How rare is an audiophile

I guess I’m an outlier here. I already had audiophile friends in high school. In college, just about all the guys in the dorms were into good stereos, and several had what even today, and even after years of earning, would still be considered good equipment (Advent and ESS speakers, Stax headphones, etc.). For some years I’ve belonged to a very active Audio Club (about 30 regular members, meetings every other month or so; Richard Vandersteen is coming to visit us in September). Three of my good friends are serious audiophiles, with much more invested financially in their rigs than I have in mine, who are not even club members. Frankly, most of the people I’m fond of are audiophiles to some degree. Just about everyone other than my wife—who, however, is a pianist and musicologist. Go figure.

I personally know one aspiring audiophile who can afford anything and is ready for an system upgrade; have met a radio engineer who admired my system and wished for something equivalent; and today learned that my cousin's son is a music blogger. She sent him a photo of my system and he reportedly commented, yeah, I want to build something like so I can hear everything on the records (he's a vinyl-only guy, about 40). So while we're very much a rare breed, we're not yet quite yet extinct.

@mapman....Well, can't contribute...now even more than then....:(

Had that output of my personal 'signal injection system' disconnected some 35ish+ years back....spouse agreed and supported that move....

Rare event last night, local buddy who likes what I do and have done brought by a buddy of his from FL.....he'd talked to Pete about what I've got, what I do, and popped by for awhile..

Pete was a nice enough sort, listened to a pair of my omnis', and I'd appraise as being 'polite enough'....

Saw my handful of various raw woofs, and got excited about his collecting  Peavy woofers, and a pair of 18" he'd scored recently, commenting that his spouse had suggested...."Not enough amplification...."

He did notice I've got 5 pieces of Behringer gear...so I'd wager into 'pro PA audio' and/or 'decent automotive sound'; the latter based as we all laughed at the 'boomers' installs that sound like the bolts and hardware are loosening on their 'rides'...

The one woof that caught Pete's eye is a MTX 12" sub salvaged from an attempt to replace a 'normal' 12", the rest being basically trashed....can't say i didn't suspect why that happened....

35 lbs. of steel with a magnet the diameter of a softball, 2+" thick.

I keep everything away from it.

Can't find it in their 'vintage' lists. has no model notation on it....other than 

RFL! in big red letters, and the notation

"Designed to rip your face off!" (all caps,of course).

Am I a 'phile'? An audio degenerate of sorts?  A nasty narrow minded jade?

All the above? None of it?

I amuse myself well enough...hopefully that counts.... ;)

One of my favorite parts of having a decent system is having people curious listen to their favorite songs and realizing a different appreciation for music. And I've since gotten my parents and several friends on the train.

Everyone appreciates quality music, and sharing that is part of the hobby in my view.

several audiophile youtube channels have 300K subscribers. I assume they are audiophiles or interested to become one, why else would you listen to those presentations.

Based on the average user profile here (close to retirement/old, male) which is about 13 million people in the US and also affluent, which is about 10%, - that would make 1.3 million people to have the potential (time and money) to be an audiophile. But of course very few are interested, maybe 1 in 10. So around 130K people.... The other angle is the size of the audio business, which implies  a similar scale.