Age distribution of ASR

[Fregly]

The ages skew younger than I would have thought. Fair numbers under 30.

 

[Fluffy]

A self selected group of voters won’t be the membership as a whole, let alone the readership, so if the results don’t conform to your ‘theory’ will you say it’s wrong or that more studies are required (academic speak for wrong)?

Of course this is just a sample, and maybe an unrepresentive one. That's why I used the word "assess" instead of determine, or know. When (and if) the numbers here reach maybe a hundred or two more, I'll consider it a big enough sample size to make an educated guess.

I see that many on these forums are between forty and seventy. This does not surprise me. When I got into this hobby/obsession there were standard specs for amplifiers, tuners, tape decks, and turntables. That was 1978. I don't know how it all deteriorated to what we have now. So I was 15 in 1978. Basically, it's boomers who remember when the hobby was objective. Before The Absolute $h!t had its wicked way with audio.
So, that's who I believe the majority of ASR members are. I'm guessing the younger folk have just somehow, by chance or intelligence, "seen the light".

From my point of view as a 29 year-old, it's the older folks in the hobby that tend towards subjectivism. What you're saying is interesting, because it sounds like in the beginning, when the technology was relatively new, it was more engineering-oriented and quality was determined by basic empiric parameters – like all technology should be. And at some point someone, I'm guessing hi-fi companies trying to sell their stuff in a flooded market, decided to market their stuff with a more experience-oriented approach. Other brands caught on, and the whole thing deteriorated from there. And after decades of this, a new generation is fighting back in the name of rationality and logical thinking, backed by those from the previous generations who never initially succumb to the popular yet flawed way of thinking.

That's the story I tell myself, anyway.

The poll of course reflects only members and those who choose to respond. Here is the age brackets Google thinks are visiting the site from highest to lowest population:

View attachment 47381

The top two account for half. This is quite a bit younger than typical "hi-fi" forum. Likely driven by the DAC/headphone amp tests I do.

I think this is the first time you responded to a thread of mine. Your input is much appreciated, thank you.

If these numbers are correct, it definitely supports my theory. Though this is as I understand the statistics from all visitors and casual readers, not just those who comment (and answer polls…). So this poll is probably more inclined towards hardcore users of the site, and thus have higher ages (because those people probably are more engaged, have more free time, etc). The true mean age of our community is probably somewhere between those two statistics.

 

[Dialectic]

The worst experiences that I have had in this hobby have involved attending audio shows or going to audio dealers and being patronized or dismissed altogether on the basis of my relatively young age. This has happened basically my entire adult life whenever I've gone to audio shows or to mainstream "high-end" audio dealers.

The patronizing folks have all been "subjectivist" aficionados of really expensive shit that does not sound very good--older guys who like either the kind of gear that Art Dudley praises or the kind of gear that Michael Fremer praises.

It happened recently when I heard a demo of a very expensive (and not very good) system. I was introduced by a mutual acquaintance to a fellow attendee of this event--an audio enthusiast who could reasonably be described as an old fart. He asked me what I did for a living and which audio company I worked for. I told him I was a mere enthusiast, not an audio professional. Instead of introducing himself and shaking my hand, as a decent human would, he waved the palm of his hand in my face and walked away, embarrassing our mutual acquaintance.

That said, I met some delightful people at the event, including several older people.

The only consolation is demography: as the ranks of these patronizing subjectivist fellows thin (as it will, in light of that group's age distribution), the demand for unreasonably expensive junk will dissipate, and the subjectivist audiophile ecosystem, with its attendant bad behavior, will mostly go away.

 

[sergeauckland]

Where in Italy? I went to the American military high school in Naples.

American Community School of Milan, now called American School of Milan. Mostly children of US industrial managers and a few Consular staff. There were far more British kids than American, but the Brits sent theirs to UK boarding schools whilst Americans took theirs with them

S

 

[sergeauckland]

What country does this?

It was firstly my experience at the American School in Milan, continued at my UK Grammar School and University. I can't comment about other countries, or indeed other schools in the UK, but my educational experience was positive in this respect. Lucky too in my first employments, where woolly thinking was justly ridiculed. However, this was before Political Correctness!

S

 

[VMAT4]

I believe the subjectivist movement in our hobby started in the press. From there it spread to sales people in brick and mortar stores. After that manufacturers hopped on board. Simultaneously, Monster Cable came on to the scene. There was no other way than by the snake oil of subjectivism and slight of hand to sell that stuff. And, so, here we are.

 

[Dimitri]

I believe the subjectivity movement in our hobby started in the press. From there it spread to sales people in brick and mortar stores. After that manufacturers hopped on board. Simultaneously, Monster Cable came on to the scene. There was no other way than by the snake oil of subjectivism and slight of hand to sell that stuff. And, so, here we are.

The magazines needed to sell ads, the sales people needed to sell the manufacturers equipment. It was/is one of those lose/lose situations.

The 21st century equivalent is bluetooth and apps and the cloud. Once it starts one manufacturer/investor group/youtube channel "producer"/ average consumer that feels the need to be "up-to-date" is trying to surpass the other
So we end up with bluetooth headphones, speakers or toothbrushes that have an app that connects to the cloud. Whoooah.....progress!!!

