How large (or small) is the audiophile market?


Just curious, how big is the total market for audiophile hardware?  There seem to be a lot of manufactures vying for a a small pool of potential buyers.  I've read in places that as boomers age the market is shrinking.  I don't know very many young people, but none that i do know are into it.  Anyone have any idea what the total market size is?

jtucker

Showing 1 response by cundare2

COME ON.  How can you ask, much less answer, this question without setting even broad boundary conditions?

How do you define an "audiophile"?  Someone who "buys $1500 speakers"?  Someone who "subscribes to TAS or Stereophile"? Someone who seeks out the best-sounding hirez content and then listens to it on an iPhone and AirPods?

Is a twentysomething defined as being an audiophile by different criteria than one would use for a person over sixty?

The legal profession understands the simpler the question, the longer the answer.  If the OP is looking for anything like a concise, definitive response, he or she needs to add a few boundary conditions...

I notice that many of the most credible responses here add their own qualifications to the question.

Just sayin’.  Before you can even answer the question one posed by the OP, we need (more conversations?) to resolve the implicit assumptions that underlie it.