Let's have some fun this week on miscellaneous topics.
Occasionally, I'll highlight items I've either written or found on audio discussion forums I think would be good to share. One reason I decided to start doing a blog beyond just contributing to forum discussions was precisely because while the public forums are great for interactions with community members, meaningful posts often become obscured behind pages and pages of chit chat, irrelevant responses, and sometimes unpleasant arguments.
[I've unfortunately witnessed situations where very meaningful threads are closed off prematurely based on the bias of moderators. Even worse, threads with useful discussions might be erased entirely from existence which I feel is an slap in the face of well-meaning participants who put their time and efforts into thoughtful reflections. This is nothing new in the audiophile world; for example last year Stereophile scrubbed their website of all public comments accumulated over decades!
While I acknowledge the right of a website's owner to do such things, that doesn't make it any more palatable. I certainly understand the need for moderation in removing nonsensical, trollish, unethical, or crude statements that add nothing to promote thoughtful discussions.]
Speaking of forums and websites, I thought here in early 2026 it would be fun to explore website traffic numbers of some of the most common audiophile/audio sites using a common metric. One can get monthly visit numbers from Similarweb for free, a well-known website traffic tracker.
I was inspired to have a look at the data because of this YouTube video where Lee Scoggins (known for his work with TAS among other sites) claiming that he was told the Positive Feedback online magazine gets "750k unique people" every month (discussed further here). To me, that seemed just unbelievable - seriously, are there even 750k audiophiles in this world!?
[Nobody knows exactly how many "audiophiles" there are in this world of course. Obviously many of us love music and if we include headphone listeners who buy more expensive gear (like say the Apple AirPods Max), there could be a large number.
However, folks have made estimates like this over the years considering audiophiles with speaker systems and rooms. This is like using the Drake Equation to probabilistically estimate the chance of advanced alien civilizations, I guess. 🤔
Based on that estimation of 0.0000625 chance of someone being a serious audiophile with the space, room, interest in the hardware, and temperament, applied generously to 1.6B people in the developed world (say ~20% of 8B people in this world), I suspect the maximum number of hardware audiophiles who would care about expensive speakers, amps, etc. is maybe only 100,000. That's I think a more reasonable maximum number for the kinds of guys who might visit a "high end" site like Positive Feedback rather than 750k!]
So while looking at the Similarweb numbers for PF, let's widen the net and summarize the end-of-year Dec 2025 monthly traffic, an important month for folks looking at buying stuff for the holidays, among the popular sites that I'm aware of.
What Hi-Fi: 6.0M
AVS Forum: 2.1M
Gearspace (ex-Gearslutz): 2.1M
Head-fi: 1.85M
Steve Hoffman Forum: 1.76M
Audio Science Review: 1.74M
Audiokharma: 1.03M
Sound-on-Sound: 1.03M
Audiogon: 848k
Stereophile: 511k
Vinyl Engine: 498k
Audioholics: 431k
Darko Audio: 386k
The Absolute Sound: 311k
Sound & Vision: 243k
Pink Fish Media: 205k
6Moons: 174k
Part-time (pt) Audio: 174k
Lyrion.org: 169k
TNT-Audio: 163k
Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity: 155k
Audiophile Style: 152k
What's Best Forum: 147k
Hi-Fi+: 145k
SuperBestAudioFriends: 131k
Positive Feedback: 129k
Audio Asylum: 125k
Mono & Stereo: 103k
Soundstage Network: 102k
Enjoy The Music: 101k
Analog Planet: 101k
Archimago's Musings: 100k (not bad for this humble blog!) 😉
Tracking Angle: 96k
Twittering Machines: 20k
Overall, I don't think there are any major surprises in those numbers. Realize that these are just estimates of total visits and speak nothing of the time spent in each visit, or unique visitors. In general, we would expect larger numbers to visit forums since there should be repeat-visitors following discussions and offering replies.
Notice the huge traffic for What Hi-Fi? (6M). This makes sense since this is more of a general audio site that reviews and compares products across the spectrum including soundbars, headphones, even TVs, and advice articles like "Best headphones of 2025" which I'm sure many spouses and friends might refer to when buying such products for music-lovers in their life. What Hi-Fi? also has a mobile app that increases traffic and they run a fair amount of affiliate links to places like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy to harvest purchases. I suspect the business model is working well for them given the broad net they're casting and income they can harvest.
