Are Audiophiles a dying breed?

Seriously, do you know of any young people who are excited about audio? My cousin and I were just talking about this on the phone (how old fashioned!) and remembering when we were young and he was always interested in attaining audio nirvana from a very young age. Experimenting, analyzing, trying new setups..... endless hours and a lotta money invested. And it was fun!

Now it seems the young generation are all gamers and pretty much unconcerned with audio quality and interested in songs for the background vibe noise.... At least that's what I see with my 10 year old and teen family members.

Audiophiles are an aging demographic and for the audio industry this has to be concerning.
I personally only know of people my age or older that spend any time or money trying to improve their audio systems and experience. Even most 30 somethings I know don't even feel it necessary to have a stereo anymore. It's a changing world and we are all dinosaurs.

 

They didn't have such fancy TV's in the seventies.

 

i think when they grow up to be 30 they will start to become audiophiles and seek out the mfsl of taylor swifts 1989...the cycle repeats.

 

Our numbers are dwindling, that is certain.

 

I think we're a dying breed. MP3, earbuds and phone speakers are good enough. Even home theater audio is dying with every sound bar.

My children are exposed to lossless audio and video daily by I'm not holding my breath on it being a long term thing.

 

Man, can you imagine an Analogue Productions SACD of Katy Perry's Prism? Hard to fathom.

- Buck

 

I'd say "audiophile" has a different meaning here than in the larger world. Out there, it's people like Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound who seemingly cared more about audio quality than music. I'm a music lover, and if I can hear the music I love better, wonderful. But I place no value on perfect reproduction of music that I don't care about. Pearson represented the apotheosis of quality over content, and those who followed his lead would often wind up with systems that were so "accurate" and "revealing" that virtually no recordings were actually enjoyable. Also, it's not as if everyone is listening to 128k mp3s through Apple earbuds - they may be listening to AAC files through a decent pair of AKG or Sennheiser headphones, and that is perfectly credible audio reproduction - certainly a lot better than the stereo systems they used to get back in the heyday of the stereo shop.

The problem is that audio suffers from the law of diminishing returns, people spending more and more to get smaller and smaller improvements, and the more you spend, the worse the "genuine" to "snake oil" ratio gets. I'm sitting here listening to my $499 Yamaha "Home Theater in a Box", and quite honestly it is far more accurate than the monstrosities we used to assemble back in the 70s and 80s. It is more than "good enough" to enjoy music on, and frankly I'd rather spend my extra income on more music than to try to achieve some small amount of improvement.

 

I am thinking the word "audiophile" has changed meaning quite a bit.
At one time it meant someone who was into finding the best possible sounding equipment he could and spending his entire tax return and a couple weeks pay on it.

Now it seems it means " one who can cram the most 5.1 downloads on his puter or who can find the most expensive vinyl remake".

 

I don't think most music lovers of any generation are actual "audiophiles" or serious hi-fi nuts in their 20s. A very few, sure, but it takes time, learning, and (at least a little) cash to develop a committed focus on gear, sound quality, etc., and not many people have the leisure or disposable income until they're older. Especially with the kind of college loan debt young people carry nowadays, if there are youthful audiophiles, they're probably in the $$$$ tech and investment/finance sectors.

There are quite a few young members here (teens and twenties) who are developing in that direction, though.

 

Spot on. I am very thankful for the computer age and digital format. Today, the kind of sound quality that cost thousands a decade ago is attainable with even the bog standard sound card in your PC and a good set of headphones. You need to tweak some things of course.
My setup sounds stunning and I don't think it could get any better. The biggest cost was a nice set of Grados off Amazon. Even they were under $100.

 

Yes. No doubt about it. I think I have a great stereo and enjoy it like little else; however, no one in my last cares a wit about the great sound. Most I know are happy with an iPhone playing through a Pringles can!

 

I'm still trying to figure out how all the college students I work with can possibly afford their fancypants phones (and voice/data plans), let alone a stereo.

 

Actually, during rock I had a lot of friends who were in that age group who had state of the art gear.
Of course back then you could make a good living just by being willing to work and have a little pleasure cash.
But nice audio gear was expensive, not cost prohibitive. You could put a nice system together in 1975 for less than a thousand bucks. Which was a lot of money, but not an insane amount. Considering it was buying stuff you kept for decades.

 

It is initially never about the gear. People need to develop a love for music and then standards in listening pleasure will rise. All that will come naturally, or not. When I was a kid I started with an 8-track portable player, and then a cassette boom box, then to a Kraco car stereo, and finally cheap Technics table and gear from Crazy Eddies. None of that were significantly better than downloads on a phone with decent buds today.

 

I have quiet a few friends who appreciate good sound. But they dont make much an effort to search it out. If it comes to them then great. If not, then its a lower priority to them.

I dont find it that big a burden to be an audiophile. Its not rocket science to find the best sounding album of an artist.

 

I think a lot of younger people see the improvement in a Blu Ray's sound over a DVDs, that means something.

 

Exactly. You'd have to spend more than twice that to get any sort of significant improvement.

 

Please, hasn't this same topic been posted every few days for the last few months?

 

I think the new audiophiles are more interested in building headphone based systems. The interest in audiophile speaker systems seems to be diminishing however.

 

I don't remember any audiophiles when I was in my 30's either. I think it's something you become interested in later in life. I don't know about Katy Perry fans but even young classical music fans care about audio quality.

 

As a headphone user there are certainly a lot more "audiophile" offerings today than even 5 years ago. This advance in audiophile quality portable gear happened because of portable music. I have been researching for a high end DAC and all reviews point to the Chord Hugo a battery powered DAC/amp meant for smartphone, USB!

 

Maybe it's economic? More people living in small apartments, having to live with roommates, continuing to live with their parents after college, etc. An "audiophile" pretty much has to live in a house.

Optimizing the personal listening experience may simply be a rational economic decision. If you can get exceptional audio quality for less than $100, why spend more?

 

Don't forget how hard it is to get good accurate sound from a pair of speakers in a "concrete bunker".

Headphones saves you all the hassle and might end up sounding much better. No complaining from neighbors either.

 

Give it a couple of decades.

 

Finding the best sounding pressing, cleaning the vinyl, throwing it all into archival sleeves, and keeping it in a room that doesn't get too hot or too cold...then putting together a system that sounds good, not to mention getting a good turntable, aligning your cartridge, getting the right stylus, investing in a ZeroStat gun, lugging the pounds and pounds of heavy vinyl around...it's just a lot of work for what a lot of people see as a minimal reward.

I collect records not because the quality is a zillion times better than digital. I collect them because I see them as the physical representation of the music I love, and just looking at the artwork/lyrics during a listening session is a calming ritual for me. Having 150 gigabytes of music on a hard drive isn't quite the same thing, since you don't *see* what you possess.

However, I'm a 27 year old who wishes it was 1965 again, and I'm a little bit of a technophobe...so I don't represent the vast majority of millennials.