefer the box stores or Amazon or supplyhouse.com (I can vouch heavily for these guys, who used to be called pexsupply.com)
One major difference though (at least in my experience with hardware stores in rural Northern California) is that many of the employees actually have a good amount of experience with the tools and materials and can offer recommendations and help you figure things out and make decisions.
Good luck getting most HD employees to do much beyond looking up a location on their phone slower than you can do yourself.
I'm generally willing to pay for the experience of being surrounded by a tenured team who know what they're doing rather than a rotating cast operating at inattentive high schooler levels, but I do still go to HD a lot.
And there was one store I stopped going to because the old guy knew too much and could tell I was doing things out of my depth and - while being somewhat helpful - made me anxious. At HD if you buy a weird combination of stuff or just don't have the air of a pro, nobody's paying attention or knows the difference.
> Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just gone.
Both Lowe's and Home Depot sell metal faucets, taps, knobs, etc., in a variety of styles.
They could be referring to a toilet paper roller. Just had to replace one of mine and realized while shopping that I haven't seen a proper metal one of those in in years.
> Yes, that is our name. Shih-tah. It's a proud German name, host to a long line of audio engineers who slaved away in crumbling Teutonic fortresses as lightning lashed the dark lands outside, working to perfect the best amplification devices in the world...
> Or, well, no. Yep, Schiit is our name, and it's pronounced, well, like "hey man, that's some really good Schiit!" And now that we have your attention...
I saw something like this trying to get a replacement plumbing fitting at my parent's house a few years back. The local hardware store with the high-quality stuff had been closed down by the big-box stores. Perusing the possibilities at lowes and home depot showed plastic and fake chrome when I would have paid extra for high quality brass or even metal. It was just gone.
In consumer audio, I fear that same - maybe we need some way to navigate away from the 7-eleven iphone headphones, from the bose/beats continuum, and to maybe find something like the moondrop blessing2.
is it possible?
EDIT: I do like schiit audio https://schiit.com