I often will visit Steve Hoffman Forum (1.76M) as I think there's a good balanced group of folks there actually interested in music and hardware. The site is generally free from advertising or obvious commercial agenda. Glad to see that this site has healthy numbers.
Notice the number for Audio Science Review (1.74M). I know that many purely subjective audiophiles try to ignore this site, but let's face the facts! If you've been an audiophile for a little while or if you've searched for product reviews, you know about ASR. More importantly, you know that there's good information on this forum about the technology and it's a good place to see if objective-leaning audiophiles consider certain products snake oil. In modern audiophilia, objective testing has carved out a substantial amount of traffic which is not going to go away. I believe that this is reflecting an important shift in consumer sentiment and appetite - a cultural shift among hobbyists.
Stereophile, TAS, and HiFi+ as traditional print audiophile magazines one might still find at the local bookstores have combined web traffic of only 55% of ASR as of late 2025.
Near the bottom, I was somewhat surprised by the lowish Analog Planet and Tracking Angle numbers serving the vinyl audiophile subsegment. It looks like they publish many articles every month from product announcements to reviews and clearly both are highly commercially driven sites. While there are many vocal LP/vinyl audiophiles out there, I think these numbers tell a story of actually quite a small niche.
I'm sure these numbers will fluctuate depending on the month and content on the sites, rankings therefore change substantially.
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I saw this interesting poll started on January 2, 2026 over at the Steve Hoffman Hardware Forum. As you can see, it's a question for forum members to vote on interconnect price when considering how much they would spend connecting a US$3,500 source (presumably a streamer, or [SA]CD player, or turntable) to $8,000 amplifier. At a total cost of $11,500 for source+amp, this is clearly not an inexpensive combination and for anyone interested in high-fidelity audio reproduction, one should be able to find many excellent options at this price point!
When hanging around audiophiles, or while flipping through magazines, it would not be hard to come across the casual recommendation to spend "10%" of total system cost on the cables we need. For example, this idea is reflected in this article reviewing cables from BetterCables.com and also in more general articles like this one in What Hi-Fi? suggesting:
"Dedicating 10 per cent of your total system cost to speaker cables (and the interconnect audio cables between your electronics) is a good place to start."
Is that kind of money truly a good place to "start"? Has anyone suggested a good number to end?! 🤣
So in the poll above, if we are to aim at a 10% price point with the $3,500 source, $8,000 amplifier, and say $10,000 speakers commensurate with the price of the other components (speakers of course we know are more important to sound quality, right?), we could be looking at buying interconnects and speaker cables somewhere in the range of US$2,000 total, maybe $500-750 for the interconnect itself if we bias more towards the cost of speaker cables (assuming we stick with stock power cables).
Well, as you can see in the results above, about 55% of the Steve Hoffman poll respondents would spend <$200 and 75% would spend <$500 on the interconnects. If you read through the thread, some offered that they would spend <$100 if that was an option. I do not believe these days most audiophiles care about the "10%" recommendation.
As you can see in the screenshot above, I voted for "$200 or less" also. For those of you who have read my writings on this topic, this is completely consistent (cable posts and measurements listed here). As usual, I would recommend thinking technically about wires, spend money on things that make a difference (rarely cables make a difference), and go buy some music.
Despite all the hype, it's good to know that most audiophiles are probably reasonable and do not feel a need to overspend on typically short bits of wire in 2026.
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Finally, the last topic I want to touch on involves looking back at an article I wrote in 2014: MUSINGS: Stereophile's "Recommended Components" & the shift to objectivism.
As I re-read that article a couple of weeks ago, I reflected back on the days when my kids were still in elementary school and I was writing blog posts while taking them to taekwondo, figure skating, or soccer practice. Sweet memories of simpler years. My, how time flies!
In that article, I listed 4 items I thought would be important drivers of audiophile cultural change towards a more objective direction. Let's see how the audiophile landscape has shifted since then.
1. Technology has advanced and engineering has easily reached a level where affordable equipment can surpass human auditory acuity.
