I don't know what fraction of the total sales those electronic kits represented at their hey day. I suspect it was always small.
I believe snake oil became more prevalent because the audio market, as a whole, was shrinking. The manufacturers and dealers were looking for any way they could to boost sales and/or profits. They also had significant help from a few audio magazines and writers who promoted the overpriced and mysteriously performing 'high end' audio products.
Compare audio to TVs or automobiles. Those products certainly are at least as complex as audio, but their sales didn't shrink like audio. If anything, during the 50s & 60s, cars were much less complex, and many more people did their own tune up/maintenance/repair work. Now with computer controlled fuel and ignition systems, much fewer DIY mechanics are around. But I don't see car snake oil products. The same goes for TV repair.
In the UK scene DIY was very big in the fifties and sixties.
I wrote this post on my experience not long ago. I think you will remember it.
When Gilbert Briggs was at the helm of Wharfedale the bulk of the sales were in raw drivers. This was true in the early days of KEF. When Raymond Cook was at the helm DIY was a big part of the business, and he had his renowned Constructor Series. Goodmans Industries also sold more drivers than complete speakers. Raw drivers have always been a significant part of Lowther sales. When I was associated with Jordan Watts, the bulk of the business was raw drivers.
Dynaudio also had a significant raw driver business and were very helpful to the home constructor. They abruptly cancelled that business in the late eighties which was a pity.
As I said in my first post in the tube hey day amplifier construction was very popular.
You could also build a tape recorder in the fifties. This was a big task and this phase as I remember it was brief, but extended to some limited extent into the sixties. My early 70s Brenell deck was bespoke and I built the case and wired it all up.
Turntables for the Hi-Fi enthusiast were pretty much all DIY to an extent.
In the fifties and most of the sixties there were virtually no plinths. You bought your turntable less arm and cartridge. You purchased your pickup arm and cartridge and mounted the lot. The Decca ffss was integrated arm cartridge combo, but you had to buy the turntable and mount it all.
As far as I remember Garrard made no plinths for their turntables until the 401 and Lab 80 series, although others did.
SME sold only pickup arms for many years and still do sell arms only as well as complete turntables.
I remember Shure demonstrating a turntable at the Audio Fair at Hotel Russell circa 1960. It was a terrible contraption and received much ridicule. So they contracted for Garrard 301 and latterly 401 branded as Shure and combined them in a plinth with SME arms branded as Shure/SME.
These come up periodically on eBay and go for a small fortune.
I think the lack of good turntable in the US made tape recorders much more popular than the UK.
The US had tape machines at least on a par, with the best European machines. Pre recorded reel to reel tape sales were a significant part of the market. In the UK that market was tiny. The tape decks were for off air recording.
In the early fifties are lot of commercial gear was pretty crude and the route to good sound was though DIY, which were then usually the best systems. But of course results varied with the knowledge and skills of the DIY constructor.
When Cecil E Watts published his research showing that a playing force of 3 GM or less resulted in largely non permanent groove deformation, the best commercial offerings tracked at 10 GM! As I child I built my own moving coil mono cartridges with the stylus suspended on a nylon thread. I also constructed my own arms. I did achieve stable tracking at 3 GM
Complete advanced systems were confined to the very wealthy, with firms like Largs of Holborn catering to this market.
The customer would specify his system and Large would build into massive cabinets that were really beautiful pieces of furniture.
A typical system would be Quad or Leak electronics usually with a Garrard or Thorens turntable with DECCA FFS arm cartridge, or SME Ortofon. A tape deck was usually included from either Ferrograph, Brenell, Vortexion or Clark and Smith.
These systems cost a small fortune.
In those days, the DIY audio enthusiast, which was most, at least in the UK, could get as good or better results with sweat equity at a fraction of the cost.
I think this latter was the big driver, as the cost savings of DIY were far greater than they are now.
I know there was DIY activity in the States especially form Heathkit, but if course I have little knowledge of the scene here.
I should point out that the Hi-Fi market in the UK catered pretty much exclusively to the classical end of the market. I think to a significant degree this is still true.
