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Any Young Audiophiles Out There?

I am 20 years old and I do have my concerns about the future of this hobby. I do not see or hear about many people that are into this under the age of 30. I understand that this could be for financial reasons, but when factoring in this site, fairly nice setups (that perform miles above what you get at bestbuy) can be obtained for under 2000 dollars. A lot of my close friends love coming over and listening, and they do appreciate the quality, but at the same time they are more than happy with their Ipod and stock Apple headphones that come with it. They seem to be more impressed with a 2000 dollar Plasma than a 10,000 dollar stereo system...So if anyone is out their, this post is for us!
-Darren
macd
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,860 posts
 
Dwindling #'s at least in the traditional sense in the US.

Maybe, in the traditional sense, it will catch on more in modern day developing countries the way it seemed to for awhile in the US?

Depends on whether to qualify as an audiophile one must start a record collection, buy a turntable, and roll some tubes for acceptance.

Most people these days lean towards ipods, convenience and home theater.

Does this indicate that we are in fact truly in decline?
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,397 posts
 
Long time ago market was oriented toward older people and everybody wanted to be older (you wouldn't name car company Oldsmobile today). Today teenagers and children drive marked and they don't buy LP or SACD. It's great that in age of 20 you can already appreciate finer things in life (it took me much longer) but you must be exception, I guess.
macd OP
103 posts
 
Kijanki, very interesting point. Do you think that once my generation grows, their will be an equal demand for Hi-Fi?
sidssp
1,077 posts
 
Good for you Darren, and enjoy it while you can. At your age, you have perfect hearing. I am approaching a big five O and my hearing is getting more and more out of whack every year; music sounded very different to me 30 years ago.
brauser
519 posts
 
In a recent conversation with Jeff Roland, he mentioned that the bulk of his sales are exports. I know the same to be true for Audio Research. There seems to be quite a growing number of younger audiophiles in England and the Pacific Rim. I believe that some of the problem in the US is the mass merchandise trash that parades as music in this country. Pick up a Gramophone Mag or BBC and you'll see what I mean about the enthusiasm for fine music abroad.
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