How rare is an audiophile


I’ve been extremely busy lately and not had a chance to sit back and listen to music  on my system for a few weeks. I’ve streamed my favorite music in the car and on a small JBL Flip-4 portable speaker; which by the way “punches way above its size class.”  I continued to enjoy music whenever, wherever, and however i can during this “dry spell.”

So now its 5 am Sunday morning. I know i’ll be spending most of the day listening on the JBL when my wife and I drive out to a lake house we bought recently and are furnishing and getting ready for 4 generations to enjoy lake life this summer and for years to come. 
I’ve let my system warm up and hit play on my CD player. I now find myself in total bliss listening to Chris Standing’s newest CD “The Lovers Re-mix Collection.”  The effect of the quality of the sound of the music my wife and i are enjoying right now with a cup of coffee is hard to explain, but it brought literal tears of joy.  

I started thinking, how many people are like us?  What % of the population are audiophiles (whatever your definition of an audiophile is)?

I know the answer is heavily dependent on which country you live in. I live in the US along with ~332,000,000 fellow citizens (please, lets not get political on the meaning of population or citizen). 
Are we the 0.1%ers?  Are there ~332,000 audiophiles in the US?

i’d be interested in what others think about how rare our species is.

ezstreams

In addition to jasonbourne71's comment, I would take  the attendance totals for Axpona and Munich Hi End.  I think that anyone who attends these functions would qualify as an audiophile.

Answer is simple. Audiophiles, US and Globally, are very rare. We should be on the UN endangered species list, and I would say the largest concentration of audiophiles are in the US. I truly don’t think there is more than 100,000 true audiophiles (just people who like good music reproduction and willing to invest time in it) in the US. That’s < 0.003% of the US population. And even though recent resurgence of vinyl and even R2R sales has been encouraging, I am losing more and more of my audiophile friends all over the world. Last month, we lost the founder of Feastrex Japan, maker of high end speaker drivers and an ardent audiophile first. His son is shutting down the business. AR is in financial troubles recently. Bill Thalmann, Music Technology, who does a lot of high end audio repairs and servicing is also shutting down. I hope to convert at least one of my kids to be an audiophile but we shall see or rather pray. The next presidential candidate who is an audiohile gets my vote. A candidate who is an audiophile will likely be less of a bullsh..er because at the end of the day, they sit down and try to listen for the "truth". LOL. 😆. 

As soon as their is a majority agreed upon definition of "audiophile", the number can be estimated..

OP here.  After a long day hard at work, I’ve finally had time to read everyones thoughts on the subject. So far, it appears most think we are indeed a rare species perhaps approaching endangered status. I’m in that camp also. I live in Huntsville Alabama which became our state’s largest city last year. We have the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Redstone Arsenal, genetic engineering business incubatos/companies, the FBI ordnance training school, 2 universities, a regional medical center etc.. i’ve read that Huntsville has the highest per capita post college graduate degreed population in the US. All this is to say there are a lot of school educated people with good incomes. I’ve met many people here who enjoy music and go to concerts (here in Huntsville, Nashville, and Atlanta).  I’ve travelled to many states for my work meeting and working with lots of people that ive gotten to know.   But i’ve never come across another audiophile. Or at least willing to admit they were. 
 

@riie, im sorry, but i don’t understand you comment “Based on your question, you shouldn’t be that busy.”

@roxy54, i didnt want to post my system (very modest compared to the majority of the chat contributors ive read over the years) to avoid the discussion getting sidetracked. I can share that on a separate discussion. 

Any more thoughts on % or number of audiophiles in the US are welcome. 
 

Respectfully,

Ezstreams