60 year old audio/music lover here.
issue one is listening style. Sitting down and listening to music was normal for our generation. Black and white tv with 7 channels and horribly unreliable tubes, was the only competing media. Phone calls actually cost money per use. Our parents had time as there were no play dates, we walked or cycled to little league or music lessons. My younger colleagues have no time to listen to music other than in the car
issue two. Cd audio introduced before the technology was ready. Turntables competition from BIC, Dual, Garrard, Sansui, was increasing reliability and speed. The early cd players all sounded the same, and were uninvolving, making a rack system from circuit city all you needed.
Cost. Very friendly dealer is 25 miles from me in a major market city. Most merchandise is priced to the Uber high end, with speaker cables and power cords priced higher than my speakers. When I started practicing 30 years ago, most of my colleagues had high end systems. I know if only one now, and the dealer said his customers are ceos cto or cio types that listen to the products, put together a great system and pay with an Amex black card without regard to pricing