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

Quite simply younger generations like music "cooked in a studio"  Not their fault, but most Rap, hip hop and pop are highly "manufactured/processed"to death in a studio.....if everything new is made that way, no wonder the "younger" generations think we baby boomers are full of it

Quite simply younger generations like music "cooked in a studio"  Not their fault, but most Rap, hip hop and pop are highly "manufactured/processed"to death in a studio.....if everything new is made that way, no wonder the "younger" generations think we baby boomers are full of it

I guess the hobby will survive but it is more limited now to a smaller number of enthusiasts, who, however, are willing to (or are forced) to spend more. In the past, there were many people who wanted good quality stereo and could get it for a relatively small amount of money. Moving from a simple cassette player to a fully-fledged hi-fi system was easier. Now the young generation are mostly satisfied with music played from their phones (some invest in better headsets if they really care about the quality of the music they hear). Sometimes I'm really surprised at how little people know about our hobby. To end with a little joke, a friend of mine, who is a distributor of hi-end systems was once visited by a customer interested in auditioning a pair of speakers. The distributor played a track with beautiful vocals right in the centre of the soundstage. A person accompanying him in the audition commented: "If she's singing so beautifully right in the centre, why do you still need those on the sides? (pointing to the speakers being auditioned). I can see also all those strange looks my tube amplifier is receiving from people visiting me at home. 

The difference is that affordable and even non-music-dedicated gear offers much closer to quality audio reproduction than it did in past generations.

Phones and bluetooth speakers sound pretty good! 

So the younger generation doesn’t have to do the same things we did in order to get to pleasing sound, and that means there isn’t as much incentive to jump to music dedicated gear.

Doesn’t mean people don’t enjoy good music or good sound. It’s just easier now than putting together these huge boxes like we had to do, and still do. Not saying the boxes aren’t another jump in quality!