How old are most Headfi users?

[WILLJS]

I’m intrigued to know how old the average HeadFier is.

This may interest other people too

 

[2leftears]

Probably old enough to have disposable income, but not old enough to have wisened up!

 

[WILLJS]

I voted the first option so that rules out both

 

[zkmd]

Im not sure if people under 20 even know how an internet forum works lol

 

[WILLJS]

I get by

 

[ALRAINBOW]

68

 

[suoerdamao]

Im not sure if people under 20 even know how an internet forum works lol

really don't know

 

[Dawood]

I'm 18, I'll tell you right now that forums are dead to young people, it's mostly older folk that tend to use them nowadays. Not a single person I know around my age uses a forum like this one. Everyone else is on larger, more accessible sites like Reddit. Younger guys are into audio too, some of us are just chatting about it elsewhere.

 

[lairpost]

Everyone else is on larger, more accessible sites like Reddit.

I'm genuinely curious what you mean by this statement. Please explain what makes Reddit larger, more accessible

 

[MDKrinkles]

I'm 18, I'll tell you right now that forums are dead to young people, it's mostly older folk that tend to use them nowadays. Not a single person I know around my age uses a forum like this one. Everyone else is on larger, more accessible sites like Reddit. Younger guys are into audio too, some of us are just chatting about it elsewhere.

Yeah. Most of the younger folk I’ve seen are on Reddit. I just tend not to go on Reddit because making internet strangers irrationally upset is too entertaining. It is interesting tho, I was in highschool when I got into audio and even then it was very different from now. I couldn’t have imagined having the gear I have now. And sometimes I see high schoolers with hifiman aryas or other fairly high end gear (all things relative). But I sort of realized that if I was working a summer job with current wages and had no financial responsibility as like a 17 yr old I’d probably have some serious gear. I mean think of how insane the under 500$ category is now compared to 10 years ago.

Unfortunately I have adult responsibilities now and can’t spend ALL of my money on audio gear. But I certainly get by .

PS: Reddit has over 500 million active users, it’s not even remotely a question of how it’s larger or more accessible. If even 0.1% of Reddit is remotely interested in audio that’s probably a higher number than the active user count of head fi or hifi guides forums.

 

[Dawood]

I'm genuinely curious what you mean by this statement. Please explain what makes Reddit larger, more accessible

Reddit is more accessible than Xenforo/similar forums because you can access it on a mobile device very easily, create an account through various methods (phone, google account, apple account, email, etc), and not have to go through a verification process.

By larger, I had meant in terms of user quantity. Reddit is certainly larger because it is comprised of thousands of different mini-forums called subreddits, each with users that participate in them. I think that this idea of having forums for almost any topic in one place is very appealing to people, people with several interests can talk about those several interests on one site/app. It's also a public company that generates lots of revenue, so people may be drawn to it for economic reasons as well. Though I will say, I don't know how large this forum is. Maybe this place is bigger than reddit's audio subreddits, I've got no clue.

But all this talk about Reddit isn't meant to discredit classic forums like these. On dedicated forums, people usually have longer attention spans and the conversations had have more substance, which I like.

 

[MDKrinkles]

Reddit is more accessible than Xenforo/similar forums because you can access it on a mobile device very easily, create an account through various methods (phone, google account, apple account, email, etc), and not have to go through a verification process.

By larger, I had meant in terms of user quantity. Reddit is certainly larger because it is comprised of thousands of different mini-forums called subreddits, each with users that participate in them. I think that this idea of having forums for almost any topic in one place is very appealing to people, people with several interests can talk about those several interests on one site/app. It's also a public company that generates lots of revenue, so people may be drawn to it for economic reasons as well. Though I will say, I don't know how large this forum is. Maybe this place is bigger than reddit's audio subreddits, I've got no clue.

But all this talk about Reddit isn't meant to discredit classic forums like these. On dedicated forums, people usually have longer attention spans and the conversations had have more substance, which I like.

Agreed. I actually mainly focus on head fi now as I appreciate the more dedicated aspect of it. There’s also a lot less brain rot.

 

[lairpost]

Reddit is more accessible than Xenforo/similar forums because you can access it on a mobile device very easily, create an account through various methods (phone, google account, apple account, email, etc), and not have to go through a verification process.

By larger, I had meant in terms of user quantity. Reddit is certainly larger because it is comprised of thousands of different mini-forums called subreddits, each with users that participate in them. I think that this idea of having forums for almost any topic in one place is very appealing to people, people with several interests can talk about those several interests on one site/app. It's also a public company that generates lots of revenue, so people may be drawn to it for economic reasons as well. Though I will say, I don't know how large this forum is. Maybe this place is bigger than reddit's audio subreddits, I've got no clue.

But all this talk about Reddit isn't meant to discredit classic forums like these. On dedicated forums, people usually have longer attention spans and the conversations had have more substance, which I like.

Thanks. I find the format of Reddit difficult at best. Even logged in I see threads that just seemingly die and can no longer be continued or updated or commented. Perhaps this is effect of shorter attention spans i.e. TikTok and Instagram, Shorts, etc.

 

[WILLJS]

I'm genuinely curious what you mean by this statement. Please explain what makes Reddit larger, more accessible

because there are more people on reddit?

I'm 18, I'll tell you right now that forums are dead to young people, it's mostly older folk that tend to use them nowadays. Not a single person I know around my age uses a forum like this one.

I’m 16, and probably the most active user under 18 in my experience. most of us are middle aged guys as is evident from the poll.

 

[MDKrinkles]

Personally I didn’t start being too active on this site until I got my new job and could better afford to participate. When I was in highschool jobs around me didn’t offer great hours and pay was sub 10$ an hour, and the hobby was a lot more expensive at the time. I certainly couldn’t have picked up audezes of any kind for sub 500$ back then. Chi fi hadn’t taken off in the way it has now so a lot of the gear that’s super accessible and affordable now was relegated to higher end gear at time. I think somewhere on here there’s probably a semi embarrassing review of the AKG K7xx I wrote when I was 16 I think?

Also in general I find the sub reddits to be unusable due to a lack of decent filters. Sometimes the subs feel like if head fi was only the summit fi thread. I haven’t been on r/audiophile or r/headphones in a while but I checked and they both have several times as many members as head fi. In my experience the subs were either just memes or people posting very high end systems. Nether of which lent to very productive discussion imo.

Since I got my new job reading through head fi reviews and threads have been super helpful in finding the gear that suits my preferences. I haven’t spent too much time on SBAF or ASR but from my brief reading those both aired on the side of frequency response over everything and that’s not generally my vibe. I just want my music to sound good and make me happy I’m not overly concerned with whatever is objectively the most accurate or whatever.