Where are the young audiophiles?

mapman: "I think the high end should lower prices so more young people can partake."

One phrase: Market Economics.

Hi-End ANYTHING would not exist without the Free Market Enterprise Profit Motive. No one does anything because they have compassion and love for others. No one.

Human nature is SELF-CENTRIC. This is why we need a government comprised of checks and balances to keep Totalitarians in check. And it is also why we need COMPETITION to keep Economic Totalitarians in place (i.e., Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Big Pharma, Big Oil, etc ...).

Eliminate the SELF-GAIN, eliminate the market. You can not have both.

And quite frankly, it takes untold millions to run a company like Pass Labs or D'Agostino or any of the others. They are not just covering their immediate costs. They are also coving past investment, future R&D, and yes--PROFIT. THEY get to eat and pay for their kids' college tuitions, just like you do.

We have scores and scores of options in audio below the $1,000 mark. Call THAT "The Poor Man's Hi-End", if you will. And quite frankly the Yamahas and Denons, et al ... that appear in these price ranges offer sound and features that we could only dream of, in SOME cases at least, a few decades ago. In short, our "low-fi" market in some ways rivals what was "hi-fi" decades ago.

Kinda relative.

Remember when air conditioning was exclusive to Cadillacs? I do. Now you can not buy a car--even those tin-can toasters on wheels--without A/C. (Wish car companies would figure that out about cup holders, too).

We have what we call "hi-end" because of PROFIT MOTIVE. We have advanced medicines, technology, surgical procedures for one reason alone: PROFIT MOTIVE.

It may not sound warm and fuzzy, but that's the reality. You would never get out of bed each day and schlep off the work if you did not receive your piece of cheese--a paycheck. Why expect anything else from everyone else?

@kren0006.  “... but for the older gents here, at the Hi-Fi height, let’s say 1970’s, what percentage of middle class households had what we would consider a hi-end system?

10%? 20%? More?...”

Excellent  question. In the 1970’s. Much less than  1%

This has never been a popular pursuit. You would also need to take into account the population increase of at least 50% so as a percentage the people doing this may not have decreased as much as it would have. 

I think some of it boils down to time and interest.  There too many other diversions.  It does take some nurturing to appreciate music on a deeper level than on a phone and earbuds.  If I was starting out I would stream (CD quality or above) with high quality headphones.   

@athrillofhope

You are very correct. No question.. but take a deep breath... relax... enjoy the moment. Put on some Kitaro.

I’m 35 and it’s an expensive hobby. Probably out of reach for most people. I’ve spent maybe 20k in the last year on mostly second hand gear (Marantz PM-10/SA-10, Ruby-KI/SA-KI and other things). I enjoy music but I wouldn’t spend thousands on cables or buy into a lot of bs snake oil being thrown around here as fact.

No one needs to spend hundreds or thousands on a usb or network cable or speaker cable for that matter. In my opinion, you are an idiot if you believe that wrapping gold or some other shiny material makes the cable sound better but then again a sucker is born every minute. Will there be a difference? maybe, but so subtle that a cable from monoprice would get you 90% there at 1000% less the cost.

It comes down to the digital divide. Those who grew up in the internet age and those who came before. Older people who don’t understand technology are more susceptible to scams like IRS phone calls coming from India saying you owe the government money. Not surprising that a lot of these snake oil scams continue to exist in the audio world. I don’t mean to demean or attack people because of their age as young people make some pretty stupid decisions as well (pulling down statues, calling everyone who disagrees with you a racist/etc, applying today’s standards on the past).
Most people my age or younger are looking for a house or looking to buy a Tesla. If it doesn’t haven’t an app, most people aren’t interested. In a sense, we’ve forgotten how to do things the manual way because things are just too easy now. What’s 10% of $200? That question might give many people in the younger age bracket pause now so they reflexively reach for their phone to do the math.

Young people have all the convenience older people never dreamed of having (get food delivered via DoorDash. Hitch a ride through Uber, listen to music via Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music/etc, be connected anywhere). HiFi is dying because it’s out of range for most people price wise and that void of listening to music in your listening room has been replaced by huge ass TVs that can give you content anytime. It’s not surprising Klipsch is outselling everything now in the US because that’s where the market is moving. Sound bars, home theater, kick ass explosions. I’m a fan of Klipsch as (mainly their heritage line) but very few people my age or lower are snobs about audio because cheap oled and lcd TVs have taken over. No one cares about your Wilson audio or B&W speakers. People care about how big of a tv you can shove into a living room.