I'm guessing most of us had "ah ah" experiences when young with component systems. I doubt many in subsequent generations have or will.
YouTube Indicates What the Future is For Audiophiles - Interesting Demographics.
Howdy,
I just wanted to share some data from YouTube as I found it quite eye-opening and thought some of you might too.
I've posted a couple vids on YouTube recently and, as some will know, YouTube provides analytics data with every video, which is available to the channel owner.
The first video featured a Krell KSA 80 amp and at the time of writing this there have been 9,500 views:
Female - 0%
Male - 100%
13–17 years 0%
18–24 years 0%
25–34 years 0%
35–44 years 0.9%
45–54 years 13.5%
55–64 years 44.4%
65+ years 41.3%
So, 100% male, and pretty much all of the traffic is from guys 45 years old and above, with 40%+ from guys over 65!!
The second video was a spoof (song) on Audiophiles that was shared a lot and watched by a lot of audiophile spouse, so the stats were slightly different, but not much. At the time of writing, 18,150 views:
Female 2.4%
Male 97.6%
13–17 years 0%
18–24 years 0%
25–34 years 0%
35–44 years 5.9%
45–54 years 18.6%
55–64 years 35.5%
65+ years 40.1%
The video was watched by a few females because it was shared and hit with a slightly younger audience but not by much. For all intents and purposes, the stats are the same for both vids.
Caveat - YouTube tends to attract an older audience and it's tipped up towards males. TikTok would show different results, but I think YouTube is really the platform of choice for most of us, so the data is more pertinent.
Conclusion - we're a dying breed. 40% of us will be dead in a few years and there's not many 'yoots' coming through to replace us.
No real surprise here but we're all blokes - old, fat, sweaty, bearded, and about to kick the proverbial bucket. (Yes, I'm speaking entirely for myself).
Do you think there's more that manufacturers, dealers, reviewers etc. should be doing, or is it just the inevitable playing out?
Thoughts?
Here's the link to the two vids for reference:
Krell KSA80
The Audiophile Song
126 responses Add your response
I completely agree. I'm 62...I've been in this hobby for 40 years. I still have a great 2 channel system- Coda/Harbeth/Pass Labs/PS Audio/VPI/Auralic/Audience. My friends love my audio system. However when they ask my advice I tell them-buy a very good bluetooth speaker and get Spotify. I have no problem spending big money on gear, but in good conscience I can't recommend anyone I like do the same.
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Thanks for your thoughtful post. I particularly appreciated the snippet above. I think there's a lot to be said for physical media ownership. I think in some small way it also drives the quality of the music, which is one of the big issues in all of this (as you mentioned earlier in your post). Buying an album used to be an experience beyond the actual music, and you don't get that to the same extent these days. I remember bringing home 'A Trick of the Tail' for the first time, and 'News of the World'. You have to think that a band who would put so much energy into the production of their artwork might also invest similarly in the creation of their music? Cheers
PS - I'm old and senile but I never said in the OP that any of this was new or hot off the press. |
You're absolutely right!!! High end audio, audiophiles, those of us ages approx. 45-85, and the overall high end audio industry are, in fact, a dying bread. There's a couple of principle factors, IMHO, that are contributing to the decline. #1-The music. The decline of todays music industry as a whole (the decline of the quality of the music). When Baby Boomers and Generation X were coming along during the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's, the music industry was on a whole other level than what it is today. Listening to your favorite brand of music back in those days was more like a religious experience, which inspire the young to purchase full blown starter audio systems. And those young music lovers later became high end audio purchasers as they grew older and more successful and were able to afford it. The dichotomy between the young (who are the future of high end audio) and how contemporary music inspires them, and also how todays music inspires them to evolve into high end audiophiles, has been on the declining for over 30 years. #2- The high end audio industry: Well, I guess the principles of cause and effect have cornered and forced the high end audio industry to pretty much abandon the young, who seem to have very little interest in high end audio, who primarily listen to their music via streaming it through cheap headphones. In facing todays reality regarding the high end, the high end audio industry recognizes that the future of the high end audio industry as a whole is in jeopardy, and have now decided to market their wares almost exclusively to us old, grey haired, senior citizen audiophiles who still love our good old turn tables, reel to reel players and CD players, which represent our heyday, and how things were when we were young. To the young, all the old mediums are merely old relics of the past that are from a bygone era. The high end audio industry makes no effort to capture the imagination of the young and has become somewhat of an excusive club for the more well heeled, middle aged and beyond audiophile who're willing to spend 50K, Lol, on a turn table, or 250K on a pair of speakers. No, the young, the future of high end audio, aren't interested. In any event, honestly, although, nowadays, I stream exclusively, I wish that all the old mediums from the past: CD, reel to reel, cassette, turn tables, and even 8 track, would make a huge comeback, and would also somehow start to resonate with the young on a much higher level, just to see the high end audio industry return to it's former glory!!!! Happy listening. |
