I do part-time work for a computer audio lab at my local University and am astonished to find my colleagues, and even my professor, have no idea about high-end audio reproduction or just don't seem to care.
I too was young when I heard my first audiophile system and I've been hooked ever since. There's something incredibly therapeutic about being able to sit for hours on end listening to your favorite music, sipping on a cognac, and not once having the urge to crank the volume or go and do something else. I'm sure if more people were exposed to the aural pleasures of high end audio, they'd be hooked as well.
What it comes down to is convenience, exposure and of course, cost. Most people want something to listen to while riding on the bus or doing the dishes. I found it amusing how people used to brag about the convenience of their 100+ multidisc cd players without once questioning how WELL the disc's played. Or later the convenience of the MP3 and how the mid-fi magazines toughted them as "near cd-quality" at a fraction of the size. Now we're able to conveniently store our entire collection of music onto a tiny player and carry it around wherever we go at the sacrifice of quality...and no one seems to care except for us audiophiles who have seen the light.
I too was young when I heard my first audiophile system and I've been hooked ever since. There's something incredibly therapeutic about being able to sit for hours on end listening to your favorite music, sipping on a cognac, and not once having the urge to crank the volume or go and do something else. I'm sure if more people were exposed to the aural pleasures of high end audio, they'd be hooked as well.
What it comes down to is convenience, exposure and of course, cost. Most people want something to listen to while riding on the bus or doing the dishes. I found it amusing how people used to brag about the convenience of their 100+ multidisc cd players without once questioning how WELL the disc's played. Or later the convenience of the MP3 and how the mid-fi magazines toughted them as "near cd-quality" at a fraction of the size. Now we're able to conveniently store our entire collection of music onto a tiny player and carry it around wherever we go at the sacrifice of quality...and no one seems to care except for us audiophiles who have seen the light.