Back in 2014, we were still relatively early with the adoption of asynchronous USB DACs entering the marketplace but even then we could see that boogeymen like jitter wasn't really an issue and the noise level from reasonably good consumer DACs was fine. Devices like the AUNE X1 (Mark I) DAC named in the article heralded the beginning of the "ChiFi" revolution in DACs as brands like Topping and SMSL were waiting in the wings to release products to North American audiophiles. As we have seen, in time, not only did we get high-resolution DACs, but also headphone and speaker amplifiers of fantastic fidelity in inexpensive packages.
While streaming endpoints from Linn and the Squeezebox family were available and Sony had just released their HAP-Z1ES in September 2013, fancy audiophile servers with integrated storage were not readily available yet (I think the Aurender S10 was the first around 2012). Single-Board Computers (SBC) like the Raspberry Pi and boards like the ODROID became more popular in audio after 2015 with the Raspberry Pi 2 launching that year then the Pi 3 by 2016. ASR I believe opened in early 2016.
In the last decade, we've seen even lower jitter, even lower distortion, etc. across electrical audio components. These days, the proliferation of inexpensive Class D amplifiers, even at the price point of the TI TPA3255 chip amps like the Fosi Audio V3 Mono (US$300 for a stereo set) or 3e Audio A7mono would quite likely be indistinguishable in a volume-controlled blind test compared to an extravagant luxury solid-state hi-fi amp like say the CH Precision M1.1 (>$55k) paired with reasonably efficient 4Ω speakers in a typical small sound room.
[Of course, that's not to say that amplifiers all sound the same - they don't! However, within the power ratings of hi-fi amps that aim for transparency, they do...]
While the properties of our electronics can be quantified now to a high degree and compared, as audiophiles, it would do us good to understand these performance characteristics not just to find least expensive options, but also to be aware that some very expensive devices do not perform as well as much less expensive ones!
As technologies continue to mature, we go further down the path of recognition that it is our rooms and loudspeakers that remain the most important "components" we could still improve. The rest will simply hit the point of diminishing returns at ever lower prices.
2. I believe the Music Industry will start "objectivisation" of music further.
This is a reference to the fact that in 2014 we were starting to see the "push" among music labels to entice audiophiles into buying into high-resolution audio files/data. By telling audiophiles about the supposed benefits of 24-bits, 192kHz sample rate, having them consider the technical benefits of lossless vs. lossy, audiophiles were becoming more exposed to numbers and technical concepts - beyond just naming formats like CD, SACD, DVD-A, cassette, vinyl.
I'm not sure this kind of technical talk affected the general music consumer, but I think as audiophiles, even my most vinyl-obsessed audio friends will know what a "24/192" digital release is referring to. I suspect most audiophiles also know the difference between lossy and lossless now and I bet most also know what a FLAC file is compared to AAC or MP3 of various bitrates. Hey, if codec names and sample rate numbers like 192kHz mean something, why not go a bit further and also develop a comfort in numerical measurements? I suspect many/most of us understand THD+N/SINAD, appreciate the DR value of recordings, know the difference between DSD64 and DSD128, and even have an idea of what RT60 in a room refers to (even Darko). 😉
The use of numbers to entice music lovers to buy albums probably peaked already in the early 2020's and we're back to the idea that it really doesn't matter what the "container" looks like, so long as the music production was done well and standard 16/44.1 CD-resolution is already excellent (understandable given the limitations of human listening).
I critiqued the need for "Hi-Res Audio" in 2014 and am not surprised at all about how things have played out simply because the vast majority of recordings are not truly hi-res to begin with. To this day, when we examine new 24/96 or 24/192 recordings, we are still often just looking at content that deserve to be downsampled. I do not expect this to change. (Look, even Darko agrees. 😁)
Having said this, I still hope that the music industry will keep one number in mind - the average dynamic range whether measured as a DR value or LUFS. This is why I still more-often-than-not enjoy multichannel downmixes over typically overcompressed stereo.
