Is the idea of audiophile listening a dying concept as boomers die off?

FWIW, I am not a boomer and on the younger side of the Gen X cohort. 

Iraq and Afghanistan were my wars, if that you age me.  I think I might have been a fetus when my dad was in Vietnam, but would have to check a calendar.

I think it a factor of time and money being more available to older people, at least for people seeking "more than mid-Fi" fidelity.  And, bluntly, it takes serious bucks to make vinyl sound better than something from Best Buy.  Mainly, I think, because mid-fi has gotten darn good.  So there is no "Buick" in the lineup.  You go from nice Chevrolet that is absolutely fine transportation to Range Rover in the audio market.

Aside from the price barriers for equipment, it's having a dedicated place for listening, preferably apart from young children.  I am blessed enough to have a dedicated listening room and money for good equipment.   And a youngest child who is 15.

I do think the millennial generation is a bit skipped, for the reasons above.

But my children (older teens) are very much audiophiles, probably due to Covid lockdowns forcing them to have at-home interests.

Eldest who is in college has a nice headphone tube amp and streamer (and Focal Utopias she bought with hard earned money).  Her taste in music runs from the 1930s to now, and she readily admits older music (70s and older) tends to be far better.  She'd love to have vinyl, but a dorm room is not the place.

Youngest has a nice integrated system and my three year old B&W 701s in her room, along with a very high end Pro-Ject (also a hand-me-down) that is her prized possession.   We carefully tuned her room with REW software and minimal baffles.  Taught her how and she did it.  Currently saving up for a nice VDH Frog cartridge.  Her music tends towards modern angsty women singers (Lana Del Rey being the only one I recall and some Chinese/Icelandic singer), typically on vinyl.  She stole my Mammas & Pappas collection, vinyl.

Also, FWIW, I doubt I'll ever go to "audiophile" events.  I'm of the "this could have been an email" generation when dealing with meetings, in general.  And would, by far, rather text than talk on the phone.  Not much of a club joiner guy.  I'm the guy whose family goes to synagogue on the regular, gives plenty, but only talks with anyone if required to, if that helps.   Dreds when the rabbi comes to dinner.

moto_man  To parody my own statement, my grandparents hated my rock music! In their minds, the only music worth listening to came from 'real' musicians like Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. Truth be told, I can actually listen to and enjoy music from their era now, but I hated it when I was younger, just like I can't stand the current generation's music. My point is that every generation has it's 'golden era' of music, and there's nothing wrong with that. We humans call it progress, even when it doesn't sound like it!

simao, Don't be too hard on us old geezers, we're just keeping tradition alive and well!

bipod72 I think you've hit on another aspect of the OP's query. I'm a Boomer,  and at this point in my retired life, I have more  discretionary cash flow and more free time to enjoy it then ever before. I've been channeling a lot of both into my system just playing around and trying new equipment. I try to temper the urges by reminding myself that our worldly treasures eventually wind up being somebody else's junk that they have to get rid of. If I pass before my wife, she'll just have her son pick everything up and get rid of it, which he'll do because he isn't any more interested in it than his mother. If I out live her, the end will be the same because I have no heirs of my own. BTW, I'll go to my grave never regretting that fact.

We now have virtual reality headsets with 3D sound that mimics true reality very convincingly, and I think that trend is going to merge right into the music world as well. Many of us two channel folks have strived to reproduce the 'live' experience in our home systems. I firmly believe that experience will be realized in the very near future with systems that fit on the head and deliver an experience we could only dream about. 

I'm much more concerned about the future of music, given corporate greed and the advent of AI.

How much longer will there be a market for living, breathing musicians, when a computer can "compose" and "perform" in any style?

@rcm1203 I know; I can be an ageist ass sometimes. But I feel people are fossilizing themselves when they write off contemporary music. Still, thanks for the reminder. 

This is a really interesting discussion.  I'm 76 now, and rebuilding my system.  During a recent move I abandoned quite an inventory of equipment, a lot of which was self-constructed and/or purchased after years of upgrades and development.  I had  moved to a smaller place along with all this stuff, said to hell with it, and constructed a mini-system that was surprisingly good and, I thought, perfectly  adequate.  So then came the move and the necessary (!) downsizing.  I moved to the next place and found myself staring at something I had never had:  the perfect listening space.  My mini system was still good, but the possibilities......

Fact is, this is a connoisseurs game, like any other.  It is also fun.  There will always be such people but here's the generational difference:  electronics technology, along with everything else, has changed radically, opening up new possibilities for the great unwashed.  No one in the sixties or seventies could get musical performance out of their low-to-midlevel gear that approached was is now available digitally, or via streaming, into an internet-coupled speaker or a set of earbuds.  Equi[pment on this level in times past was awful.  Remember what it was like the first time you entered a hifi store and heard what was in there?  Also, in those days music was far more diverse and of, frankly, higher quality overall.  Now the entry-level gear is so much better but the source material is, by and large, pedestrian (I would prefer a different term).  It often really doesn't matter what you're listening with. Most people are not connoisseurs and they shouldn't be.  So the market for superior audio quality has declined in the face of enhanced reproduction coupled to degraded material.  Declined, but not gone away.  A couple decades ago, who would have thought that young people would start clamoring for vinyl playback and vacuum tubes?  Saying things like "it just sounds better!".  So I'm an old guy who just can't give it up.  I moved 60 boxes of vinyl down here!