That about sums it up. Or,
“Nice, so where are we going for dinner”?
This is going back 30+ years 
but in my 20s i spent a bit of time educating unbelievers by taking them into hifi shops. They were always surprised that they could tell the difference between different bits of kit - the assumption being that everything would sound the same or rather that their ears weren’t good enough.
I was a treble successful conversion case…
In the early 80’s I was on work experience and partnered with a lad and somehow we got into conversation about HiFi, at the time I did spend some Saturday mornings perusing the lofi rack systems in the local department store.
I asked the question what had he got expecting Akai / Pioneer or something like and he said it was British come and have a listen.
I duly turned up at his house and into his listening room to be met with LP12, SME tone arm can’t remember cartidge but suspect it was a moving coil, 32, hicap, 250 CB driving 2 radiators, sorry Quad ESL’s.
Think it was about 2am I finally got home.
No more Japanese stuff for me.
First system LP12, Basik K9, Myst tma-3, Mordaunt Short MS20 came along a couple of years later after I started work.
The upgrade to Ittok came next finally 62 90 CB.
It was when demoing the Ittok that my Mum and Dad came to listen to and went home with Rega Planar 3, RB300, Creek CAS 4040 and Linn Index. They eventually added 2 x Nackamichi tape deck and a CAS Radio.
He also introduced me to malt whisky.
Coincidentally his father was my accompaniest for my Grade 5 clarinet exams but I was unaware of the connection at the time till I walked through the door.
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Interest in music / hifi has wained considerably decade by decade
From everyone having a record player or at least a radio and listening to music…the mind numbing strangle hold of the TV has got stronger and stronger
Expensive curved screen TV…yes
Decent music system…no
I don’t bother showing any enthusiasm for my hi-fi… because I know no-one is interested…sad but true
I don’t think that aspect has changed much, just that it went from radio to walkman to iPod and now smartphone, the smartphone streaming online more likely as not.
Hifi never was a majority thing, even 50 years ago, though a means of playing records was, however lo-fi. The difference now that whilst people may still often be playing their choice of music (in place of, specifically, a record), they are much more likely to be doing it through earbuds as personal stereo than through a speaker.
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Why the lack of interest in quality reproduction of music?
Has this worsened over a generation?
Is it just an age thing with the youth being weaned on free/low cost music from their phones, instilling a belittling of the value of music?
Has/is music ‘consumed’ differently these days?
I just don’t get it!
Had one muppet call round a while ago he took great interest in the Fraim consisting of 6 shelves. I was gob smacked when he said (taking great interest in the black legs) Wow it’s got a lot of speakers hasn’t it 
Doh 
At that point you realise there’s no point … 
I find that people will show more interest in your system if you have a home theatre setup, and can play concert blue-rays, or music videos.
This usually, but not always keeps their eyes away from their phones for more than a minute. Listening to music only, is more of a personal thing, unless you are having a party, playing cards etc, then it becomes background music.
How people get their junk music may have changed but the consumption pattern hasn’t. Go back pre millennium and it was free pop music on the crappest radio-cassette/CD player they could find tuned into local compressed commercial radio.
My gut tells me that the global hifi market hasn’t shrunk at all so much as just fluctuated with economic conditions like all luxury goods.
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My wife is a great fan of Location, Location and similar house buying programmes, which I occasionally watch with her. Very noticeable is the almost total absence of anything remotely resembling the behemoth systems so beloved by many forum members!
My belief is, although many people enjoy ‘music’, very few are prepared to have the aesthetics of their living spaces ruined by stacks of industrial metal boxes and imposing, dominating speaker cabinets, all connected by python colonies of cables!
They’d much rather spend what disposable income they still have on 4k TVs, new cars, foreign hols etc.
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If you were flogging your house though and the BBC let you know that they were due to shoot a segment in your property, would you want to announce to the world that your house has north of thirty grand’s worth of audio gear stashed in the living room? I’d hide it, much the same as I might when we come to market our place.