 

[Wombat]

It was called clear thinking at my secondary school. RI just wasn't the same thereafter.

 

[mhardy6647]

Based on the data so far -- Y'all skew a little younger, I reckon, that the typical hifi site's denizens!
I, unfortunately, don't, though.

 

[SIY]

Jan and I add up to 138. Somehow, we're not buying expensive wire and SET amps. And use digital sources 99.9%.

 

[VMAT4]

Whoooah.....progress!!!

Not to be confused with improvement!

 

[JEntwistle]

The worst experiences that I have had in this hobby have involved attending audio shows or going to audio dealers and being patronized or dismissed altogether on the basis of my relatively young age. I'm in my mid-30s now, and this has happened basically my entire adult life whenever I've gone to audio shows or to mainstream "high-end" audio dealers.

The patronizing folks have all been "subjectivist" aficionados of really expensive shit that does not sound very good--older guys who like either the kind of gear that Art Dudley praises or the kind of gear that Michael Fremer praises.

It happened recently when I heard a demo of a very expensive (and not very good) system. I was introduced by a mutual acquaintance to a fellow attendee of this event--an audio enthusiast who could reasonably be described as an old fart. He asked me what I did for a living and which audio company I worked for. I told him I was an attorney and a mere enthusiast, not an audio professional. Instead of introducing himself and shaking my hand, as a decent human would, he waved the palm of his hand in my face and walked away, embarrassing our mutual acquaintance.

That said, I met some delightful people at the event, including several older people.

The only consolation is demography: as the ranks of these patronizing subjectivist fellows thin (as it will, in light of that group's age distribution), the demand for unreasonably expensive junk will dissipate, and the subjectivist audiophile ecosystem, with its attendant bad behavior, will mostly go away.

His loss, for sure. People who behave like this are either a) intentionally hiding something and sense that you may see through their BS, or b) really out of touch with where things are today. I think the democratization of good audio equipment at lower prices, along with the information available to consumers to determine the value of things, is a real threat to people like this. If they want to live in their own little bubble, then we should just ignore them.

 

[PierreV]

The worst experiences that I have had in this hobby have involved attending audio shows or going to audio dealers and being patronized or dismissed altogether on the basis of my relatively young age.

Enjoy it while you can! What comes later is generally even worse, and not only in this hobby

 

[Tks]

It was firstly my experience at the American School in Milan, continued at my UK Grammar School and University. I can't comment about other countries, or indeed other schools in the UK, but my educational experience was positive in this respect. Lucky too in my first employments, where woolly thinking was justly ridiculed. However, this was before Political Correctness!

S

60's late 70's or 80's I presume?

 

[RayDunzl]

Here is the age brackets Google thinks are visiting the site

If its knowledge about ages is anything similar to the advertisements it thinks it should serve me, forget it.

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Google may properly represent those visiting, but those who stayed (judged by becoming a member and responding to the poll) appear to be older.

Does it give "Time on Site" or "Repeat Visits" or anything more useful?

---

While thinking about this after posting, my subconscious offerred up this thought:

It seems to me the youngsters that come around are looking for someone to tell them what to buy.

 

[Duckeenie]

From my point of view as a 29 year-old, it's the older folks in the hobby that tend towards subjectivism. What's your saying is interesting, because it sounds like in the beginning, when the technology was relatively new, it was more engineering-oriented and quality was determined by basic empiric parameters – like all technology should be. And at some point someone, I'm guessing hi-fi companies trying to sell their stuff in a flooded market, decided to market their stuff with a more experience-oriented approach. Other brands caught on, and the whole thing deteriorated from there. And after decades of this, a new generation is fighting back in the name of rationality and logical thinking, backed by those from the previous generations who never initially succumb to the popular yet flawed way of thinking.

That's the story I tell myself, anyway.

If younger people are more able to think objectively and are the ones driving the "objective audiophile" movement, why are so few of them engaging with the forum (your poll).

 

[Cahudson42]

Perhaps the nice thing to come out of this survey is - the wide range of ages and experiences participating here on ASR - helping to make the great resource it is..

 

[Fluffy]

If younger people are more able to think objectively and are the ones driving the "objective audiophile" movement, why are so few of them engaging with the forum (your poll).

First of all, the theory could be wrong. It may be that objectivists are more common among educated folk with experience in engineering or academia – which would correlate with higher age. Or maybe it's the same age distribution as any other sub-community in this hobby. As me and others has said, this poll is far from conclusive.

There also could be hidden variables – maybe those who bother to answer polls are older to begin with. Or those that write in forums are older. The results here could be misleading.

I don't really have good explanations, honestly. But Amir's data from google shows that there is a very large young population that visits this site. That’s somewhat encouraging. On top of that, you can compare the ages in this poll to the ones in the other polls I linked to from other sites.

 

[Wes]

will there be a scatterplot of ages vs. avg. HF hearing loss in the population?

 

[mhardy6647]

My guess (and it is a guess -- a SWAG, if you will) is that the younger site visitors have no interest in a forum per se. Forums are so... 20th Century (as am I, so I am fine with forums fora).

I am just speculatin' here, though, of course.