Why this obsession does not have many new recruits..

I was always both! Still am I guess... especially if I ever get my bike back on the road! About 3 year or so now standing in garage... never been without a bike for more than 6 months or so in my entire life before this! Never owned a car....

True story.
A few years ago my daughter threw a Halloween party.
Her mates all stuck to the dining / kitchen bit of the house and me and the missus and the greyhound took refuge in the front room.
 There was a juke box in there on free play so they were happy .
Obviously as things warmed up the youngsters started exploring.
They're all good kids though so no harm done.
My daughter was in a band in the 6th form and her two friends... bass player and Guitarist ended up looking through my rekkids.
When IOWA by Slipknot was discovered all hell was let loose !
I got to it just in time to save it from a dozen half pissed dracula's , cavemen , and Lizzy Bordens mauling it to death.
As asked ... I put the record on and all sat or stood around to listen.
After one side I asked Tom , the guitarist what his verdict was.
" Ok, MR ENG , BUT NOT FOR ME .... TOO MUCH GOING ON "!
I kid you not ...."too much going on". Now I realise that Slipknot isn't going to go down to well here but 
Slipknot consists of 9 people playing different instruments so it was accidentally ideal for its purpose.. He could hear them all probably for the first time in his 18 years on this earth. Result ? .... not interested.
So F#ck em !
They ain't interested in sound quality. It's been bred out of them by the music business (ironically ) and the obsession with convenience.
I'm happy with this 'Last of the summer wine ' youth club for coffin dodgers as far as serious audio is concerned. I've axcepted the fact that as a hobby it's dead.
I don't want a forum or room full of people saying "innit" and "I was like OMG" .
Leave em to their Beat headphones and instagram.
When we're gone , my good chaps..... it's going with us.

I feel like strangling them when all you get is, "It is so clear" after playing something. They do not get it, they are not interested, the Sh#t takes up to much space, and it is not like a car, your friends cant admire your kit, to them it is about as interesting as collecting rocks.

As for live music concerts do people go for the light show or the music, judging from some of the idiot comments on YouTube music must have a visual component to it. No video no interest.

I dunno, I think my boys may take on the HiFi bug but for different reasons, one being how much vinyl is likely to be left when I'm "brown bread"

They are in a musical environment all the time. Wife plays the Piano, I play guitar and there is always music on.

I think in general, the masses don't understand HiFi. It's an oddity to sit there and listen intently for 45mins. They are usually instagram bound whilst music plays through shite headphones and rarely do they take it in.

My daughter, lived with her mom, was very musically talented, like moi, but they didn't embrace it, instead pushing her into church and forcing the violin on her.

She now has a Spotify account and listens on a crap speaker.

It's all about exposure to the right stuff.

My exposture to music came from my dad who used to play everything too loud and on absolute shite gear. Hitachi music centres and Pioneer plastic moulded stereos.

Theres no way you can credit him with a quest for fidelity lol.

I do not even bother talking about this hobby to people.
Might as well wear a cardigan knitted by your blind granny, and talk about different bird eggs or string theory, you never get invited again cause you come over as a crashing boring old fart.

Bigman/Lemos. See that signature at the bottom of my posts. This is kinda why others dont hear what you do

My wife and I both enjoy music reproduced well. My daughter and son, not so much, but my three grandsons all have fairly simple stereo systems that I organised for them, second hand Gumtree buys mostly, and they all play and enjoy LPs. We were their music influencers from very young, and they even like John Martyn!

It was claimed (an exhibitor's opinion) that the average age of the recent Bristol show was 60+

Don't bode well, do it?

HiFi enthusiasm has come full circle now though, at least in the UK. When I started in '73 as a Saturday boy, the mix of clients was huge in terms of age. My school pals had systems such as an SP25III/G800, Teleton amp (GA202 in this case with a massive 15WPC)) and Denton speakers or similar (KJ used to make the 'Sonata,' a Ditton 15-ish size box with a twin cone 8" driver inside and I wonder to this day how they'd respond to a modern system feeding them).

These youngsters grew up with me into a Dual/Rega deck, NAD amp and Mission 700/HB1 style systems and as they became qualified in the early 80's, some graduated to a Rega or LP12 level system, with Naim amp and whatever boxes we sold to match it (Mission 770, HB3, Linn's own and so on).

By the very late 90's, I was still selling to 30 odd year old couples. Sometimes a Denon mini or midi system (perfectly adequate with suitable speakers in a smallish room), often a Rega system (Planet/Couple/Remote, Mira and Juras with Talk 4.1 speaker cables - far better for musical enjoyument than a bleedin' (literally) Arcam/Kef setup).

And then the new millenium killed it for younger families and couples, because they suddenly wanted HOME THEATRE! Most of this new style of customer didn't want music reproduction at all - to my horror - and Bose lifestyle systems became all the rage. Top end versions of Bose tended to be B&O with multiroom added on, the bedroom TV also able to reproduce music via its speaker with the TV circuits disabled and a glorified fully remote controlled soundbar available for say, the dining room or kitchen taking the sound from the main system..

