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How rare is an audiophile

I’ve been extremely busy lately and not had a chance to sit back and listen to music  on my system for a few weeks. I’ve streamed my favorite music in the car and on a small JBL Flip-4 portable speaker; which by the way “punches way above its size class.”  I continued to enjoy music whenever, wherever, and however i can during this “dry spell.”

So now its 5 am Sunday morning. I know i’ll be spending most of the day listening on the JBL when my wife and I drive out to a lake house we bought recently and are furnishing and getting ready for 4 generations to enjoy lake life this summer and for years to come. 
I’ve let my system warm up and hit play on my CD player. I now find myself in total bliss listening to Chris Standing’s newest CD “The Lovers Re-mix Collection.”  The effect of the quality of the sound of the music my wife and i are enjoying right now with a cup of coffee is hard to explain, but it brought literal tears of joy.  

I started thinking, how many people are like us?  What % of the population are audiophiles (whatever your definition of an audiophile is)?

I know the answer is heavily dependent on which country you live in. I live in the US along with ~332,000,000 fellow citizens (please, lets not get political on the meaning of population or citizen). 
Are we the 0.1%ers?  Are there ~332,000 audiophiles in the US?

i’d be interested in what others think about how rare our species is.

ezstreams
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bruce19
225 posts
 

I can contribute one more datapoint on the question of how rare is an audiophile . I live in New Jersey, a state of 9 million or so people. I belong to New Jersey audiopile society which has a membership of 74 people. Even if we assume that only the top 10% of the most avid audiophiles go so far as to join the society, that is still a vanishingly small percentage of the population.

nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,624 posts
 

We're as rare as this:

All the best,
Nonoise

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

I remember 'way back when when the Jaguar XKE sports car was introduced. "A man's mink coat" an auto magazine proclaimed. In other words, we all have things that capture our emotions and that make us want to open our wallets. Name your poison.

kennyc
1,249 posts
 

I could run a rough calculation based on a lot of very loose assumptions such as units active, but that’s a lot of work to come up with questionable ballpark number just to satisfy somebody else’s curiosity itch. Can some number below 1% be judged as either relevant or even interesting? My motivation is miniscule.

More importantly, what is the definition of an "audiophile" in the sense how do we count - who qualifies and who does not?

cdc
1,697 posts
 

Judging by the number of cars I hear with pretty good to excellent sound and the number of car stereo dealers. . . . plus people in Ebay who collect vintage gear, etc. . . . plus people into hi-res formats. . . . plus home theater. . . . it has shifted to areas other than the 2 speaker home listening experience.

Was it Darwin who said "It's those who adapt to change that survive."? It's not always the fittest.

 

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