Daves suggestion regarding socioeconomic comments is a valid one, and upon reading it, I realized I had unintentionally done just what he advised against. What I was attempting to say was not that the wealthy may not be passionate about music---heck, they provide the funding for many of the country’s major Symphony Orchestras---but rather that our culture in general is not as passionate about listening to music reproduced in the home as we here are. And that though the rich could easily afford a very nice system, only the rare fanatic amongst their ranks does so. The non-wealthy, even hardcore music lovers , cannot afford such a system, so that explains why they don’t. But even if they did, people now---rich or poor---are just not aware of, or interested in, high-quality music reproduction equipment. Big screen TV’s, yes.
Why is that? When I got interested in hi-fi, wanting to have a good one was commonplace. Acoustic Research ran ads for their speakers in Rolling Stone, conductor Seiji Ozawa being one of their endorsers/spokespeople. Everyone I knew wanted McIntosh amps, A Thorens turntable, and AR, JBL, or Klipsch speakers. Somewhere along the line, being an audiophile took on a negative connotation. The Classical buyer at my Tower Records spoke contemptuously of "audiophools", more concerned with the sound quality of a recording than it’s musical quality. As if the two are completely unrelated ;-.