CTA’s Audio in Everyday Life: A Generational Ethnography was co-sponsored by CTA’s Audio Division to develop a broader, behavior-led understanding of audio in everyday life and how it shows up across routines, contexts, devices and life stages.

This qualitative research examines the choices and tradeoffs consumers make across performance, convenience and ecosystems, while identifying unmet needs, friction points, upgrade opportunities and meaningful generational differences.

The scope addresses the following:

• Identify how audio shows up across daily routines and devices used
• Investigate how consumers balance performance, convenience and ecosystems
• Uncover consumers’ unmet needs and friction points
• Detect when consumers become open to upgrading, switching or expanding setups
• Contextualize generational differences that shape use, adoption, trends and values
  
  

Published: August 2026

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