CWlondon, do you have any ideas how audio should be marketed?
(Yes, I do. Which I why I continue to contribute to this thread. And I could be available for consulting, if anyone would like some help. I am very expensive but I continue to give away some of my best ideas here for free.)
I'm commonly asked by non-audiophiles "Do you REALLY hear the differences?" or "How can you be so sure of what you're hearing?"
(Great audio is not for everyone. But it should be for a lot more people than the audio wackos reach.)
Just off the top of my head, how do you legitimize:
1) A $5,000 CDP that can't read a CD but a $70 Sanyo boombox can. Deal went nuts trying to find a reason to blame me.
- A $1,500 CDP that failed during demo - on 2 separate occasions.
(You can't, you shouldn't and you don't need to. Sell something else.)
2) One guy uses "garden hose" size speaker wire then you've got Mapleshade wire that's 1/16" dia. How can both be the best when they are such polar opposites?
(Some sports cars use V-8s, others turbo charge much smaller engines. They can all be great.)
3) Companies who put together garbage with no engineering background with serious design flaws that Stereo mags rave about. There are too many companies who ride the high price wave with just fancy packaging because most people don't know the difference. If you want audio jewelry fine but if you're buying for sound, how do you really know?
(This is another example still stuck in the old model. The audio mags trash Bose, but they still sell like hotcakes. Again, its about MARKETING)
I remember one salesman saying on line that if he had product he wanted to move, he would set it up real good in his store. He had othere stuff that sounded better but not when he set up the "bad" stuff well. How can you trust a industry like this?
(He sounds like a creep, and you are correct, you cannot necessarily trust an industry like this. If the industry became more sophisticated and trustworthy, these used car sales style prejudices would fade over time.)
Another example, I had a defective preamp. Fortunately I could compare to a good one soon thereafter. I don't think I could've heard the sonic degradation unless I had a good one to compare to, the differences were so small. Otherwise I'd still be happily listening to my defective preamp and never know it. I'm not saying only specs matter but at least it's a good place to start. You've got to have some kind of solid foundation to build upon. Subjective opinion is fine for one individual with one stereo but not for mass market, IMHO.
(Think more about the performance of sports cars, the differences in high priced kitchen appliances and the subtlety of wine, yet there are still powerful brands in all of these businesses.)
4) A 40 year old McIntosh 275 amp being close to state of the art even today. All the while stereo mags are finding big improvements in power amps every month. How can this be?
(It cannot be. I agree that not much is new - check out my "latest" system -- most of it is 20 years old. Your point about the mags is yet another example of how the industry sells BS instead of quality, while shooting themselves in the foot. This is why they are not succesful.)
5) I had a dealer tell me how the speakers he stopped selling last year sounded like crap (very highly regarded, well engineered, strong audiophile following) but his new line is great. Do you think he told people they were crap when he was selling the line a year ago? Should I believe that he won't be calling the new line crap when it doesn't sell and he dumps it for something else next year?
(You shouldnt believe anything he says. He is another example of why this industry is hopelessly stuck as a cottage industry, lousy business, run and promoted by wackos.)
I know people who would love to have a nice stereo but the risks are way too high. And you will lose thousands if you guess wrong. Unless you can solidly define what is out there and the differences between stuff, very few people are going to buy into it.
(I agree that the differences should be clear. But the differences are not what we debate in our geeked out forum. These products could be differentiated by a long list of things, many of which have nothing to do with how it sounds.)
Best of luck
Cwlondon
