Why?
In this situation, there are companies competing for business in the studio market, where equipment needs to be functional (easy to move, install, plug stuff into, etc.), not alter the audio signal in a way which is undesirable and - generally - be worth the money in terms of real benefit.
The home market is entirely different. Across the price range, (most) customers care about looks, how it alters the sound of the music / films they care about to match their personal preference and - less often - be worth the money in terms of audio quality and practicality. There's also trendiness, which is much more of a factor in this market.
A 'classic' example (sorry to use that phrase, especially for such a recent phenomenon) is Beats Audio headphones. They are attractive for the home market because people like how they look (including that they're trendy), they make music sound 'good' (I haven't heard them, but I've been told they enhance the bass but otherwise are lacklustre), and are (based on the other factors) not worth the money in terms of audio quality or practicality.
Just because the equipment is made from the same basic components (in fact, much may be made from the same components) doesn't mean that there aren't two separate markets here. They can't be treated as one because the customers are entirely different. Or maybe they can and you should start a company selling to both!
I bought an Audio Technica ATH-M40x. These are monitor headphones for studio work. That's why they sound great but cost less than audiophile headphones.
So I must agree with you and our parent.
Why do you think it's the main concern? I don't think so.
I, personally, am a DJ and music producer, and I, personally, care about sound quality. I also think that after some time invested in listening to stuff on a variety of sound systems I can distinguish between good and bad sound.
But this is just me. I'm not a typical headphone buyer. My wife doesn't hear any real difference between iPhone default headphones and my AKGs, and even when she does, she doesn't really care.
However, aesthetics are important to people. Hell, they are important to me too! I love my pair of AKGs which sound pretty good and are amazingly cost-effecient, however, THEY ARE UGLY. And Beats are not. And if I wasn't that into sound quality, I would certainly buy Beats.
Don't people who buy HiFi speakers and amps want to recreate the "original" sound? Why then they don't just buy the same stuff that the audio engineer had when he did the track?
Also, about equipment being functional — I don't see how the requirement of easy installation and movement is more relevant for studio monitor speakers than HiFi speakers. Both are plugged in and put in their place once for a long time (unlike a mobile sound system) and are expected to be moved only when the whole room (studio or your living room) will move.
I used to read a lot of studio audio magazines and reviewers would often say "these speakers are great studio speakers, but I would never use them at home"
Part of the explanation, I suppose, is that an album is supposed to sound as good as possible on $5 speakers and $5000, so the studio sound might not be the "optimal" sound
If people say 'these are great studio speakers but I would never use them at home', perhaps they're using speakers designed to have a flat response.
On the other hand, as a home listener, if you choose a pair of speakers that transform the sound in some way which appears to sound better, how can you be confident that everything you'll ever listen to on them will actually suite this "betterness" that the speakers provide?
On the functional side, there's certainly not as many factors at play with speakers as with headphones, but there are a few: Smaller studio speakers sometimes are expected to be transported, and their surface finish being scuff-resistant is more important than the polished oak finish or whatever that the home listener market might want. Another case is that broadcasters are often very concerned with the support lifetime of the speakers, it's not unheard of for replacement drivers to still be available 20 years after purchase, for example.
The short answer, honestly, is that the two groups have little in common. The community of people in pro audio are usually very pragmatic people with comprehensive experience and context with audio (i.e. they are musicians themselves, or experts in movie soundtracks, etc) and more to the point have excellent and relatively unbiased "ears" and listening abilities.
Basically any audio engineer with actual real life professional experience and success (i.e. not a "hobbyist") can name half a dozen crappy cheap things that sound way better than the high end alternative in their arsenal. Things like a $80 microphone that is just amazing on harmonica, or a 1980's solid state compressor that is perfect for male vocals, etc etc.
And as a side note, professional engineers almost always have personal audio systems with pretty standard off the shelf equipment. I have never once in my life met a person who makes their living off of pro audio who has a "hi-fi" system of the type you see in stereo magazines. They almost invariably make equipment decisions with their ears.
By contrast, the high end "stereophile" community seems to be more of an analogue to the fashion industry. They are obsessive about concepts, like hand winding of copper, or ground isolation, or Class A or tube amplification, and so on. They care about checking off a list of things that an audio system is "supposed to have" and brand names and so on. Typically listening is a confirmation event for them, rather than a means for making decisions. I couldn't speak to the listening chops of the journalists that cover these things, but the entire sector is based on fashion and spending money and its media reflects those values.
The high end stereophile sector is about a lot of things, but faithful audio reproduction doesn't appear to be the highest priority on the list.
For anyone who actually wants to invest in a really high quality system to listen to audio on without getting sucked into this money bleeding insanity I recommend going to a high end pro audio store (such as B&H in New York or WPS in Washington DC, say) with a budget in mind ($1-3k should be more than sufficient) and getting someone to help you put a system together that will impress your friends.
If anyone reading this wants a vivid example, check out reviews of amps all built around OEM amp modules (eg ICEPower). The modules have connections for 120VAC, audio in, and speaker out - a complete amplifier without a case. But the peacocking the integrators go through with LEDs, connectors, case styles, is amazing. And the seriousness with which the reviewers go about their listening tests (all testing the same amplifier in different cases) is ridiculous. It coming up on Poe's law from the other direction.
In some sense, I'm happy to see that a cottage industry can survive. But not like this.
Studio equipment goes for accuracy. You want what comes out to be as close to what goes in as possible.
Home equipment goes for results that sound good. A decent segment of this market superficially thinks that this is achieved through accuracy, but very few truly believe it. Note how the tests are always about the subjective listening experience. Some have given up on the idea entirely, as can be seen in the "tubs are better!" segment, where distortion (i.e. inaccuracy) is considered desirable as long as it's done right.
You see this at work in all sorts of areas. For example, compare the trucks purchased as personal cars by people who say "I need to haul stuff!" and the trucks purchased as work cars by people who actually use them for a living. They ostensibly have the same needs but they usually buy pretty different things because they aren't actually trying to accomplish the same stuff.