How large (or small) is the audiophile market?

Outdated audiophile brands have always been a clueless bunch ---> no idea how to tap into the vast numbers of the world’s unidentified ’audiophiles".

For example, Sony has been selling its XM5 Bluetooth headphones like hot cakes. Any young person who bought it and said "Omg, I am hearing things in very familiar songs that i have never heard before" is a bonafide audiophile. Such a person will be able to identify tiers of improvements in sound quality, if exposed to gear and will buy it if within financial reach.

A sizable majority of the younger hometheater-ing dudes are audiophiles. But, they seem to despise the word and will never say it....probably has a lot to do with the lousy personalities who’ve propped themselves up as the face of audiophilia.

As i sit here on my deck with a pair of Sony XM5 bluetooth headphones connected by lossless ldac to a Xperia flagship/whatever phone....it is easy to conclude that high fidelity has well reached the ’economics+mobility’ package.

I could walk some young dude back into the music room downstairs and say, "hey, here’s the years of ocd level work performed and how much you need to spend for expanding the high fidelity experience that just happened inside your ear cavity... to a large room like this"....In response, he’s going to justifiably grab my phone+headphones and run away as fast as he could

(Funny thing though...he seems to always have the cash for a 1500 dollar phone and a 2000 dollar pair of sneakers inspired by some influencer)

On the same note, the sheer enormity of music catalog (spotify, amazon music, youtube music, etc) made accessible to the masses in recent times is like never before in human history. The number of music listeners with large playlists is exponentially higher than ever before. Hence, there’s no real excuse for the outdated snootyminds in audiophilia whining about their shrinking businesses... when they have no clue about market penetration.....

P.S

Here’s a very very 'audiophile' test track i use (composing by Adam skorupa)...that comes from a "game soundtrack". Game soundtracks are no longer the ping pong pac man crap sound...it’s something else entirely...

Adam Skorupa - Dwarven Stone Upon Dwarven Stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz7NG7uVkHk

But most people under the age of 35 for the most part- I know I’m making a sweeping generalization here- are concerned more about the economics and Mobility factors then fidelity.

Plus, just look at how many more entertainment options are available to people under 30 as compared to Gen X or boomers. It’s not just a radio TV and cable, it’s everything else and that everything else is much more Interactive and offers A Narrative of sorts. Some of the music my students report listening to most oddly enough is actually game soundtracks.

You don’t believe Pioneer/TAD is audiophile enough, eh?

Well...Forget TAD and their six figure speakers... i have some relatively higher end PA from regular ol’ Pioneer that can smoke the daylights out of most apparently "high end" rigs (sonically). In fact, that’s the only rig on wheels i’d be happy to bring to a audiophiliac phallus measurement contest like axpona....., just to confuse everyone.

I could be wrong but I don’t think is would be going to Volkswagen, Bose, pioneer, or Acura for my audio system. If you looked at the article, they claimed high end was for music, movies and gaming.

There’s a guy nearby where i live with the full KEF Reference system for his multichannel gaming, music, etc whatever that sounded rather immaculate to my ears. Let’s see, that’s around 25k for the front left/right speakers alone. Again, some apparently lowly hometheater working stiff ended up with something that killed so many ’experienced’ audiophiles around here sonically. So, never say never, i suppose...they may work up to it.

On the same note, no one’s all that interested in that godforsakenly ugly incoherent naked Chronosonic emperor. Feel free to hang on to it by yourself. At least, the Magico equivalent had some other merits.

I’m not sure but I don’t think I would find a pair of $800k Wilson’s for a gaming system.

Here’s some of your answer...

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pRdcXfldd-k

I do not follow the mid tier equipment market but I do have an interest in the “high end” gear.  The “tell” for me is whether the big money investors such as venture funds have moved into the market and are consolidating the small retailers.  There is no evidence they are.