Where are the young audiophiles?

It has always been a very esoteric pursuit. It takes unique interests in music, a technical bent, with an appreciation of achieving the pinnacle of what is possible. Typically someone that likes to spend time alone.
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In the 60’s and 70’s many college students were exposed to stereos systems and pot together. Everyone liked listening to the best systems their friends had (none remotely high-end)... and an extremely small minority went on to put together a true high end system... I don’t know anyone that did, other than me. of the thousands of people I have known in business and outside of work I ran into one or two. I met many people claiming to be an audiophile only to proudly state they owned Bose... the marketing scheme worked for decades convincing people they were buying a high end system, to the horror of those of us that actually knew what good equipment could do. We have always been a very small minority... but dedicated over our lifetimes.

The assessment of the popularity has always been in aggregate. Number of attendees to shows, subscriptions, and sales of companies... and bankruptcies.

There happy with ear buds.

@ebm They're happy not sitting in one position in one room.

teo_audio1,850 posts05-12-2021 9:06amblame it on digital. I do.

Digital is awesome. Blame it on Apple.

Like many have said, digital has had a major impact on Hi-Fi. Here's a real world example - My son is 31 years old. He seemingly had no interest in listening to his dad's "dinosaur" equipment. Instead he would stream music on his phone, even listening via the tinny built-in speaker. It's convenient, he can listen to anything he wants, and he can do it anywhere. 

The other day, I asked him to put on some of my Sennheiser headphones, plugged in a Schiit DAC to his phone, and he listened to some of his music. His response after about 30 minutes was "holy crap dad, I had no idea". He is musically inclined and started gushing over the "layers, tight bass, nuances, blah, blah...".

Over the next couple of days, he went into my listening room (fancy name for my finished basement) and listened to various combinations of my equipment with both vinyl and CD music. Now he's looking at buying some gear and vinyl. 

So it apparently has a much to do with education and listening than lack of appreciation. Back in the 70s, you had to listen to other music sources, today convenience and technology have removed the motivation to do so. I don't think Hi-Fi is dead by any stretch and a little time listening usually convinces even the most Twitter-oriented young person.

Back in the day, we had three choices of home entertainment - three TV channels, board games or audio. Today audio has to compete with way more sources of entertainment.

Americans spend $50 billion on video games per year. Some of that used to go to audio.