I found this article on the Headphonesty site thoughtful: https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/02...rands-winning/, and made me wonder if 'audiophiles' (as a collective noun for those music lovers who spend time researching and a not-insignificant amount of money in pursuing their love of well-reproduced music) are dying out.

The main thrust of their thesis is that equipment which five to ten years ago would have cost many thousands of pounds to buy, now thanks to the likes of manufacturers such as Schiit, SMSL, and others now achieve the same, or close to the same quality for a much lower price. To express it as a sound bite: "Close enough is good enough". Why pay thousands, or tens of thousands when you can achieve 90% or more of the performance for a tenth of the price? And to think that they are exaggerating, speaker systems costing up to £500,000 or more, and audio electronics costing £20,000 and more are now being advertised and reviewed.

A secondary consideration is the majority of current music lovers now eschew hard copies of the music source, preferring to stream instead; without realising the source quality is dependent on the whim of the server and can change with time.

Also, the modern trend is for small independent audio manufacturers to be bought out by larger conglomerates (for example: Quad, Leak, Mission are now under the umbrella of a Taiwanese company, the International Audio Group; Naim and Focal have merged and are owned by the Vervent Audio group; McIntosh is now owned by Bose (Oh - the irony!) and Madrigal in the US, owner several of former high quality marques is now part of the Harman Group, and is a subsidiary of Samsung electronics, to the great detriment of the reputation of the former individual brands. Having manufacturers now owned by an overall group will obviously affect dealers and the impartiality of their advice (witness the Linn/Naim 'axis' fiasco of the '70s in the UK).

For my part, I'm too old now to be constantly upgrading, and if I wasn't, I doubt if I would be willing to spend the prices asked. I don't even read the hi-fi magazines - all the reviews are IMO gushing and hardly impartial. The demonstration of current audio gear at the audio shows again is rarely impartial, and audition at dealers is sometimes difficult because these days dealers are often reluctant to spend time and effort demonstrating equipment, only to have an interested customer go out and buy on-line for a cheaper price. I'm lucky in that I have bought gear from good, conscientious dealers, and the manufacturers themselves have always offered excellent after-sales service. My gear long ceased to be 'state of the art', but it still sounds good to me, as it does to others (sometimes musicians themselves) who have visited my place.

What are your thoughts - are you one of a dying breed?