How large is the high end audio market?

I won't count out the trailer homes. We have a customer who fell to hard times, and he lived in a trailer for some time with a high-end system until he got back on his feet and has just bought a house.

Counting percentages is depressing. As long as I can find a customer, I am happy and look forward to finding the next. Live for what can be. Don't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect the outcome to be different. Playing the same Patricia Barber demo track you've used for the past 20 years 1000 times is not going to get you as many new customers as playing 100 new albums.

Isn't the average U.S. home value only about $124k now. Also, the past 5-6 years have seen an influx of renters. I would definitely think the greater percentage of high-end users would be in Asia or the EU

Bruce B said:

Isn't the average U.S. home value only about $124k now. Also, the past 5-6 years have seen an influx of renters. I would definitely think the greater percentage of high-end users would be in Asia or the EU

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Counting homes is not the way to figure this out. You need # of household with discretionary spend budget above a certain threshold. Because of the more unequal income distribution this percentage will be higher in the USA than in Europe. Asia is up and coming, but there is no significant upper middle class (the sweetspot of the high-end market), Asian high-end is catering to the rich, which is a much smaller market (but of higher value items).

another way to look at this might be to take a SWAG at total sales for high end hardware companies, then multiply by how many years use the gear might provide on average, and then divide by an estimate of average investment.

so just to throw it out there, maybe total high end gear sales in the USA might be $250 million dollars annually.

then figure an 8 year life span on average just as a starting point, so 8 x $250 mil = $2B.

divide $2B by lets say $35k average investment = 57,142 people with high end systems in the USA.

my off-the-wall guess had been 50,000 people who likely have what we might consider a high end system. so this is just one way to approach it. based on lots of guessing.

if i'm off in the total sales number....say it's $400 million or $500 million....then the number would adjust accordingly.

i can't imagine there are 100,000 high end 2-channel systems in the USA, but there are likely more than 20,000. it's somewhere in that range.

a very tiny percentage of the people who could reasonably afford to do it.

if you added serious headphone listeners, or home threatre systems, then the number is completely different. this is for serious high end 2 channel speaker systems.

Mike Lavigne said:

. . . . i can't imagine there are 100,000 high end systems in the USA, but there are likely more than 20,000. it's somewhere in that range.

a very tiny percentage of the people who could reasonably afford to do it.. . .

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That sounds right to me. I would guess in the 50,000 range also based on the number of households and total people.

The hobby per se is very different from the number of households who can reasonably afford to do it.

There are many more households who would reasonably be able to afford a high-end system if only they were exposed to it, and they desire it. Music-loving families is one of these large segments that I feel is under-served by our industry. The thread here on the listening rooms of the 6moons reviewers is indicative. Why can't a system sound good in a real living space? If there is a big hallway next to the left speaker, turn the bass gain up. If there is a glass window next to the right speaker, turn the tweeter down. Must the system be perfect in a perfect room for us to enjoy music?

When the industry was very much larger than it is today, we had high-end systems in living rooms being enjoyed by the whole family. Today, we have high-end systems in dedicated listening rooms where the hobbyist sits alone and in the dark. As a result, the audiophile industry is seen as an anti-social outcast. We play esoteric music that the larger public don't understand, and most dealers who do sell these systems look down upon the potential customer who drives up in a Mercedes asking to hear a song that's on their iPhone - they probably just listened to that song a few minutes ago in their car. If your demo system can't sound better than the car playing an mp3, you have no business to be in the high-end industry.

We had a couple of local bank VPs who visited the factory soliciting business. When they asked what we did, we didn't tell them. We just said, come and we will show you. They were both in their 40's - successful (drove up in a high-end Mercedes) so what did I demo. Patricia Barber or Miles Davis? No way. I played them Red Hot Chili Peppers and Grateful Dead. They stayed for the next couple of hours and we were spinning disc after disc. Now, even though we are not that bank's customers, they invite us to every one of their business networking events because they had absolutely no idea that something so wonderful exists, and the world's best is manufactured in Seattle. They are excited just to be the ones to introduce this "new thing" to their best customers - all small business owners.

i spent a couple of years a few years ago involved in high end headphones and the culture surrounding that. my guess is that there are 5x to 10x the number of serious headphone listeners compared to high end 2-channel speaker listeners.

that is another rich ground to move people into our hobby that already appreciate higher fidelity.

like Gary, from time to time i do have 'civilians' visit my room and more than a few have caught the bug.

I agree with Mike - the headphone listeners are potential customers. Don't look down on mp3 and headphones, they have the potential to become high-end 2-channel listeners.

I work for Costco Wholesale and we have approximately 275 employees at our location. They vary in age from 17-75, represent a fairly equal mix of female to male, all nationalities, and I know almost all of them. During the time I have worked there (15+ years) I have never met another employee with an audio system like mine, which is entry-level high-end. There are a few who have a surround system, but most of them are HTiB's.

While several have heard my system and are amazed by what it is able to reproduce, none have expressed a desire for acquiring such a setup. The art of listening to music is not something that appeals to them. I suspect that part of it is due to the rather high cost of entry, and dare I say an "old man's" hobby.

You left time out of the equation. I know people who have vary nice systems, but for the most part the equipment is decades old. The only recent additions are newer digital players. So we cannot count them as part of the new equipment market.

Speedskater said:

You left time out of the equation. I know people who have vary nice systems, but for the most part the equipment is decades old. The only recent additions are newer digital players. So we cannot count them as part of the new equipment market.

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http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...d-audio-market&p=278329&viewfull=1#post278329

I've read the high end is a 200 million market, 1/2 the size a decade ago.

what would be interesting to know would be what how the trends of overall high end sales figures vary from continent to continent.

do the trends simply follow overall growth or are there aborations that conflict with those trends?

so few high end companies are public that those sales figures will likely never really be known with any certainty.

KeithR said:

I've read the high end is a 200 million market, 1/2 the size a decade ago.

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Out of curiosity, do you know how "high end" was defined?

Just as reference points, I think Stereophile and TAS have a circulation of about 70k and 40k, IIRC...

So, 100k seems more likely... Now, how many of those are still active shoppers, is another matter entirely...



alexandre

regardless of the specific numbers, i dont believe it could be considered anything other than a niche market.

KeithR said:

I've read the high end is a 200 million market, 1/2 the size a decade ago.

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So did the number of customers double or just the prices charged . It feels like the just the price has gone up not the numbers of customers.

TheMadMilkman said:

Out of curiosity, do you know how "high end" was defined?

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Scot Hull mentioned it; perhaps he has more info.