..Turning the hi-fi/mid-fi industry around. - Page 5

Neither company seems to have a problem producing or sourcing amps for their subs. The needed electronics wouldn't be a huge stretch. B&W, a speaker company, came up with the needed parts for the Zepplin.

I agree it takes some work to get to the top of the hill. But as far back as I can remember, I recall advertisng for Bose products in mainstream media. You didn't have to buy a copy of S'phile to see an ad for their products. Makes them fairly unique in the mid/hi/fi world...

John

I know what stereo's you are talking about, they were made by Yorx, soundesign, and Techwood. Some don't sound bad at all when run with decent speakers, but a majority of them sucked.

They were underpowered, and used RCA connectors as speaker terminals and the speakers would have "6" woofers disguised as "12"'s and "2" cone tweeters behind a fake dome tweeter and the midrange was really a port with a dust cap glued to the thingie that was supposed to eliminate chuffing.

The only real good one of those I have ever seen was made by Technics, and my mom's Philco system she used to play loud rap music on..

I had one of those, I guess I've tried to put it out of my memory.

It is, but not for the reasons often espoused by Robin Hood internet sites.


So true. Many purchase Bose garb solely due to advertising, which is so ingrained that it's virtually impossible to counter on the sales floor. A program of regimented advertising by good brands can help counter this. It only needs to be a few good ones to make a difference. Imagine if Mac, for example, had the campaign Bose did. The audio world would thrive.


B&W tries this, but it doesn't have enough reach. Their downloads are high-rez, but it's largely from people few have heard of. Problem here is, many artists you've mentioned (and others) have too great of an opinion of their own opinions, so you know their fees may be astronomical for a small return.


What hurts the hobby is the venue in which these items are sold, not the items themselves. I can assure you no one in specialty environments laments the presence of these products. Doors are kept open because of them in many cases. BB tries to present these items because it used to be that no one other than specialty stores did. Customers viewed this as useful information; a key reason why they went to specialty environments. This has (like most everything else) been bastardized by kids working at big box stores, run by a mixture of rejects from specialty stores and managers that used to work for Toys r' Us. One can imagine the results. In fact, we can witness the results now, as many scoff at professional video calibration, given the ham-fisted handling of this service at BB. Tey get credit for making the service more widely known, but fumbled the ball at the 1 yard line by their approach and description of services. Typical.


This is the toughest probably of all your ideas to implement. Not because it's a bad idea, but think of how busy most families are. Portability is essential for many to hear any music at all. This requires a music-loving parent to "teach" their kids about good music growing up, with the same emphasis shown when they read books to their kids. This has other benefits of course, but perhaps if the industry could reach out to magnet schools or something... Tough call there.

Fundamentally, most quality audio companies rely on skill on the sales floor over advertising to make sales. As this skill declines, and the internet does everything possible to discredit sales professionals and B&M stores in favor of ID and cheap cable outlets, a hard campaign of advertising makes tons of sense. Think of how clueless most Bose outlet store monkeys are, and look at the sales. They don't need to know anything other than how to turn the key on the front door to let the masses pour in.

http://www.techradar.com/news/home-c...ndustry-162930

Its pretty obvious why The high end audio industry is dying, they don't deliver what they promised, so Bose isn't any worse than most other manufacturers.

Look out, that link is just gonna set Jibberjabber off again, surely to dismiss it as merely another example of the vast "robin hood" jealousy agenda. Surely the prime motivation of the naysayers, you see.

Oh No! You mean DS was right?

Ashley James got his first job in the audio industry in the 1950s.

Like most, he probably was in his late teens/early 20's when he got into the game. So, here's your problem. Depression-Era thinking.

Bose, not matter the value proposition, sounds and measures poorly. No matter what the value might be for other brands, at least most of them possess good SQ.

It's well-known that price doesn't always equal the cost of the parts inside all added up. This is true for anything. This forum is not the place for this most basic of economic realities.

I do too!


But we still love and identify with the character.

A small, good looking system that is easy to setup and use, low in cost...

Well, sounds like most computer speaker systems, or a sound-bar. Face it, most people judge by looks first, price second, ease of use third, sound quality... somewhere back there.

They just want access to their music with as little involvement and commitment as possible.

As with most of the nicer things in life, many people just don't care, don't know, and do not want to make the effort. I like to call it a perpetuating culture of willful ignorance, where stupidity isn't just accepted--it's encouraged. Anything that is worth acquiring has to be obvious--often the opposite of quality which usually revealed in subtleties. The problem lies with the people at heart, and unless it is changed, there will be no fundamental shifts anytime soon.

