Is the idea of audiophile listening a dying concept as boomers die off?

@tom2015 +++ you are spot on with your post “People under 50 that can afford the pricier items have demanding jobs and families.”

I am a perfect example of that. Influenced by my older brothers I started going to concerts and buying records at 10. Reading audio magazines, buying the best components I could afford doing odd jobs through high school and college. Then demanding work (TV/Audio Buyer and Sales manager), getting married, 3 kids, house demands, tight budget living in CA - music was not a priority. Then 3-4 years ago being retired, kids in college, free time the hobby was reborn. This time without the financial restraints and guilt but focused on value and not going too crazy. (although my wife thinks otherwise)  Hopefully this trend will continue into the upcoming generations for the minority that really cherish hearing music in a room rather than earbuds. Time will tell but there should be some screaming deals on used gear we leave behind.

• Nope. Every generation has enough people who care about the finer things in life and can afford them, be they cars, watches, hi-fi gear or any other 'luxury' items to keep the industry going strong. And those people will continue to have ears and brains long past the 'boomer' generation. 

@hilde45 Indeed, as you know better than most due to your profession of interpreting data accurately and objectively for a living, the data can convince either side of a topic that they reading the tea leaves appropriately.

I posit that there has never been a time in our hobby where competent music systems and specifically, access to music, has been more readily available. Now, that access is different and the definition of "what is hifi" is different to different groups. When many on Audiogon were getting interested, there was a local hifi ship and it served equals parts retail/service shop and audio hangout. We ALL remember those days and there were more than a few who hung out and never bought.

The pandemic shined a bright light on every segment of the industry. You discovered quickly which companies had an accidental business model and supply chain relationship, different abilities to act/react to the changing landscape and wildly different demand curves depending on the product and the manufacturer's ability to deliver. We experienced 20 years of change in three years.

Everything is going to be ok...hifi will live on and shift just fine with or without us. If objectively analyzing generations of data tells us anything, it is dominated by the fact that (A) the law of large numbers is actually a reasonable predictor and (B) every generation believes they are exceptional and most generations are incorrect. LOL.

Who cares? Enjoy the music via whatever format you have. The kid (me) going to sleep with an AM radio under his pillow liked what he was hearing just as much as the adult (still me) does hearing it via a pretty good system.

It is a changing landscape. I'm 65 and enjoy my stereo system and speakers. My nephew is into jam bands (Goose, Grateful Dead, Phish, Widespread Panic, Spafford) and enjoys listening to albums and recorded shows, but he mainly listens through a headphone stack, not speakers.  He has a decent 2.1 system in his living room but it is used 95% of the time for movies, not music. 

Going forward, I can see cellphones having better DACs and Bluetooth becoming lossless to CD quality earbuds and headphones being the "go to" listening devices for the next generations. 

Some will "back into" stereo listening via setting up a home theater system. 

I'm happy to have come of age in the 1970s and will forever love listening via speakers most of the time.