Where are the young audiophiles?

I am 63 now.  I caught the audio bug in undergrad, as I had a friend working at a high end Audio store that sold McIntosh, Audio Research, the high end stuff of the day.  He would let me bring a record to the Store  after hours...what a difference from my system that I was so proud of (Pioneer Receiver, Gerrard tt, Advent 3 Speakers).  I couldn’t start indulging in Audio until my late forties, because of Graduate School, children, mortgage.  Now with retirement looming I am contemplating how best to downsize and squirrel away my acorns, as inflation seems to lurking.
   As others have indicated there seem to be some young ones interested in good sound, and the headphone data seem to show that.  I think audiophilia is valued in Asia, and it is interesting that some of the posters here have indicated that cities that have a large Asian presence have some nascent retail activity.
  Back in the day there was a definite progression in retail activity.  Shops that catered to the likes of me were the bottom rung.  Then there were the stores that had the mid Fi stuff, and then the high Enders.  The current retail scene in the Chicago suburbs has the yawning gap between  entry level stuff and expensive high end.  No place to hang out and listen to stuff that might be one rung higher than what you thought your limit was, tempting you to find a way to stretch the budget, discover new levels of joy that keep you wanting to repeat the process.  It’s more like having to choose a wine and the choices are Morgan David or an expensive bottle of Burgandy.

I got hooked as a senior in HS. Working my butt off to buy my first system I bought marantz, dual and  AR. Next was McIntosh, Empire and Maggie’s. Raising kids took priority over my sound system but  I never lost the love of good music and hi fidelity.   Target is selling vinyl records again and Steve G posted pics of systems of 30 and younger crowd. Disposable income is a big factor, no question about it. My sons now benefit from my hand me down audio equipment. There’s probably more young audio fans than we realize but how many can afford 10K + systems?

If you can't afford to buy an amplifier and you like tube gear you can build your own, especially if you choose SET amps because of the simplicity of design. You can use better components: polypropylene power supply capacitors instead of electrolytic, components rated at two or three times the current they will carry, and for a minuscule fraction of the cost of a high end amp. There is a $350,000 tube amp that you can build with output transformers that easily match the performance of the "Lamborghini"  $350,000 amp with between 1/2 and 1/2 the current rated before core saturation distortion in the one you build with transformers costing about $250 each channel. Getting a book on how to do it and studying it takes less time and concentration than it must take to earn $350,000. This should be part of the hobby.
More difficult projects such as trying to build your own DAC will be less realistic.

Every time you go into a stereo shop they are playing jazz or some audiophile recording. Play music that young people like on a system that makes that music sound better than they have ever heard before. Use social media and market products. Beats audio did a masterful job with this. Seems simple enough.

I think most shops want their systems to pop... have the sound stick out. Certain jazz does that.. I mean can you really blame them for wanting high end systems to sound the best they can? Everyone interested, then turns to the music they like. Besides catering to the group most likely to have the money to buy something doesn’t hurt. A place that caters to instilling desire in a customer that can’t buy for 20 years is a bankrupt business.