Like it or not, Bose has targeted this demographic with a perfect solution that hits everything those people want, at the highest price they can get away with.

Not all Bose is bad, I just don't care for thier lifestyle/Acoustimass systems, everything else is pretty okay IMO. I hate the 3-2-1 system they make.

Bose is bad for the price you pay. I dont see why this has to be repeated to you over and over. It's bad compared to what you could get but compared to TV speakers or nothing, its ok.

Also, I dont see how you can compare Bose to some of these other manufacturers but I dont want to get into another discussion about that company. They are a joke and not worth discussing on this forum.

Regarding Ashley James and the article its 100% true that the industry is a little on the scam side with all this overpriced overhyped gear from magazines who praise everything in the name of the all mightly advertising dollar. Plus, throw in the fact that its impossible to know what really sounds good or do comparisons and you have what you have. Consumers blindly thowing money at something without having a clue about what they are investing in. Just look how many high-end cable manufactures there are. Obviously its an extrmemely profitable biz if 20 companies can survive in it.

Regardless though, if these consumers are stupied enough to spend money on $4000 amps and $500 cables and are not interested in learing about the hobby and not complaining than I think its their problem. It is no different than someone buying a $10K rolex because he feels its a better performer - granted a watch or car is more status in many cases than performance. You know what, audio is about status too.

A lot of good reasons were brought up about the demise of the audio industry. Technology, the music of today, and people appropriating funds to other things like TV. Obviously people are going to need to put more money into the Display device, Video games, and computer since they are must have products. This obviously leaves less for audio and lets face it a decent HTIB system is going to be more than enough for people considering people live in places where they have to be considerate of volumes...

Another factor people left out is that in the 80's when high-end audio was nearing its prime there was no reason to spend money on a display device because at the time there were 9 channles of TV. TV and audio had nothing to do with each other. TV was TV and audio was audio. People invested much more money in audio as it was its own experience.

I dont see the industry turing around. I see it getting worse. People are always going to want, smaller, lighter, easier, and cheaper and are going to find other things to spend money on instead of pure sound quality. That is how the world works.

A fundamental issue is the outright dishonesty of high-end manufacturers that make bizarre claims with no objective or rational bases. They brazenly make stuff up.

What's worse is that audio publications, which should play the role of watchdogs, are utterly co-opted: High-end manufacturers and audio publications need each other, and the result is that reviewers have long since been nothing more than a marketing tool for the industry. The high end has degenerated into a sad state of deceitful affairs, and it's dying because it deserves to die.

Car reviewers need cars, boat reviews need boats, where's the point? Neither add up to deceit, only an overactive imagination.

There are a number of more pertinent reasons why it has been slowly being eroded, along with parallels in other industries. BTW it's not the only industry in history that has gone/is going/ or will go through such changes.

Like so many other things high-end audio was more of a hobby. Nowadays a hobby for the younger crowd is visiting websites, not using your hands to do anything creative. Ham radio, wood carving, painting, arts and crafts, 'The Schack', do you need any more parallels? The good news is high performance audio is NOT dying, in fact quite the contrary, it's just beginning all over again, call it a return to it's roots.

I need to buy myself a Tinker Toy set before they become extinct! Funny, I had to bing it to make sure they were still around.

What you need to do Joe, is come out with a high end Tinker Toy using better woods, better finishes, and unique features for adult imaginations.

I think that's already available- log cabin. Think Aspen. Although it would be cool to have a teak wood Tinker Toy set, with aluminum wheels

Speaking of NFL, 'wide right' still lingers here in Buffalo from the first go at it. Thanks man!

Personally, I use these to build cable risers.

A relatively small percentage of the population has good enough ears (or enough money) to appreciate top-end audio equipment.

There is some validity to the argument that you reach a point of diminishing returns when you pay the really big bucks for 'audiophile' equipment. Some of
which is still as innacurate or even more innacurate than certain hated
manufacturer's Flagship speakers. Especially those three manufacturers
that cater almost exclusively to the lifestyle makerket.

Anything that is billed as a lifestyle product is automaticly overpriced simply because "lifestyle" is seen as a level of prestige. Browse through a 'Housewares/bed bath and beyond/Sharper Image/Urban Outfitters Catelogue and you will know what I mean!

We can't kid ourselves, we put ourself in this hole and allowed the bulldozer to dump the dirt on our heads.