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Yep, I have my own heating company and I only have one customer who has a lovely system. I have been in thousands of homes and he is the only one! Incredible really.
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I also find it odd, the amount of people that have massive TV’s with Ultra HD sky yet wouldn’t dream of spending over £1500 I’d say on a TV that would really excel at showing the quality yet spend hours upon hours watching of an evening. 
Not that it is necessarily easy to hide, especially if you have big soeakers in particular - and the programme goes out typically maybe a year later, by when you would have hoped to have sold and moved, whether or not to the BBC’s participants.
In my case my amps are in a cupboard anyway for aesthetic reasons. are hidden anyway, making less to catch the eye essentially just the speakers. But indeed, it is something rarely seen, likewise on Grand Designs though I do seem to recall once on GD seeing some big speakers.
Maybe this is the reason - 1000’s of houses, one decent system. People aren’t interested enough in quality, speaking of…
It’s a known fact that an enormous number of people don’t watch the HD version of the channel they’re watching. Reasons given vary from it being a faff to flick across for local news, that there isn’t enough or in some cases any [perceived] difference in quality, and that many people are unaware of an HD version. Add on those that don’t care and there you have it, it’s just like audio - very few care. Btw don’t forget that the price point for these ‘massive tvs’ you mention starts at about £300-£400 for supermarket badged sets.
We’re arguing the same point I think, but the great British public generally has no interest in making the extra effort or spending extra for an increase in quality. See DAB radio - at launch - CD quality radio. After 5 years on going nowhere it was relaunched with choice as the driving factor, and has stumbled its way to a modicum of success.
It’s really just that people like different things. I have a Forum buddy who loves cruises with his wife and daughter. He loves them but I can think of little worse. I have friends who love going diving in the Red Sea at vast expense. I have friends who fly to Australia, but I’m quite happy taking the caravan to France or even just a few miles away. So long as we enjoy listening to our music that’s surely enough, without the need to convert others. That’s not to say they don’t appreciate music, I’m sure they do, it’s just that they don’t feel the need to spend thousands in order to do so. Perhaps it’s they who are the lucky ones.
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Many a true word …
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Two ways in which it does matter, and rather a lot, are there being sufficient sales of kit for hifi manufacturers to stay in business producing decent gear and dealers demoing, and sufficient sales of high quality music for it to be produced and offered in high quality.
I often feel that having cloth ears and being unable to hear anything other than marginal differences when some people proclaim night and day differences cables between some things is a distinct benefit to me
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I’m going to kick the hornets nest here a little, but I think that the HiFi industry in general needs to realise that for the majority aesthetics and convenience are the major drivers - just look at Apple.
Why does good sound have to come from ‘hairshirt’ hifi that dominates the living space (most people don’t have the option of dedicated spaces) and is difficult to set up and run? I realise for most of us in the forum this tweakery is part of the fun, but it’s probably why hifi remains niche and many don’t get the exposure to great sound.
I think that the Uniti products are a great way forward. My wife never touched my previous separates as it was confusing and intimidating to her (though she wouldn’t admit that, but instead commented that she couldn’t notice the sound difference instead). With the Uniti however she’s not only really happy to have it on display (visitors have commented on how lovely it is) , but uses it too, just a click on the Apple TV remote and she can airplay her tv and films sound, she uses Google Home to voice control radio and Spotify. She freely acknowledges the better sound now, as she doesn’t have to hide her own lack of ‘tech’ skills.
More Uniti evolutions will do wonders- such a great looking piece of kit. With so much hifi design stuck in the 80s/90s no wonder it’s not exciting the general population. Look at the TVs from back then compared to today’s slim line wall mounted offerings, even at the budget end these larger TVs fit into most homes much better.
My final thought is that DSP should be available to entry systems especially, to help newbies get good sound as easily as possible in their own environment. Once there’s a wider user base exposed, a percentage of these will then catch the Upgrade bug.
Do I hear a buzzing sound…?
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