Just how "in the minority" are we as Audiophiles?

I was thinking about Jeff's point that CJ is only a 20 man company. That has blown my miind - I think CJ is a big name on the world stage, and to find out it is that small is a real eye opener.

That must mean world wide sales are actually really low. Which begs the question, how small a group is the hi-end community really?

I know hardly any true audiophiles. And I have hardly ever met anyone who is outside of common audio circles.

Sure, plenty of people go to shows, but I doubt many actually buy high end equipment as a result.

So I wonder what percentage of the population actually owns high end equipment. I guess that also begs the question, where does high end actually start? For instance, what model of ML do people consider is the first that can be considered hi-end?

A few thoughts on this would be very cool...

Outside of this and other "on-line" community of friends I only have one friend and one acquaintance who could be considered audiophiles. That's out of hundreds.

This has always been a lonely hobby. Not only because of the small number of people in it, but for the small number of people that even appreciate listening. Most people I find are passive listeners.They listen to their music as background in the car, at work or at home. Very, very few sit down and actually focus on the music. That's one of the many reasons that speakers like Bxxx do so well.

I have only two friends who can be considered audiophiles. I have several friends who probably think I'm insane because I spend as much as I do on this hobby. I also have an old friend who loves his Bose stuff.

And yes, most people are passive listeners.

and... I think it is getting smaller and smaller. When I was a kid - a 'good time' was getting away from your parents and listening to loud music in another room.by yourself or with your girlfriend (and we all know what happens when rock 'n roll is played at loud levels!!) .. and would just play records for several hours. I think becoming an appreciater of music or audiophile takes time and patience and is learned. Today - with the game systems- computers - the incredible big screen tvs - everything is so visual. Kids would rather instant message one another on the computer than listen to music. and if they are listening - it is on very small computer speakers - while they are IMing each other.

But, if I were a kid today - I doubt if I would have been listening to music either.

Now, I have a disease, that I have to live with... My backdrop on my computer is of tube monoblocks that I can not afford. That is a problem!!

INHO, we're a dwindling herd of dinosaurs! Only hope is introducing the iPod generation to LOSSLESS playback on quality systems. Many will be surprised by what they hear, and a few of them might actually take up the hobby. Our mission is to go forth and proselytize!

I have a few that I met here. Other than that , No one appreciates it like us.

I just remembered one more - my wife ! She was instrumental in my getting my Koetsu Rosewood, my SL3s, and recently, my PrimaLuna CDP. She DEFINITELY qualifies as a friend !!!

Most of my audiophile friends are off of the Carver and Martin Logan use group. I would think the “true” audiophile market is very small. Most homes I visit have a Sony or Bose 5.1 channel box system and feel it is audiophile. So it is all depends on ones perspective.

Related questions

That's an interesting question. Like others who have already posted, I have no close friends who are audiophiles (although one is on the edge), and no one of my general acquaintance living in this area would qualify, either. It is interesting to ask what larger trends this phenomenon might be part of. I'm not sure I know the answer, but it is certainly the case that the popularity of most things changes over time. Stamp collecting was still a common hobby when I was a kid, but there are far fewer philatelists today. I have a son who is nineteen, and I don't think he or any of his friends is into cars as was more typical of an earlier generation. Another way of getting at this would be to ask what activities carry status today. It used to be that a young person with a good stereo was the envy of his friends. I doubt that is the case anymore. What other luxury goods are in decline, and what things are replacing them? You've put your finger on a trend, but I suspect that there is more to it than simply the rise of the iPod, although living in a faster paced culture is certainly one piece of the larger puzzle. Another parallel example is the overall decline in reading and in literary standards. On most fronts, our culture has been dumbing down for more than a generation. (Did you happen to see the comparison between Senate speeches following Pearl Harbor and 9/11? The difference in quality was stunning.) Many blame television, and that might well be a good target, but it is a part of something larger, I suspect. Anyway, lots of food for thought here.

It's interesting to note the recent proliferation of fairly new online high-end audio mags (Tone, 6Moons, Affordable Audio, etc), blogs (SonicFlare, Audiojunkies, The Audiophiliac, etc.), and Forums (ML Club, Audiocircle, Computer Audiophile, etc.). It seems the editors/owners of these sites are competing for the same dwindling number of readers and advertising $$. I guess Jeff (Tone) could give us the best perspective on the worldwide audiophile market, if he is bold enough to share it with us!

