It’s the present, and Bluetooth headphones are widely spread already…
Even famous hi-fi loudspeakers brands (not fully dedicated to high-end market though) now propose such devices: B&W, KEF, Focal…
But for now, each of their Bluetooth headset doesn’t sound the same.
I’m not exactly young anymore (mid-40s), but I did come to the hobby on my own and am not too worried about the future of hifi. As you mentioned, you won’t see many young folks in the dCS room at shows, but probably like me they didn’t go there because they couldn’t afford it and they were busy in the areas displaying equipment they could afford!
I’m living in Hong Kong right now, and before that lived in Tokyo for many years. At least in this part of the world I I’m optimistic about the younger generations still appreciating good sound. It’s true there aren’t many buying home systems (no space!), but the personal audio market has grown expoenentially in the past 20 years, and there are a whole lot of young folks in that market. It helps that the cost of entry is a lot lower, but I’ve seen lots of friends start with just a nicer pair of IEMs and end up down the rabbit hole with desktop amps, DACs, or event things like Lina or Bartok.
So yes, we may continue seeing older faces in the high end rooms, but I’ll bet those rooms will still be full in 20 years!
Thanks Jeff. Interesting.
However what was originally tangential to the subject ; Varese v. Vivaldi, the last few postings in this thread seem to have no connection with this. So, as this is resulting in a subject that is capable of standing on its own and, I expect, will attract many further comments. I will therefore create a new thread “The current and future market for high end audio”.
I swill leave this for a few hours to allow for any objections.
Here is my new thread which may hopefully allow this to return to Varese v, Vivaldi.