Audiophile audio dying out will be one of the lesser problems future generations will have to deal with. It’d be nice if the kids enjoyed music like we do, but they don’t. One thing we can do is try to get our music collections into the hands of someone younger who does like to sit and listen to music rather than having it hauled to the dump when our time is up. |
Almost, as if by rote, these topics come up. Someone needs to do a study on how many times it’s done by this male dominated hobby and figure out if it’s a slow motion death knell of sorts. The last gasps of a dying herd as we flail on the shore, beached, unable to get back into audiophile waters. All the best, |
This has always been a vastly male dominated hobby. That's not a problem IMO, and it's unnatural to try and force otherwise. The age problem is extremely concerning, though it's not like this hasn't been telegraphed for ages. Other cultures (especially Asians) seem to have less of a problem here. The hifi headphone segment has less of a problem too, but it's somewhat surprising / concerning this hasn't become a pipeline into traditional 2ch audiophilia. I'm mid-40s and originally bridged over to 2ch from headphones 20 years ago. If I were getting into the hobby today, I'd be extremely put off by the disparity of having to choose between amazing but now incredibly unaffordable gear made in USA / Japan / Europe, versus cheap mass-produced ChiFi (some of which is not so cheap anymore!). Where'd the "great stuff" in the middle go? The industry seems increasingly dominated by these 2 poles. |
@onhwy61 - I have. Several. In fact, the second video for which I showed the stats in the OP was a trendier and more modern video, actually a song set to a soft rap beat. I was hoping to catch a younger more diverse audience with that, but I didn’t as you can see from the stats. 50% of all the traffic to that video came from external audiophile forums, Facebook high-end groups etc. And with the internal YouTube traffic, the ’audiophile’ theme dominated the search terms used to find the video in YT search, and the videos chosen automatically by YT from which to suggest it to new viewers. So it’s the same basic set of stats for two very different vids. As soon as you mention ’audiophile’ or ’high-end audio’, all the old blokes come out to play. It’s always been our problem, connecting with the younger crowds, and with women, but in the past we’ve somehow managed to keep replenishing the pool. Now, it looks like nothing new is coming through... PS - I think the portable Bluetooth loudspeaker demographic are doing okay, they're not the focus here, but are certainly the present and future. |
@stuartk Thanks, I wasn’t ’looking’ for anything, I was just sharing some specific data that’s a day old and hasn’t been shared before. My questions were whether or not manufacturers, dealers etc. could do more to try and address these issues, and to support a concern with some actual data that’s fresh. It’s rhetorical in a sense, I know about the issues, I’ve been involved in the debates about the downward trends, etc. I just wish there were some new initiative, that’s all. Also, I think most topics around here have been discussed more than once in the past :) and I think this one deserves to be brought back to the surface every once in a while, with some relevant and up to date data and feedback. I guess people are free to chime in or not. |
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I have to agree with @glennewdick . We are a dying breed, but I don't think that it's anything to be depressed about. We should be glad that we have been, and will continue to be until our last days, part of a very exciting era. We saw the glory days and enjoyed them, and we continue to enjoy the music and our systems. What happens in the future to the industry will simply reflect the current interests and tasted of the public in general. Will they be missing something great? I think so, but they won't know what they're missing because they never knew it to begin with. We need to just realize how lucky we have been. |
its also the demographic that can afford most of the stuff we call audiophile equipment. Also Audiophiles have made a bad name for themselves with their silliness and absolute snobbery to younger generations as a whole, not everyone of course but as a whole. Just hang out in a few "audiophile snake oil" groups and you'll see how the rest of people out there think of us as a whole. We are disappearing because we have done it to our selves and our silliness to believe every next best thing in audio even when its just snake oil, we defend that to the death even when its probably snake oil. We spend stupid money on gear that is well frankly not worth the money in many cases but will die for that gear if questioned. We also are a disappearing generation of musical tastes where modern music is meant/mastered to be played on head phones and sound bars, Not in a dedicated listening room. Then there is the space needed for many of our systems, young people cant afford to dedicate a whole room to listening to music, especially in their 500sqft condos worth more then our 2500sqft houses from a few decades ago. times are changing and so will music listening. I don't see much of a future for many of the hi end companies, some of the larger ones will survive but i doubt many of the smaller outfits will, specially the one man shows or smaller companies. They tend to die off when the founder dies and most of the founders are older now. |
