Younger Women In HiFi

We were driving about the other day, BBC Radio 6 Music on in the background, when a track by CMAT came on. It was one of those songs of hers that has a load of confidence, joy, and a bit of a nod to its audience that’s likely to go out/online and buy it. I turned to Linette (Mrs HiFi PiG herself) and said, “This sounds like it was written for teenage girls at big festivals like Glastonbury.” I could almost see the sea of faces singing along to the chorus. 

That comment stayed with me for a few days.

Now, I haven’t been to Glastonbury since the late eighties, back when it felt like a very different kind of festival; rougher, older, hazier, and a smidge more cynical. These days, watching it on telly, the crowd looks noticeably younger. There’s colour, energy, and what looks like an ocean of teenage girls singing their hearts out. It feels like the festival has shifted from being a countercultural gathering to a rite of passage for a newer (more middle-class) generation.

My interest was piqued, and so I looked a bit at the demographics of Glastonbury. Reliable info is hard to come by, but what I could find paints an interesting picture. The average age of attendees is around the late thirties, though there’s a strong contingent of younger people, particularly women in their teens and twenties. The gender balance is almost even. So while my impression of teenage girls dominating the crowd might not be statistically accurate, they’re certainly visible (on the box, at least), and perhaps more importantly, culturally influential in the wider online and in real-life sense.

And that’s when something clicked. For years, in HiFi circles, we’ve been talking about how to attract younger people to the hobby – and rightly so. There’s been endless hand-wringing and head-scratching about how to reach “the next generation” of audiophiles (I’ve done talks at Munich about this), with the assumption that we’re talking about young men; the same demographic that has traditionally populated the hobby. But what if we’ve been looking in the wrong direction altogether? What if the real opportunity lies not just with “young people”, but specifically with young women?

This idea isn’t coming out of thin air, though I’m well aware that it’s a bit “out there”. For the last ten years or so, Linette has been organising Women In HiFi gatherings at Munich and other audio shows around the world. When she started, it was a handful of women meeting informally. Over time, it has grown into a meaningful network that draws more and more participants each year. What began as a small gesture toward inclusivity has become a sign that there’s a genuine appetite among women to connect, share experiences, and make their mark on the audio world. At Munich High End 2025 there was a Women In HiFi discussion panel, and you can read all about it here.

That growth mirrors something we’re seeing more widely in music culture. Teenage girls and young women are among the most engaged, enthusiastic, and vocal parts of the music-loving public – they’re certainly not afraid of getting to the front and singing their hearts out at festivals. They’re the ones buying tickets to gigs, making playlists, discovering new artists on streaming platforms, and setting cultural trends. They don’t just consume music; they live music (though I don’t know much of it) and seem to know all the words to all the songs of all the bands I’ve never heard of. So why aren’t we speaking to them directly about the “quality” of that experience? Why aren’t we showing them that the same passion they have for the music itself can extend to the way it sounds?

HiFi has, for yonks, presented itself in a way that feels a million miles from that world; technical, male, and even a bit unapproachable (whodathunk). The language of the hobby can sound like engineering speak rather than emotion, and that aspect does turn me off, too. But if we kind of looked at this a bit differently, what if we talked about HiFi as a way to feel music more deeply, to bring the energy of a live performance into your own room, then perhaps we’d find a whole new audience ready and willing to listen.

And this is where people like Linette come in. She’s living proof that leadership in this arena doesn’t have to fit the old stereotypes. She understands both sides of the coin: the traditional audiophile world with its valves, cables, and vinyl, and the modern culture of streaming, discovery and connection. That balance makes her (and women like her) perfectly placed to lead a shift in how we talk about HiFi. It’s not about excluding anyone; it’s about widening the net, opening the doors, and making it feel like everyone’s invited.

Of course, there are challenges. Loads of them!  HiFi gear is expensive, and younger people, especially teenagers, don’t have the disposable dosh to buy into it straight away. But that doesn’t mean they can’t start engaging with good sound early on. Affordable, well-designed systems do exist, and many of them already line up with the lifestyle of younger listeners. The trick is in the voice and stories we use to talk about these things. We need to present HiFi not as a technical pursuit, but as an extension of something they already love: music, and I hope that at HiFi PiG we manage to do this more than many others, given it was our main aim when we realised we had a bit of a thing on our hands all those years ago when we kicked off PiG. 

There’s also the question of tone of voice. The HiFi industry has sometimes been guilty of talking down to people, of hiding behind jargon, or assuming a certain level of knowledge. That won’t work here. What’s needed is openness, enthusiasm, and a bit of humility. We need to be able to say, “Come and have a listen to this, not because it’s the most technically perfect bit of kit you can have, but because it will make your favourite song sound alive.”

Imagine what could happen if we (when I say we, I mean women leaders in the industry like Lin) started engaging younger women where they already are: at festivals, at gigs, on social media, or at school events and simply invited them to listen. Not in a preachy, holier-than-thou way, but in a way that links up the emotion of music and the buzz of great sound. Imagine spaces at HiFi shows where music is the focus, not the gear; where women feel welcome to explore and ask questions without fear of being patronised. I don’t pretend to know the mechanics that should be used, but I do know that it’s something we should be doing. 

If that sounds a smidge ambitious, it’s worth remembering how Linette’s Women In HiFi gatherings began: small, informal, organic. The same principle could apply to younger audiences. Start small, make it real and relevant, and let it grow naturally and organically.

Maybe the future of HiFi isn’t about convincing teenage boys to stop streaming MP3 files on their phones. Maybe it’s about showing teenage girls (the same ones dancing and singing along at festivals, making playlists for their friends, and discovering artists like CMAT) that there’s another level to the music they already love. And maybe the people best equipped to make that connection are the women who’ve already built communities around HiFi, empathy, and enthusiasm – the real Women In HiFi.

So yep, perhaps it’s time to change our focus. Perhaps the next audiophile isn’t an ageing bloke adjusting his valves and elasticated trousers, but a young woman in a festival hoodie, streaming her favourite track through a system that brings her music to life in a way she’s never heard before. Maybe all we need to do is invite her to listen properly and make her feel like she belongs in this world, too.

Stuart Smith

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