Because it doesn't exist today - not like it used to. What happened? Well......a long time ago a company named Sony came out with a nifty little personal music playback system that was totally portable called the Walkman. That was in 1979 and it played cassette tapes. The consumer music industry had matured through the 60's, 70's and 80's rapidly. Still moving rapidly today, only away from where it once was. The 70's were the golden age of analog audio, things transitioned in the 80's not only the music style with punk and new wave as well as the club dance stuff. Much of that was driven by the creation of the polyphonic synthesizers and the advent of the compact disc of CD. Originally, the CD was reputed to have a lower noise floor, and greater dynamic range that the vinyl LP's.
The nail in the coffin of hifi and music we once knew was the advent of the .mp3 file - once it's digitized it can be chopped up. Where there were once local and national chain hifi stores such as Circuit City, The Federated Group, Pacific Stereo that sold high end audio systems for consumers are no longer. FM radio is not a viable market for a band to release new work as it once was. It's all about downloads onto a chip 1/2 the size of a postage stamp. The high end audio consumer market died in the 90's, by 2000 and era of Napster it was in large part gone. Headphones and plastic computer speakers, now bluetooth wireless stuff rules the world of personal music.
Hi end sound isn't a requirement these days - so an artist can make money without it. Even if you have high end audio source material today, the systems to play it on are not mainstream as they once were. Most stuff that places like Best Buy carry are packaged up junk. With much of the shredded low end .mp3 stuff out there it doesn't matter.
Not dissing here or bashing - it's the way things have gone. I'm wondering when the CD market will dry up. Maybe like vinyl, maybe it will hang around as a niche market - hopefully so, I like CD quality audio and have the gear to listen to it in all it's glory.
Bookmarks