the headline is from a think piece in the latest sterophile newsletter, the article was wriiten by JA. he writes in the opening paragraph:
"When I became Stereophile's editor in 1986, the median age of the magazine's readership was the same age as I was then, 38; ie, half the readers were younger than 38, half older. According to our most recent reader survey, the median reader age is now 48, meaning that in the intervening 19 years, that median reader has aged at half the rate of the rest of us. A nice trick. But older that reader certainly has become, which has led to cries of doom from some quarters of the audio industry."
i was 21 in '86, and thinking back i met many more readers that were under 30. i have a feeling the vast majority of 30 year olds today never heard of stereophile let alone have a concept of what "high end" audio is about, they'd probably say its just expensive stereo equipment (read: over-priced) missing the whole point.
the cost of entering into high-end audio must also be a major contributor. using the US inflation calcuator* the system i owned back in '93 had a list price of ~23k, fast forward twenty years and in todays dollars the same system should cost 37k, an increase of about 61%. the fact is, if i try to build the same system today with equivilent components from the same manufacturers i came up with 78K, which at this point not only would i be priced out but i would consider it poor value.
*http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
"When I became Stereophile's editor in 1986, the median age of the magazine's readership was the same age as I was then, 38; ie, half the readers were younger than 38, half older. According to our most recent reader survey, the median reader age is now 48, meaning that in the intervening 19 years, that median reader has aged at half the rate of the rest of us. A nice trick. But older that reader certainly has become, which has led to cries of doom from some quarters of the audio industry."
i was 21 in '86, and thinking back i met many more readers that were under 30. i have a feeling the vast majority of 30 year olds today never heard of stereophile let alone have a concept of what "high end" audio is about, they'd probably say its just expensive stereo equipment (read: over-priced) missing the whole point.
the cost of entering into high-end audio must also be a major contributor. using the US inflation calcuator* the system i owned back in '93 had a list price of ~23k, fast forward twenty years and in todays dollars the same system should cost 37k, an increase of about 61%. the fact is, if i try to build the same system today with equivilent components from the same manufacturers i came up with 78K, which at this point not only would i be priced out but i would consider it poor value.
*http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/