Where are the young audiophiles?

Most brick and mortar audio stores over last 12 months are doing much better than they've done in years.  I don't buy that clientele all old.  I see younger people in the stores.  Nice headphones are in demand and that's a gateway.  Things are fine 

I’m pretty young (well relative to the prevailing crowd here, not to the pickup basketball games I try in vain to keep up with....sigh)) but for the older gents here, at the Hi-Fi height, let’s say 1970’s, what percentage of middle class households had what we would consider a hi-end system?

10%? 20%? More?

By hi-end system I guess I mean something you’d get from a Hi-Fi store, not just a Best Buy receiver

“Much less than  1%”

Wow. To read some of the accounts from the period you’d think everyone and their brother had extensive systems. 

“But it is way better for your purse and creativity to own one of the best audio system in the ratio S.Q. /price than own the best one in audiogon...”

Damn right.