The sound quality you get from an iPod/Generic Mp3 player and a pair of decent headphones (not the packaged earbuds) is actually GOOD compared to any of those lame COBY tape players and even the subsequent sony walkmens that they manufactured
well into the end of the tape era.

There's been a liberal dose of snake-oil-ness and stupidity at the high end--vibration isolators, green markers that make CDs sound better, over-priced cables, CD demagnetizers $6000.00 racks etc. Maybe people are getting smarter, not less discriminating.

Really old post, but it made me laugh pretty good.

interesting thread with some very good points being made. Over 1000 CE locations have closed in the last 5 years. The transition we're going through right now is very painful and the future isn't really clear. This is the toughest period I've seen in my 37 years in the business...We feel very very lucky to be doing well right now.

Jim, where does that number come from? I take it we're talking about Comp USA and Circuit City. I agree with the difficulty level, we all have to work for a living more so now than ever, yet concur with your position in the marketplace. I am grateful to be self-employed long-term with a company in the position we're in.

This is a sad state of affairs all right. I live in a major urban area, and find that it's increasingly difficult to find any store to listen to some products I'm interested in buying. For example, I am looking to buy a pair of good quality headphones (in the $400-600 range), and want to compare several products before deciding, but not a single audio dealer near me stocks any of these headphones ("We can order it for you!"). Similarly with speakers, there are several brands I'd like to audition, but cannot because there are no dealers that carry them. For the population, the number of decent audio dealers within an hour's drive is abysmal, and their selection often is equally poor; exacerbating this, dealers are often mostly or entirely focused on home theater sales rather than two channel audio.

I realize internet companies usually offer reasonable money back return policies, but that doesn't compare to actually listening to and comparing products before buying. The hassle of blind buying, then returning a product is more than I am willing to do, so some products get ruled out simply because there is no dealer within driving distance.

That is simply the future. Business viability depends on it.

When a store tells me that, I respond with "yeah, so can I!" That is the worst sales tactic ever. I realize small stores dont have the overhead to have a large inventory but having someting on hand is the whole reason to have a brick and mortar store. Bike shops are terrible about that, and online stores are always cheaper. Small businesses seem to be too slow to figure out why they are losing business, and it isnt just about cost. A bike shop I shopped at in Richmond didnt have that great of prices, but I bought stuff there because the small shop carried the things I wanted to buy. Novel concept.

So...business viability depends on offering no ability to listen to products before buying, and no way to compare products other than purchasing them all and then shipping back the ones I don't want?

Gosh, where do I sign up?

'Fraid so. In a way, though, it's doing you a favor. You have no choice but to listen to speakers (auditioning other components is pointless) in your own room, so now you'll actually get to hear what they will sound like, which you couldn't when you auditioned in a showroom.

Yes, but I can listen to several different speakers in a showroom (or a couple different showrooms) and quickly focus in on which speakers I want to listen to in my home, and I'm not on the hook to buy all those speakers first or spend time setting them up in my house. It's a huge waste of my time, and a significant upfront cost I don't care to incur.

I understand what you and penngray are saying, I'm just saying I consider it a giant step backwards in the audio shopping experience. One of the reasons Bose is successful is that they make the shopping experience easy--they're in half the malls in the US. Similarly, Apple was called crazy for opening so many retail stores at a time when everyone else was shutting their brick and mortar stores, but look how it has made Apple what it is today.

As long as I do have a choice, I will continue to support local businesses that can provide the service I'm looking for.

yup... it's the way of the world today...

a small brick & mortar shop can't possibly afford to have that much money tied up in inventory these days...

if you want to "blame" anyone, blame "us the consumers"... a lot of today's consumers shop on price alone... i read many many posts where the jist of it is "i ate up hours of the someone's time demo'ing equipment in their store, then i went and bought it online cheaper"... it's the "walmart mentality"... to many, "cheapest price is the best deal"...

for example, my "a/v guy" only sells displays because he HAS to... as a custom installer, he "needs" to have displays to sell... but he doesn't make a lot of money off of them, and he doesn't really sell a lot of them on non custom installs, because he can't compete price wise... also, he has to watch his inventory VERY carefully, as they can't afford to have a ton of money tied up sitting there doing nothing in a warehouse...

not commenting on whether this is "good, bad or indifferent"... just pointing out the facts of life in today's world...

look at it this way... there's also many more options available to you these days from internet direct manufacturer's that didn't exist 10 years ago...