RMAF 2008

This is very important (and encouraging!): There were more young people at this show than at any other hi-fi show I've attended. Whereas in past years, at other shows, I have felt like the youngest dude in the house, this year, at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I met many people who were actually younger than me.

This is something to be excited about. We all know that high end audio has struggled to attract a younger audience. For the past few years, I've put up with all the depressing talk of the imminent, inevitable death of the High End. Hobbyists are getting older and older, they said, and soon they'll all be dead.

Talk like that is such a pain in my 31 year old ass, and so damn absurd. The very people who should have been promoting hi-fi were the ones waiting to see it die. I nodded my head and smiled and said, "I don't think so. I think music is too important to too many people, and as long as there is music, there will be audiophiles. Good things are coming."

I don't know what to attribute it to (Vinyl? The iPod? Death of the compact disc? George Bush?), but it seems as though we are finally reaching that younger audience. There were more young people at this show than at any other hi-fi show I've attended. Many people agreed.

In one of the Marriott halls, I ran into SonicFlare's Tyler Beebout and his friend Jackson Paddon, two young audiophiles having a great time and hearing music as they had never heard it before. It was good to see them.