2. misc-audio
  3. 192366-20253

Is the microwave the perfect model for audio marketting?

I remember the first time my mother got interested in a microwave oven. They were brand new, full of promises of fast, convenient cooking and baking. She ended up with a Toshiba with a built in magnetic card reader. You could put in a recipe card and automatically program it, or you could get additional cards and program your own "recipes." This was decades before the Internet, home routers or anything like Wifi.

Last week installers took away my 19 year old Maytag and replaced it with a brand new LG. Full of "features" where it automatically guesses the power and time based on buttons such as "potato" or "popcorn." These are not even very smart features. They don’t weigh the potato or take the temperature of the item you are heating or listen for the popcorn to stop popping. They just look up settings from a table and away you go.

Honestly of the hundreds of features in this microwave I need the light and fan the most. Then the power and time. The first two features are never very good in any microwave. The latter two are the only one’s most of us end up using out of sheer frustration with the automated features.

Is this a model or metaphor for modern audio marketting? Are we constantly being sold a list of features which in the end don’t really matter so long as the light turns on and the frozen Tandori chicken meal is safe to eat?

erik_squires
jwei
157 posts
 

I remember Microsoft applications bloatware.  Lots of stuff I didn't need just slowed the computer.

tump350
93 posts
 

Agreed! Just turned 60 and find that my 13-year-old daughter is infinitely more adept at using smart phones, computers, steaming TV services, etc. than I am. What a shock, and here I thought I was young and with it.

With audio, however, she hasn’t a clue. Still likes Spotify on her phone and won’t touch the stereo, though invited to play her music.

I like a lot of the new features in cars, etc. but use very few of them. My favorites so far are automatic high beams, and being able to soup up a car with a custom program installed over the OBDII in the car.

erik_squires OP
16,258 posts
 

@larsman  You are right.  The revolving platter is now such a ubiquitous feature I completely ignored it, but it's essential. 

mitch2
4,048 posts
 

It probably says something about me that most of my audio gear consists of black boxes that just sit there and perceptively do nothing.  The two most exciting features are headlessly managing the server/Roon and changing the volume with a remote. 

celtic66
1,674 posts
 

Summation is that design engineers are mostly daft.  They solve problems exclusionary of end user.  It made sense to the design team, so good enough.
Beta testing is expensive/time consuming and therefore summarily shunned.

Take 100 end users, exposing them to the product, recording an 80% fail rate followed by redesign and restart with a new 100 end users.  Repeating the process until only 10% fail and that is acceptable as nothing is 100% end user fail safe.

Japanese car manufacturers have heavily invested in this and present mostly a well thought out logical panel.  Higher end European car manufacturers do pretty well.


Recently rented a Buick Envoque or something.  I’ve rented literally hundreds of vehicles.  I could not start it.  No, not EV.  FOB.  No push or turn start (like my Volvo). My friend, a mechanic of 30 years could not start it.  A guy in the lot came over and somehow figured it out.  It’s beyond retarded!  Look it up.

Peugeot in the 80s was a rolling disaster in this arena.  Controls were backwards to Americans.  This played a role in its eventual American market exit.  I used to drive my great aunt’s Peugeot 504? whenever I visited her in Switzerland.  It was a trip.

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