These days, it's lottery winners or now older fellas who missed out first time and wanting a new Naim streaming system with Kudos speakers (I think Linn's in there somewhere but nowhere near as prominently I feel).

Too true, they mostly looked as old as me. Maybe it was the pensioner ticket discount? 

I think decent gear will always be around.
Just look at the diversity and number of exhibitors at shows like Munich High End, there must be a large buyer base keeping them going and encouraging the many start-ups.

Personally, I think that the average UK audio enthusiast moans far too much. Truth is "we've never had it so good"!

There's a far far better selection of mainly better kit available new today, that for the equivalent money 30 years back. I remember, a year after starting work in my 20's being shocked at the price of even entry level kit and truth be told, there wasn't anywhere near as much choice as there is now.

The other thing that's changed is digital. In the 1980's a reasonable (read "won't make your ears bleed and head fall off) CDP was relatively expensive. Today, £200 or much less buys a pretty decent DAC, and little more buys a pretty sound entry level CDP. Valve amps? Forget it. Other than AI gear, the rest was mainly imported esoterica and look at it today! We're swamped with bottles these days.

Speakers...ditto...we've never, not in my lifetime anyway, had such a good variety of pretty decent entry level speakers. Bristol this year clearly demonstrated that with some excellent sub £500 offerings.  The mid end is much the same. Set of really decent ATCs, some Fyne audio offerings, even (and i can't believe I'm even saying this) something like the new Heresy IV all represent excellent value and performance, ditto the excellent Magnapan 1.6 or 1.7 speakers.

I think that this whole notion of hifi being too expensive new here is just pie in the sky when the facts reflect the exact opposite compared with 25 to 30 years back. Better choice and at reasonable money.

It's much the same story with phonostages (there's never been such a choice), amplifiers and turntables.

Way too much moaning. People have to make a profit as that is what keeps business in business and what keeps the availability and variety of products what it is.

I must admit though that it's the second hand market that seems to have gotten a little stale. There aren't the bargains about there used to be and part of that is possibly people changing out kit more frequently and not wanting to make a loss, or the cashing in on some classic market (TD124's and Tannoys being a good example).

What Jerry says is true. Good used gear will always be around but I disagree about always having to import it. Once you stop and list some UK companies, including small and boutique ones, the list is surprisingly large and growing. I've seen a marked upsurge in the past 18 months in the market, when I expected things to be the other way around. The current market volatility never touches the high end anyway but the upper middle end has suffered a bit.

Entry level has taken a slight bashing not because people aren't buying but more due to personal systems becoming the norm...wireless in ear buds connected by bluetooth to phones with ever more sophisticated streaming services available..the younger market are definitely steering away from traditional hifi. They'll steer back to it as they get older though and their lifestyles and lifestyle choices change.

For now, the main market is in the 45-75 age range group, or the single bloke (mainly) group from perhaps mid 20's upwards.  My own customer base is more varied now than ever with people ranging from their 20's to their late 80's, but the spread tends to be concentrated between mid 40's to mid 70's.  I think that come retirement time most people are settled into their final destination systems, happy to stick with what they have, although there will always be a few who like swapping stuff about for fun.

Most of my sales are still in the uk and turnover is growing annually. The largest speaker commission to date has been a 2020 UK London based commission, so I'm seeing very differently. Where does your information come about smaller UK brands DJSR? All of those smaller outfits I know are the same...most turnover remains within the UK.

I, and several of my industry friends do indeed sell overseas but it only accounts for about 30% of our total sales. Those with larger portfolios and much higher product turnover have to sell more overseas as that is where the larger markets exist, particularly the Far East and the USA. At a guess, I'd wager that far more is sold to these two markets alone than is sold in Europe.

I'd respectfully suggest that only a small percentage of UK audiophiles invest in Naim these days. They don't seem to have any particular corner of the market dominated in the way that they might once have done. Competition is too widespread.

Smaller companies can never hope to compete with large companies, and most who remain successful and small, truth be told, have no inclination of growing to those heights, as with them comes extra risk and the fun drops right out of the industry. Most, if not all UK boutique brands do it because they are passionate about what they do and passionate about music and helping others to realise their goals through products they make. That's why I do it. I have no intention, although the market's definitely there, of growing into a large scale business as this is more a way of life for me than just a means to an end, and I enjoy what I do.

I can only speak for myself though. There's another trend in the past 5 or 6 years. Larger companies or start ups of older brands are using some of the talent residing within UK boutique or smaller business to help with product development in larger ones. Several older brands/businesses have come to me in recent months looking for technical consultancy services for relaunch products, plus one new high end brand. I'm sure I'm not alone.