It's really weird that almost all of my friends are deeply into music. Either in bands, following bands, lifer groupie weirdos, all sorts of stuff. But none of them gives a damn what the music sounds like.

While they do at least pretend to like my speakers, they always want to plug their iPods in to listen to music.

"But I have that artist on CD and it'll sound better."
"But I have all these other .mp3s"
"Yeah, I have those on CD, too, and .mp3s sound like gutter."
"It doesn't matter, it all sounds the same!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

sleepysurf said:

It's interesting to note the recent proliferation of fairly new online high-end audio mags (Tone, 6Moons, Affordable Audio, etc), blogs (SonicFlare, Audiojunkies, The Audiophiliac, etc.), and Forums (ML Club, Audiocircle, Computer Audiophile, etc.). It seems the editors/owners of these sites are competing for the same dwindling number of readers and advertising $$. I guess Jeff (Tone) could give us the best perspective on the worldwide audiophile market, if he is bold enough to share it with us!

Click to expand...

I think the audiophile market is .00001 %.

That's why TONE really isn't positioned as an audiophile magazine, we consider it a music magazine that happens to be excited about good gear. It's easy if you compare the numbers. TAS has been around for 33 years and they have 33 thousand readers. Stereophile has been around for over 40 years and they have about 70 thousand.

We're in our fourth year now and have just over 150 thousand readers in 104 countries.

The big picture though, are magazines like Rolling Stone (2.5 million readers), SPIN (about a million readers), Paste (700k) readers and the like.

What does this mean?

There are a ton of people out there that love music that either don't know that our world exists or don't care.

If you look at Stereophile or TAS (or the other online guys for that matter), they have six or seven pages of music at the back of the issue. Stereophile I think does a better job, as the occassionally interview a musician.

We usually have 30-50 pages of music right up front. We are covering live shows, interviewing musicians and trying to write about new music as close to the release dates as we can, while still talking about classics and audiophile discs too.

Look at the last 4 years of Stereophile covers. Same thing every issue. A close up shot of a piece of gear on an angle, with a headline proclaiming that this or that is "the Best" or "Unbelievable", etc, etc. Most of our covers are pictures of musicians or people from the audio industry. We've only featured gear on the cover twice, the Sooloos music server and the Wadia iPod dock.

My theory was that if we could get them in the door for music, they would stay for the gear, because everyone needs something to play their tunes on eventually. From the feedback we've been getting, it appears to be working quite well. A lot of people have called or written saying that they have been reading the magazine for the music, but have just bought something based on one of our reviews and they enjoy it.

We have also branched out in to some associated lifestyle articles, with excellent success. Our readers surveys and letters/calls indicates that our readers also enjoy Cars, Motorcycles, bicycles, cameras, watches, travel, liquor, golf and guns. No one on the staff likes to golf or shoot, so you won't see any of those articles, but while we will keep this section small, it's always fun to give you a little something extra to read. Also, whenever we can tie it in to music or hifi, we will do so.

The audiophile market as we knew it is dying. But the good news is that there are a lot of music lovers in the audience with the interest and the means to buy a good system. I'd like to welcome those people to the fold, because some of them will become obsessed audiophiles too, but we have to get people in the door!

Everyone on my staff that writes about hifi has a great system, but we all came to this world because we loved music and felt that music played back on a great system sounds better than music played back on a lousy one.

In the end I don't feel like we are competing with them, we are a different animal. While my heart will always be with the hardcore audiophiles, because that's where I grew up, but we need to get more people to the dance and articles with charts and graphs about distortion figures aren't going to get them here...

This was my goal from the beginning to build something that was more than just a bunch of gear reviews.

My opinion, but it does appear to be working.

MotorToad said:

It's really weird that almost all of my friends are deeply into music. Either in bands, following bands, lifer groupie weirdos, all sorts of stuff. But none of them gives a damn what the music sounds like.

While they do at least pretend to like my speakers, they always want to plug their iPods in to listen to music.

