Tonearm Project Consumer Study

@nickgoatley I just completed your survey. 

First, I applaud your enthusiasm and intent! 

Some feedback for you, from the perspective of a marketing pro w/MBA and 20+ years in reasearch-based product development... Your survey is likely to provide you with data that won't help direct your design. 

You've got very broad open-ended questions with free form text responses. These are difficult to decipher and compile into meaningful action items. 

The range of focus is so broad from first-turntable to SOTA, answers can't lead to any specific direction. I'd suggest first narrowing your mission to a more specific use case(e.g. first tonearm buyer with turntable costing under $XX) and restructure the survey with assistance from someone experienced in marketing research in general and survey design (maybe a professor at your university?).  Questions about features will yield more meaningful results if structured as selections from a list, rankings of a list of features, or scaled responses(e.g. not important at all...very important). 

Try imagining the tabulated dataset and how you'll take action with that result. If you're unsure, then the question isn't finalized. Best of luck...this is hard! Cheers,

Spencer 

One of the questions, how much would you spend on the arm, cartridge, or base?

There was a time when everyone but everyone knew it was a record player. Some people called them changers. Or if it played one at a time then it was a fully auto record player. The best of these, semi-auto, would only raise the arm at the end.

Best of all of course were the manual turntables. The manual turntable does nothing but turn the platter. Over time the word manual was dropped so that today we call them turntables. 

At no point in this 100 year history did anyone anywhere ever call the turntable "base". Except I guess today, where it seems the more education you get, the less you know. I answered the questions and know you will get a good grade.

Because: grade inflation.

But hey, don't feel bad. I once saw WSU Nutrition Grad Students showcase their talents with an authentic "Greek Cuisine" menu at our major hospital cafeteria.

Uh, your giro, no lamb? "People don't like lamb." 

Not a one of them even knew the first thing about "cuisine" Greek or otherwise.

Because: the more they teach, the less you know.

Korf Audio just made exactly the hypothetical new high-end tonearm I might want to buy. You can read about it on their blog. Their price is incredibly reasonable. I’m not affilated with them in any way, and haven’t even placed an order yet.

Resonance control, the best quality & type of bearings for each application (vertical being different than horizontal), and removable headshells were the areas of focus that are most important to me. Magnetic anti-skate is a nice plus. I like pivoted arms, and I don’t care about having 12" (or longer) arm wands. Fine conrtrol (repeatable settings) over VTA and azimuth are a big plus. The option for dynamic balance (or a user-chosen mix of dynamic and static balance) is great, but that brings its own issues. Looks have at least some impact on me (the Korf is OK but I prefer the look of my 40-year old Fidelity Research FR64S). Internal wiring quality is another aspect that is of major interest for high-end tonearm consumers.

My application is typically heavy, low compliance MC cartidges.

* I answered your survey

good on ya Nick. Ignore the anti education cynic. There is room in the world for a lamb free gyro and a sonically transparent end of record tonearm lift.

i spent a lovely 30 years in product development and manufacturing of aerospace products, now on board of a Quantum computing software company, doing some similar research on customer desired feature set.  Spencer has it right. Get started and move down the road. I would encourage you to consider 3D printability in your weighted design trade space. IF you want help, free help as advisor or just review, please let me know. 

Best to you and the team.

What school ?

jim

🤣🤣🤣Lovely!🤣🤣🤣

If "education" is so great, how'd you miss that this whole thing is "imaginary"?

The importance of this survey is mainly for the (imaginary) stakeholder

😂🤣🤣🤣🤣

Nick, why don't you work on something you might make a pile of money on? A good example would be molten sodium reactors.

I wish you the best in your endeavor.  I'm looking for something like the SAT CF1-12 for an introudctory modest price of ~ $2.5k.  Filled out the survey.