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 sokogear

Audiophile record sales of new pressing seem to be doing pretty well. I would say that anyone that buys an audiophile record when a "regular" pressing is available is an audiophile. I don't want to start an argument with the digital only folks, but that is a good start. 

They have no problem selling 20-30,000 of $100+ records of very popular albums. Maybe one in 50 audiophiles buys them (this is global). Add on the digital audiophiles and you're probably at a couple million people worldwide. Higher percentages of the population are in they group in England, Europe and Asia.

If you widen the group to include anyone who buys $1500 speakers, you've gone too far because you've included HT people, many who have no idea what 2 channel auto sounds like.