The pro market is doing great!
There are three reasons for the demise of audiophile
1. Snake oil
2. Snake oil
3. Snake oil
There are a few other reasons being that the quality in general of audio products peaked in the late 80's. Audiophiles went ever further into crazy pursuits in order to continue what was a legitimate search in the old days when most systems were inadequate. Boutique Manufacturers ended up building designs that were like fashion clothes - no longer accurate but incredibly colourful and justified these designs with bogus science. Then home theatre came along and video killed the radio star! Now people have an attention span of less than a minute - so I don't see it changing. The Digitsl loudness wars has also ruined music quality to the point it is impossible to fix a crap product no matter how much you spend on a home system.
In short, audio in general became very good and the "cause or mission" became aimless once good sound was easily attainable to all.
Pro market is different. There is still room for improvement (loudness, dynamics, accuracy, reliability, portability, IEM monitors etc) but the target market is musicians and producers who look for more than just sound quality at low listening levels with little in the way of dynamics.