"But I have that artist on CD and it'll sound better."
"But I have all these other .mp3s"
"Yeah, I have those on CD, too, and .mp3s sound like gutter."
"It doesn't matter, it all sounds the same!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Click to expand...

MotorToad has it right... Apple and others have trained the world that 128 mp3 is the quality bar

tonepub said:

I think the audiophile market is .00001 %.

That's why TONE really isn't positioned as an audiophile magazine, we consider it a music magazine that happens to be excited about good gear. It's easy if you compare the numbers. TAS has been around for 33 years and they have 33 thousand readers. Stereophile has been around for over 40 years and they have about 70 thousand.

We're in our fourth year now and have just over 150 thousand readers in 104 countries.

The big picture though, are magazines like Rolling Stone (2.5 million readers), SPIN (about a million readers), Paste (700k) readers and the like.


This was my goal from the beginning to build something that was more than just a bunch of gear reviews.

My opinion, but it does appear to be working.

Click to expand...

Jeff,

Your magazine comes across to me as "music lifestyle" magazine, and based on the numbers, your strategy is working!

tonepub said:

I think the audiophile market is .00001 %.

Click to expand...

I remember reading or hearing from Charlie Hansen of Ayre that the number of people "interested in good sound" is .1% of the US population (approximately 300 million people). That would make it 300,000 people. Like the posts above, I don't know too many other people in the hobby. My wife and friends think I am strange.

Also, I am not sure what "good sound" means, but it's probably a combination of anything from Bose and Bang and Olufson, to Jolida, Arcam to CJ, ARC, Krell, Wilson, to MBL and FM Acoustics. I also wonder how the market size differs in Europe and the economically strong Asian countries.

I have one or two friends (and a couple more acquaintances) that at least budding audiophiles. That is, they more or less "get it" but haven't been able to (or wanted to) buy a high end system.

What is interesting, though, is the number of people who think I'm nuts to spend the kind of cash I do on my gear--until they hear my system. They still wouldn't spend the money, but they understand the difference between a high end audio system, and the crap purveyed by box shifters like Best Buy et al.

I don't know any audiophiles, or anyone who listens to music other than casual/background listening. I don't think I've ever walked into someone's home and saw what I would consider anything but a mass market setup.
When I was a kid, we listened to music a lot. One of my friend's dad had a decent stereo, and we always listened if we were there and his parents were out. I'm waiting for the day that my kid and friends ask if they can play some music on my stereo. Man, if I were a kid and I walked in and saw them big Logans I think I'd lose my mind. But kids today have so many other options - TV with channels geared to what they want, computers with websites geared to what they want, XBoxes with games they want. Also, kids today seem to have more organized activities these days.
So, we'll all die and nobody will listen to music anymore. That's pretty much it.

tonepub said:

That's why TONE really isn't positioned as an audiophile magazine, we consider it a music magazine that happens to be excited about good gear.

Click to expand...

That's obvious from reading your magazine, however Tone Audio does imply something else........

I think we are a small minority - that's for sure. The problem is, we're also very spoilt for choice. Really spoilt. And that's where sales of any one company dwindle even further. I mean, look at anyone considering a C-J amplifier......they've got others to consider from
ARC,
BAT,
Classé,
Rowland,
Musical Fidelity,
Krell,
Levinson,
Gryphon,
Marantz,
Bryston,
VTL,
Pass,
Manley,
Nagra,
Theta,
McIntosh,
Perreaux,
Bel Canto,
Ayre,
Goldmund,
Plinius,
the list goes on for hundreds more,
and then many many boutique companies too.

What hope has any one of these companies got to make a sale to such a small percentage? I guess that's why they're small!

Compare this to any other consumer good (cars, where everyone has at least two in their garage - refrigerators where everyone has at least two in their houses, etc) and there is no way there is that much choice. Sometimes I wonder how it is sustainable. Really, it's not. We're very lucky!

I have one acquaintance who thinks he is an audiophile but is really just a tweaky gear freak with all home built or modified gear BUT in the 15 or so years I have known him he has acquired fewer than 10 recordings and never talks about MUSIC and in that same time period has attended ZERO live music events
other than that most people I know are content with the piped in stuff from the cable company played back on the tv speakers
but we do flourish online