If you think the current generation of college students, and millennials are going to open their wallets in the next 5 years for $3,000 cables and $20,000 speakers - you’re fooling yourself. The audiophile community is definitely growing, but that growth comes from those getting into vintage audio, used high-end components and entry-level systems below $5,000. The future of high-end audio is not going to take that quantum leap from an iPhone and Apple AirPods to a $30,000 stereo anytime soon. It can’t be a deluge of reviews about $10,000 loudspeakers. It would be a monumental opportunity (that may never come again) that we have to seize with a real plan. 30 million people, however, is a goldmine for the audio industry. Spotify has over 300 million users at this point and I’m not convinced that more than 10% of that total is going to make the jump to Spotify HiFi. What percentage of the music on Spotify today is even CD quality? Of that total – less than 20% are high-res versions of those albums. One of the best things about Roon which is another part of this conversation, is that I can see exactly how many albums I have on my list - and how many are high-res versions.Īs of today, I have 3,491 albums saved across both platforms. I’ve had a Tidal account for almost 5 years and Qobuz account for slightly under 2 years of time. Math is hard for some people but let’s take a look at the numbers. If Spotify are really serious about “better” audio quality then why didn’t they announce a high-res tier to put Tidal and Qobuz out of business? How many people watched the Billie Eilish video and ran to their local audio/video store and spent money? Or certainly not as quickly as some may like. I’m not sure that it’s going to happen like that. Why would it? Build it and they will come? Have Bluesound or Sonos seen a surge in sales since the announcement? But what’s not being highlighted enough in all of this exuberance over record sales and Spotify offering a lossless tier - is that streaming represents 83% of the market and that there is no empirical evidence (or actual sales data) that Spotify HiFi is going to move the needle at all for mainstream consumers when it comes to better quality audio.
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