How large (or small) is the audiophile market?

Electronics and home entertainment market is big.   Market for bulky, inefficient, expensive things in general is not good and will only get worse.   Technical advancement has changed things a lot from the golden age of hifi that peaked back in the 20th century  which is already a quarter century old.   Moving ahead and not backwards is the key to survival.  Older people struggle with that.  Younger ones take it stride just like we old codgers used to when we were young and learned to like our fancy toys of the time.   Some things never change.

The "Golden Age" of music reproduction is now not 25 years ago. Various components... Headphones/Loudspeakers(Standmounts)/All in One units have exceeded expectations of what was thought possible 25 years ago. Nobody has a "Crystal Ball" to predict the exact future of HEA but there will always be a segment that wants/desires a no compromise system regardless of size/cost and space required.

The mid-fi market is alive and well. The sound quality has moved up a good bit. Audiophiles are everywhere, (they just don't know they are audiophiles.) They are using IEM's and they sound really, REALLY good!! Yes, even with Spotify or You-tube.

The more affluent group are using sound bars with subwoofers usually connected to the TV. Both in the den or out on the patio. Honestly, they sound pretty darn good and are perfectly adequate for dinner parties or half time shows during superbowl. 

In car stereo is better than ever, especially when connected to stream off the phone. Big sound improvements have been made.

Everyone I know has one or the other. Music listening is everywhere. Even on the golf range hitting balls!!

KEF (U.K.)
Rockford (U.S.)
Bowers & Wilkins (U.K.)
Pioneer (Japan)
Dynaudio International (Denmark)
 

These are not high end audio companies IMO, they are good companies except for Pioneer, but I wouldn’t own anything from them except if it’s in a second system. Pioneer is referenced not TAD. That’s like saying Lexus when they were thinking of Toyota, completely different companies. 

The Kef blades sounded ok when I heard them a year ago, but I have speakers that I like better, and my budget was over $100k for speakers.
 

@invalid 
you do realize that the only reason most young people have a large playlist is because they don't have to pay for it, they actually expect it to be free

The reason they have large playlists is because they're all using Spotify which for a relatively small monthly fee gives them access to almost any song they care to listen to.

The audiophile market for traditional audio is shrinking at an alarming rate. I have been in audio sales for 30 plus years & I work for a major retailer. I have noticed a steady decline in the receiver/ traditional speaker market for the last 20 years. In the last, 2 years the business has been on life support with 0 interest in traditional audio with a flight to soundbars and Bluetooth. My store has decided to close the speaker and receiver area & to sell off all the floor stock because the inventory is dead weight. The reason that Bose & Samsung own the market now is that the audio companies cannot survive on their own without financial backing from a larger corporate sponsor. The 2ch high end market may be different but I think it will be on life support soon when time catches up to the 60 something’s that support the industry.

I have a breakfast meeting with a high-end cable manufacturer this week.  This was on my "wishlist" of topics.  We’ll see what he has to say about the "audiophile market".

Lots of good posts here on the OPs topic.  We all have our own ideas on the state of the "audiophile market", how we got here, and how to improve it.

A couple of thoughts:

-- The cost of delivering good sound into a space is directly proportional to the size of the space -- cubic feet, or even cubic centimeters -- and, yes, cubic millimeters when we’re talking about the ear canal.  Consumers looking for a quality listening experience need not spend $$$ if the listening "room" is confined to the space between their ears.

-- Consumers want to leverage their investments to maximize ROI.  So, IF it can play music AND play movie soundtracks AND provide a definite upgrade from the horrible sound of built in computer speakers then the math works.  A dedicated 2-channel music system is not a remote possibility for many for a number of (valid) reasons.

-- People will spend money on what their attention is on.  Those who are in a relationship, or have kids, understand this completely. Whatever the attention is on at the time, is where the money gets spent.  Grabbing the attention of would-be audiophiles during an F5 tornado of noise and distraction is not easy.  And, seasoned audiophiles may find that "other" things getting their attention will certainly divert their attention (and dollars spent) to other things.  Publications (hard copy) are helpful as well as face-to-face, highly personal interactions with quality people connected personally or professionally with the hobby.  And, yes, forums like this.

-- 

While the current audiophile market feels small, my thought/theory is that it may grow significantly at some point in the not-so-distant future.   

One of the hurdles I hear frequently cited as a reason that the younger demographic does not participate is they can't afford to buy a home to put the equipment in and can't really afford the equipment. That dynamic is about to change, in a rather big way.  

Over the next 20 years, we are heading toward the greatest wealth transfer in history.  Estimates are that boomers/silent generation will leave over $84 trillion dollars to their heirs by 2045.

