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because it’s out of range for most people price wise and that void of listening to music in your listening room has been replaced by huge ass TVs that can give you content anytime.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.
