Wadax Studio Player Review

[Elliot G.]

Not catering to a younger demographic. One of the biggest marketing failures of high end audio which, In my view, will the main reason for its demise.

this may turn out to be true going forward however what you see at shows, events and entering and purchasing at stores are not young people. This of course is not an absolute , I hate generalizing , but after 50 plus years of doing this the population of those who support audio, particularly high end audio is older! That is a fact and I agree. I don't think that not stimulating younger is bad but it seems that the audio industry as a whole has either failed or that younger people just aren't that interested.

 

[thedudeabides]

That is a fact and I agree. I don't think that not stimulating younger is bad but it seems that the audio industry as a whole has either failed or that younger people just aren't that interested.

Do you have any historical / anecdotal info to suggest if that was the case in the past (say 30 to 40 years ago) or have the demographics recently changed in the last 10 years or so? My theory is that it's the "boomer" generation impact. But that's a guess. And why do you think not stimulating the younger gen is not harmful to the long term viability of the industry? Best.

 

[Elliot G.]

Do you have any historical / anecdotal info to suggest if that was the case in the past (say 30 to 40 years ago) or have the demographics recently changed in the last 10 years or so? My theory is that it's the "boomer" generation impact. But that's a guess. And why do you think not stimulating the younger gen it's not harmful to the industry? Best.

SEX DRUGS and Rock N Roll ---30 and 40 years ago Audio was very different. First the choices for people were much smaller. When I was a kid which is older than that music was so important. We all lived it and it was exploding. Ed Sullivan show was huge. Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, then the English Invasion and of course The Beatles. FM radio and the personalities were huge everything revolved about it. By the way all those people are audio lovers and customers. Pre 1980's bands and music IMO were significantly more important to us. I dont want to be an old fogey but Hop and Rap do not lend themselves to the interest or purchase of high end audio. This is my experience talking not a value judgement. Boomers were huge you are correct. The people I have discussed this with in the Industry have at times tried to get younger people involved the results were not good. I can't say why I am not one of them. I do know that my kids like music but not like I do. They all seem to be involved with their devices as much as I don't like them too. So my opinion is there are way more distractions and activities that seem to have moved the attention of younger people. One last thing I think they are being manipulated and poorly educated about almost everything , that's a personal observation, but its 30 years of interaction and observation.
In summary in my business and with discussion of others in the business bringing in young people has totally failed.
How can it be changed? I have ideas but WTF do i know

 

[thedudeabides]

Wonderful insight Elliot. Thank you. With this obvious trend and absence of a growing new and younger clientele, how does the hi end industry survive as we know it today.? And I find the "there will always be people with money", which is code for disposable income, to be somewhat insufficient and superficial. Maybe the Japanese, Koreans, etc. remain the life blood but I also find that to be a somewhat unconvincing argument. But I admit to ignorance regarding geographic locations and sales volume.

The back page of each TAS edition always features an engineer / designer / manufacturer of hi end audio gear. The same question is asked with the same "I don't know" response other than the typical trickle down / lower price marketing myth.

I started a thread "Hi End Audio in 2035" a month ago. No traction / interest. Four very short responses. Maybe people find me irrelevant regarding the typical discussions. If so, OK with me. But maybe, most folks don't have a clue.

 

[Al M.]

As long as there is refusal to recognize that the headphone hobby can be true high-end, there will be refusal to recognize that the hobby has a future.

CanJam NYC 2023 Commences

CanJams are about much more than skull-testing the newest headphones. They are the best places for all audiophiles to audition innovations in amplification, file servers, and digital converters and to jabber and bond with students, hipsters, gamers, and brainiacs from every part of the...

www.stereophile.com

From the article:

If you've only been to mainstream audio shows, you might be surprised by the CanJam demographics. A majority of CanJam NYC 2023 attendees were under 45 years old, and diverse in the extreme along ethnic, social, economic, and gender lines. Saturday morning, as the show opened, I sat in the lounge area on one of those white vinyl 'cube' stools drinking coffee, watching five college-age non-binary students camped on two little white sofas with at least eight or ten boxes of not-inexpensive in-ear monitors (IEMs); best I could tell, they were swapping the headbuds around, doing comparisons, and sharing their impressions while at the same time swapping and comparing hookup wires. When nonbinary 18-year-olds are comparing hi-fi cables at 11am Saturday morning, you're probably looking at the future of our hobby.

I saw women, alone and in small groups, table-hopping: auditioning some of the finest transducers made.

Before I finished my coffee, a dapper, self-described billionaire and a scruffy 20-something young man stopped to chat. They told me they read my Gramophone Dreams column every month, which choked me up with gratitude. The scruffy youth showed me his DIY headphones, saying, "I fabricated everything you see, except the drivers.

"I have fifteen headphones, but only one pair of speakers," he told me. That, he explained, is the difference between the passionate headphone crowd and other audiophiles.