That amount of newly found wealth will eliminate many/most of the financial hurdles that currently limit the participation in this hobby.  And the younger generations don't seem to have the hesitancy about spending money in general that preceding generations seem to have hung onto for many decades.  

So, there it is.  The future could be bright for this hobby. Afterall, that $84 trillion dollars will largely be spent, and much of it on homes/hobbies/experiences.  Having a kick ass home theater could well become much more common.   

@michaelspiellman I am not leaving a dime for my kids. When I die they will or will be well on their way to being very well established in life.

I am spending their inheritance on them know when they need it. Helping them buy their first homes, paid for their college, bought their first mid level audio system and when they need help or things come up I offer to help. 

Whatever is left will be given to my Church, Samaritans Purse and the local Humane Society. 

I think the International market is huge. Especially in Asia. Classical music is a big deal in China. There are more pianos in China now then there ever were in the West. I have noticed that most Audiophile brands are bought and sold on Ebay from all over the world.

Back in the early 80s, I worked for a small company where the owner was the Imperial Potentate of Shriners International. I clearly remember having a conversation about the decline in their membership.  His view was that over the decades, men had more options for spending their time compared to the past.  It seems like there is an element of this happening in the audiophile world.

Being "audiophile" ask for a minimal level of  artistic,literary and spiritual education which level had decreased in the West compared to traditional Eastern societies...

Technological training for industrial needs is not education which is about values....

 Then sophisticated musical forms are put more aside...

Sound quality had improved nowadays to a minimally satisfying acoustical threshold, his cost decreasing, then people consume the music from the programing media without being bothered about sound quality, when they are already  passed over this improved  minimal threshold ....

 Then a fool as myself who bother to ground his gear pieces at low cost to hear a jazz quartet or a chorus piece of music appear nuts, especially when observed from a phone camera in his dedicated acoustic room among tubes resonators of different kind...

If a person spoke about acoustics resonators we then  must put him in an asylum  ...Anybody speaking of the unexisting "soul" and of music meaning hierarchy will be isolated and  we will be protected by this mental disease by some injection for sure in the near future thanks to our oligarchs for this medical progress..

In a word the dimension of  the audiophile market depend of the definition of "audiophile" and  if i bought only peanuts cost gear, as i  did by budget limitation, am i an audiophile ?

Boomers got into audio because we didnʻt have home computers back then.  The hi-end hi-fi market has always been slow and small.  As we boomers pass on, the market will continue to shrink, but there will always be those who love it.

One big problem is that the audio manufacturers are not only competing with each other, theyʻre also competing with the used audio market.  If youʻre thinking of getting into the business, donʻt.

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. 

I used to work for a high end art gallery in New York. I was told there the market for people who would purchase $100,000+ artworks was 2,000 people.

So depending upon what level of price point for audio gear, I’d guess somewhere in same order of magnitude.

i know a good amount of upper middle class with basic McIntosh systems probably at $25k total.

But that’s just based off the day point I know.

My opinion is that I think the market is going to slow in a bad economy. It will pick up in a good one. The generation of the 60s, 70s, 80's are dying off. I have a lower cost tube system, Speakers I designed, built, I stream, no investing in clicks and pops. I have a selection of 60 million titles.  Having a high end stereo is dependent on whether you have the desire to invest money in high end audio or something else. Today, we have water sports, 4 wheelers, off roaders, fishing boats that cost 48k for a nice Lund boat, a nice car like a Mustang GT, Challenger SRT, or high perf Audi, Porsche, To Corvette Jag......  My opinion, you need the ears for high end audio, you need a decent room, and a budget you can afford. High performance is not always how much money is dumped. Depends on ears.  You must love music. Rap is not music, sorry. My grand daughter who is in Korean artists loves my system which is lower scale but decent. 

I don't think the market for quality audio equipment will disappear, but I think it will contract. I'm in my late 60s and as a kid the family listened to our stereo (such as it was) for family entertainment. That entailed actually buying physical media and loading it up on the turntable. Recorded music has been commoditized for young people with ITunes and a cell phone-no more "ritual" involved. There are exponentially more entertainment choices and music is more likely to be a background thing while they are working out, etc.Quality sound is not very important in that context. One of my great pleasures is spending a couple of hours, or more, just listening to music and nothing else-my kids (in their 30s) don't get that at all.

I also think the disappearance of brick and mortar stores contributes to the shrinking market. How many young people have actually heard a reasonably competent system? In the old days, audio stores were plentiful and even if you couldn't afford to buy you were exposed to the experience if you were curious enough to walk in to a store. That's not happening much these days.

To this point, there’s companies like Acora Acoustics Corporation, which bought Audio Research as part of a private equity deal.

Acora makes stone speakers. How many people are buying their speakers a year? 5? 100? How do these companies exist?