The percentage of people in general who are audiophiles is already tiny. Always has been. Sure, people had turntables and receivers back in "the day" as that was kind of all there was...a few had separates but meh...tiny minority. I own vinyl, some of which is from the late 60s, some new, and the only way to play it is using a turntable. Go figure. The fact that new vinyl is being created is pretty cool, but maybe that’s a fad...I like vinyl as it can sound amazingly good and it’s FUN TO USE. If it’s not fun for you, who cares? My CDs also are fun and through my recently acquired Schiit URD and the "Nexus" input on my Bifrost 2/64, it sounds friggin’ great. Streaming is super convenient and also can sound astonishingly good but possibly the best thing about it (I use Tidal) is the fact that it has turned me on to a pile of stuff I otherwise wouldn’t have heard. A good thing. Are my children and grandchildren going to become gearhead audio geeks? Maybe when they inherit my gear...who knows? I really don’t care if they do or not...again, most people don’t want to deal with all of that, some love it...
YouTube Indicates What the Future is For Audiophiles - Interesting Demographics.
Howdy,
I just wanted to share some data from YouTube as I found it quite eye-opening and thought some of you might too.
I've posted a couple vids on YouTube recently and, as some will know, YouTube provides analytics data with every video, which is available to the channel owner.
The first video featured a Krell KSA 80 amp and at the time of writing this there have been 9,500 views:
Female - 0%
Male - 100%
13–17 years 0%
18–24 years 0%
25–34 years 0%
35–44 years 0.9%
45–54 years 13.5%
55–64 years 44.4%
65+ years 41.3%
So, 100% male, and pretty much all of the traffic is from guys 45 years old and above, with 40%+ from guys over 65!!
The second video was a spoof (song) on Audiophiles that was shared a lot and watched by a lot of audiophile spouse, so the stats were slightly different, but not much. At the time of writing, 18,150 views:
Female 2.4%
Male 97.6%
13–17 years 0%
18–24 years 0%
25–34 years 0%
35–44 years 5.9%
45–54 years 18.6%
55–64 years 35.5%
65+ years 40.1%
The video was watched by a few females because it was shared and hit with a slightly younger audience but not by much. For all intents and purposes, the stats are the same for both vids.
Caveat - YouTube tends to attract an older audience and it's tipped up towards males. TikTok would show different results, but I think YouTube is really the platform of choice for most of us, so the data is more pertinent.
Conclusion - we're a dying breed. 40% of us will be dead in a few years and there's not many 'yoots' coming through to replace us.
No real surprise here but we're all blokes - old, fat, sweaty, bearded, and about to kick the proverbial bucket. (Yes, I'm speaking entirely for myself).
Do you think there's more that manufacturers, dealers, reviewers etc. should be doing, or is it just the inevitable playing out?
Thoughts?
Here's the link to the two vids for reference:
Krell KSA80
The Audiophile Song
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- 126 posts total
@rick_n as have I and my daughter is truly passionate about this hobby @21 years of age she is so broke she waits for Dads hand-me downs. Once she is done with University I think we will get her some new gear, I will defer some of the cost. I want her to have some skin in the game. Best regards. |
@cdc I think cheapaudioman’s demographic would look quite different. He focuses more on lower priced mass-produced consumer electronics and I’d suspect his audience would be younger, though still largely male. Jay Iagi too would likely have a younger audience. Cheers |
- 126 posts total