A great point was brought up in one of the posts below, so I thought I would start this thread....

It is getting harder and harder to put gear into some of todays cars.

Professionally, a lot of our growth has come via custom home audio -- we could never "abandon" car audio, but home IS where it is at these days...

It is kind of funny for me, because I used to be a home guy that learned car audio, but when I was in the field everyone thought I was a car guy doing home... LOL. I built my first speaker from a kit in 1985... nice to see home being important again.

 

Is the market actually growing or are you just increasing your share in the existing market?

I can see total home automation and stuff being an increasingly popular field though. But I'm not so sure on strictly high end home audio

 

the shop i work at currently is really phasing out car audio over the next few years in favour of custom home. In this area, housing is booming and we've got half a dozen home installers going all the time. The problem is we dont have enough people to do the work! I mean, with car, you frequently get shopped on everything, with custom home, no one questions on things like wire prices and accessories. And the labour bills are fantastic, we regularly charge more than $60/hr and when 3 guys are at a house all day it adds up. Other big moneymakers include programming custom remotes, runinng thousands upon thousands of feet of wire at more than triple margin, in celing and inwall speakers and a host of other things. I think alot of people are shifting to it because the money is there and so is the market.
yeah, custom home rocks

 

Paul, put it this way -- there are at least 3-4 times as many guys trunk slamming custom home as there are guys doing car audio out of their garages.

High End home is growing, but not fast -- CUSTOM home as part of a reno is.

 

PS -- Much of our growth is in supplying custom home gear (cables, wire, speakers, etc.)

 

I disagree,

Car Audio is slowing going down due to lack of qualified people in the feild. Cars have alwasy been hard, being a full radio heaters in an older nissan 240 to a BOSE system in a brand new GM.

We do not have the right people in the right places. Rookies that do NOT want to "pay" their dues. We lose staff due to in largely people just do not want to work hard. EX: In showing a "rookie" what I expected in a speaker install and showing him what I wanted to see and after watching my preform the install on one sdie of the car and walking him throught each step to show why I did the things I do and what to look for I wasn't all that surprised when he did the oppsite and created more work for me to fix the issue. I stated before, these rookies today watch way to much TV and do not want to understand what happens behind the smoke and mirros.

This is why companies and retailers are moving to HT since it is very easy to place a speaker on a shelf and sell it as a "custom home theater". Why do you think everyone has a "HT in a Box"? Plug and go, your an expert rather think through a car install.......don't believe me? Why is it now you can but Ipod controls for your HT? Or maybe Sat Radio for the home when most of us have Sat TV/Digital Cable with like a bunch of music channels?

Path of least resitance.........

 

^^^^ good point.

My band used to have a saying... "if we don't make it in rock, we can always move on to country" (actually we moved on to country AND polka but that is another story... LOL)

Claudio, you are right about guys who cannot cut it in car audio moving on to home audio. Eric Gee once said of a former home installer of ours "...you know why he is so good at home audio? He has more room to hide his mistakes" and he was right. The standards / training required to do home do not exist and many time home audio installers do panic at the first sign of a challenge. So you do have a point, but market wise, the market for home audio is growing faster than car.

 

Yup, home is growing faster than car.......that doesn't mean people do not want to change the system in theirs cars.......they just can't find anyone to do the job right and they are scared to do it themselves.

Also, when doing a full HT system in your house (not a HT in a box) they can add the whole system in their morgage.

Car CAN grow again (just look at SEMA)....customers just need to feel confident again with "us".

 

A couple of challenges in our industry I have seen the past number of years are as follows:

(1) The factory systems in cars are getting better every year! No they are not up to the quality level you or I might want but for many people with a leased car (more and more leased vehicles on the road) they are quite adequate.

(2) The past 6 or 7 years we have been challenged by another segment of the 12V market that has now become main-stream. This is the 'Tuner' market. 10 years ago there was not much a guy/gal could do to their car other than upgrade the stereo. Now they can buy new wheels, intakes, body kits, HID kits etc. It is also much more trouble for a thief to steal these 'Tuner' parts than it is a stereo.

This being said, there will always be business for a good car audio shop. The reason why? There will always be a guy/gal that wants a better stereo than what their ride comes with stock. Integration with the factory system is our new challenge and will become more-so in the coming years. There are many products on the market to make this integration job easier for us.

In regards to custom home, I see this segment of the market continuing to grow. It is truly a huge industry.