1982 is a key year to remember for world hi-fi. Here's why:
Prior to 82 hi-fi was booming. OK? It was one of the biggest consumer spending items. There were no mobile phones, very few PCs, no Apple products. Consumer video was barely making its mark. TV was not yet to start upgrading. Hi-Fi was KING. There were
loads of awesome hi-fi products on the market and coming to market. Awesome hi-fi products. Now to why 82 was a key year:
Then came a global recession. You can read about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession
The consequences for hi-fi were that many of the great, great products were rarely seen after that. No it wasn't
the end of great hi-fi products. It was just the end of the sheer number of corporations making them and the sheer number of the populace buying them. Prior to this recession hi-fi was KING. After the recession people never bought hi-fi
to the same extent again. This is where we see the move to tiny speakers. Tiny systems. Many more tiny crap systems. CD takes over. So billions start to walk away from turntable ownership and record buying. CD to some extent saves the hi-fi industry from irrelevance. The industry jumps on the back of that and everything gets a label 'Digital Ready' in order to keep some momentum going, because industry in general worldwide is seeing sales and profits and jobs fall dramatically.
Check out how many amazing products came to market around 79-85. Many of them were in development prior to the recession when hi-fi was KING. See how many companies went bust after 85 or so. Hi-Fi had it balls cut off and its back broken by the recession and if it wasn't for CD most of the hi-fi industry would have failed. The Heyday of Vinyl(as sales go) was prior to '82. Prior to 82 even small towns had a hi-fi store. In many instances more than one. After '82 many of those started closing. Hi-fi once sold a lot of product, generated a lot of jobs and advertised like crazy. After '82 there were big changes.