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.
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Being an audiophile has nothing to do with lp sales, lp is just a very small group that likes to listen to vinyl. Not a big deal. Being a musician doesn't mean that you will never have decent equipment to play music on (I’ve been a musician for over 60 years and have many systems in my house from apple AirPods/HomePods, to a dedicated music room with over $100k of audio equipment.) What is an audiophile? The OP might just be a lover of music. I listen to music all over my house, in my cars, golf cart, boat, and while bike riding. I love listening to music. The only reason I think I might be an audiophile is I travel around the country to the different audio shows to see if there is anything new that would increase the sq in my dedicated listening room, so I get wrapped up in gear upgrades more than I should. I think you can always tweak or upgrade over time to something better.
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Rare indeed! Where I am in the Florida Panhandle, I don’t know anyone I can share this hobby with. There are no clubs, and no Hi Fi shops. I’m envious of those who can actually drive to a hi fi shop and look, listen and purchase audio. There are a couple of record shops but no serious hi fi. So I listen on my own. When I have guests over they look at my systems quickly and maybe a “wow,” “what’s that’s” or “that’s nice,” but that’s it and oh, “ can you turn that down?” So, if you have pals to enjoy the hobby with your are lucky! |
@jasonbourne71 I'm not so sure that the surge in LP sales is an indication that those purchasers are audiophiles. I've read a statistic that implied more than 50% of those purchased albums never get played. They are purchased so someone has a physical "thing" that they can have in a collection. They are most likely actually listen to music through streaming (and its probably Spotify). Having said that, those folks are absolutely music enthusiasts and that is the first step to becoming an audiophile. So you point is valid. |
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