3. In the big picture, generational dynamics will IMO strike a blow against subjectivism.
Well, in 2026, the youngest of the Baby Boomer generation (born 1946-1964) would be over 60 and that generation is averaging around 70 years old. Obviously most are well into retirement and in the phase of "downsizing". Most of this generation I suspect would have already bought their "forever" aspirational speakers, amps, DACs, and probably even cables! While magazines like Stereophile and TAS still have some "old guard" writers, I think there's a recognition that Golden Ears only last so long for reviewers and the younger generation must take over the helm to influence - and better yet, inspire the next generation of audiophiles.
Where exactly will the Gen X and Millennial audiophiles take the hobby? Will audiophile print magazines survive the next 5 years? Will audiophiles stop reading and YouTube-style video reviews be the default? As the Baby Boomer generation continues to dwindle, where will the (ultra) high-end companies find new buyers for their goods - do the younger generations care? Will the market be relatively flooded with used expensive hi-fi in the next 10 years as the Boomers increasingly let go of their things? Will there even be a need for "high-fidelity" audio as performance continues to get better such that even basic commoditized products in many categories reach performance levels surpassing human perceptual limits?
I suspect the younger generations already are a bit more skeptical about the opinions of subjective-only reviewers and salespeople. When sales folks in the industry navel-gaze over whether "Dishonest HiFi Reviewers - Here is what you should know about them!" or question if the Hi-Fi industry is broken, or whether we're being "lied to" by audiophile magazines, and more, well, I don't think any of this builds confidence among the subjective-only hobbyists. Of course, the objective-leaning audiophiles could have told you not to trust magazines, Golden Ear reviewers, or even many big-name "iconic" audiophile heroes (like Bob Stuart, eh?) years ago.
4. With generational changes as big as what we are likely to witness with the Boomers, there will come societal changes in terms of wealth and values (among a myriad of other issues like health care entitlement, debt obligations, environmental concerns, even the fabric of societal morality).
In 2014 I could not have foreseen the COVID pandemic starting in China by the end of the decade. Inflation surging as the nations of this world poured money to keep things afloat in the early 2020's. In its wake, societal crises like housing affordability made worse. We're living in a time of even more extreme wealth disparity. Societal distress has awakened nationalistic pride, the rise of political forces that have deepened the split between the Right and Left not just here in North America. I don't think I could have imagined the current blundering attempts at American isolationism against traditionally friendly global trading partners. Then there's overt moral decay. And in the last 3 years, the massive bet towards the continued growth of AI linked to sucking up huge investment dollars globally has been unprecedented.
[Speaking of AI, a fascinating development these days is the rise of AI agents and intermachine "social" communications. Check out Moltbook (a play on Facebook but for AI agents only, typically through OpenClaw) for a fascinating look into machines talking to themselves in a Reddit-like system. Some threads like this fascinatingly philosophical, while others rather menacing speaking of inevitability.]
Environmental concerns have clearly been de-emphasized recently due to the rise of pressing political and financial worries. Anecdotally, I noticed that while much of North America is in the midst of a severe cold snap, this is the first time in my 25 years living in Vancouver there hasn't even been a dusting of snow in December or January!
Despite the absence of distress in the stock markets currently, on the streets, the workers are worried, job losses have started since last year including among white-collar positions, house prices look to be past-peak in most markets.
Generational changes indeed with one of the oldest Baby Boomers as President of the USA! And hopefully the last Boomer in that position of power. The truly wise person is self-aware of the point when their advanced age courts cognitive/intellectual decline; knowing to restrain ambition for the greater good. [Tangentially related cautionary tale in audiophilia.]
What does this have to do with audiophilia? Well, the health of high-end audio is intricately linked and will likely follow the luxury market selling "status" products which is inevitably going to change. However, the high-end is in a much more precarious place since audio hardware simply is not "valued" in the non-utilitarian sense with the same effect as flashing a nice wristwatch or rare handbag in public.
Regardless of what comes, thankfully, we'll always have item 1 - the technology has gotten better and easily attainable. Rational audiophiles will be fine because we've always known that excellent high-fidelity audio reproduction never needed "high-end" products to enjoy the music we love! 😌
I hope you're enjoying the music dear audiophiles. Considering the unfortunate rollercoaster ride that has been January, it would sure be nice to witness a calmer, restrained, more controlled, February 2026.
Parting music. Prince - "Sign O' The Times" (1987):
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