I've been into music for 30 years (I'm 41), I started with my first "system" 20 years ago and my first relatively reputable standard system 15 years ago. Now my system is about £15k (average by many standards I am sure) but, my point is this... you can be into music from a young age, and you can be into hifi when you've got money, but who has money in their mid-20s? So 1) it's partly a money thing..
2) Who wants material assets in an age of subscriptions and Ikea minimalism? Current consumerism trends do not cater for big material assets, nor loud material assets, look at the state of "new builds" in the UK, those walls are thinner than a 1950's vintage sci-fi book. Who cares about loudness if you've got some good heads, you're not going to aggravate anyone, you've got your bass, and you don't have to talk to anyone.
3) Marketing. Beats as a brand has marketed themselves as hi-fi, especially on bass (bass is overbearing btw Dr. Dre - tried a mates never bought). The cool thing is not hifi, it's who has the best bluetooth buds playing spotify not TIDAL, because it's cheaper, or worse still something off TikTok or youtube: streaming is not better than a CD in the right transport, and a serious DAC - Bel Canto, I salute you). The vast majority of youts are convinced - as dependent individuals are - that if everyone else has it, they don't want, but need it as well. Better marketing, in the right channels, better propensity to gain the new breed, who's disposable income stretches enough to keep up with the critical mass.
4) Music genres When you're 20 now (and when I was a kid tbf) you're listening to Drum and Bass, Dubstep, Breakbeat, Thrash Metal (never understood this).... Lionel Ritchie, Micheal Bolton (joke), Classical, Prince (someday children some day you will learn), don't get a look in.
These first few genres will aggravate the neighbours, and due to high rent and an impossibility to buy, you're living at your parents, so head and earphones are the smart choice, and often the only choice if you want to block out their world.
And if you're lucky enough that you live in your parents manor with an annex room above the garage, then you get the biggest speakers for the cheapest price with the most bass and crank up the dial, often popping the cones due to inexperience, the open credit of Daddy's plastic wallet. 99% of audiophiles are male, daddy might have actually got some kit and introduced you... access route number..
So, my takes...
Marketing ear buds, and marketing hifi are no different, it's marketing, you just have to reach the right audience and find a way of reaching a critical mass, by way of.. Endorsement is the biggest one, young kids are so fickle it's embarrassing, but then weren't we all.
Because there are options, and the youth have been taken by the ear/head craze (which at the higher end is very very good), this is a much longer term gain, it may take several beleaguered tax years for some, and... it's not just a few companies involved, this is industry wide.
The hi-fi community, from OEMs to avids, dads and more, and even those who hit Richer Sounds at Christmas and purchased a £500 system, the fact is, we need to become hifi evangelists, not staying within the community and caressing 4 year strong beards while chatting about a new power conditioner, we need to take it out to the masses. As Emile Durkheim said, "The whole is greater than the sum of its constituent parts". Vive la Revolution...?
There is an African phrase, in Swahili, UBUNTU - Humanity for others, and what greater a human offering than an invitation in the digital and analogue wizardry of High-Fidelity Home Audio... 🤘
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