Buying Equipment Based on Philosophy???

You can still build a great sounding system whatever the approach. Better listen first and then decide to accept or reject anything with a term "philosophy" following it. Nowadays it is widely sold. On the other hand some excellent components are created when deviating somehow from their house sound, most designers and brands are not always on roll. 

Good luck with that.

@erik_squires 

Vendors all want you to feel a certain connection to the brand.  I mean, that's the entire purpose of branding.  To sell you an idea on a name or symbol which you want to associate yourself with due to ..... whatever.

It is akin to being part of a community or tribe.

Yes, this is all well known marketing strategy. Brand loyalty is such a big thing that many companies seek to tie you in with them for life.

Despite the availability of potentially better options just look at how many people routinely stick with the likes of Amazon, Apple, eBay, Microsoft and Google?

The latter is becoming particularly difficult to escape from these days.

Attributes such as luxury, reliability, technical superiority can go a long way to satisfying a customer's sense of status and self image.

Companies such as Apple, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Coke,  Gucci, Prada all have a certain cache and reputation that they carefully maintain with as little risk as possible.

Money in the bank, easy peasy.

Of course marketing disasters do still happen from time to time as the the likes of Disney and Balenciaga have demonstrated.

With audio it's difficult for a brand to stick out too far from the competition without also alienating other potential customers.

Reputations though must still count for something even when the current company bears little resemblance to an earlier incarnation.

Today's Quad, Tannoy, Wharfedale, Mission etc are a far cry from their predecessors.

In any case, just how does a company establish a distinct philosophy?

Folks like Harbeth, Spendor, McIntosh, Grado, Rega, Technics, B&W etc continue to do what they've always done but it's difficult to think of many new arrivals who bravely decided go against the grain.

The 2 obvious iconoclastic loudspeaker candidates would be Zu and Tekton. Whatever you may think of them there's no denying that they both offer something that the competition doesn't. 

At the very least they've carved up a nice niche for themselves with their unique brand philosophy. Quite a remarkable achievement these days.

Vendors all want you to feel a certain connection to the brand. 

This is marketing.....I'm not talking about marketing.....which is mostly Snake Oil.....I'm talking about a designer/owner who says...."Hey, I can do it better and here is how I do it"......In the case of John Curl at Parasound, he is just a hired gun who is really into capacitors....Or Nelson Pass who is into Class A and distortion.....or Jason at Schiit who is into anything no one else is doing!....And then we have the whole cottage industry built up around Class D techno9logy and they all have a different way of dealing with 1 and 0.......They have a philosophy.....A deep rooted reason why they do something......No marketing.....

Sure design philosophy matters I like triode wired Class A tube amps, and wide baffled speakers. A few other likes point me towards specific manufacturers. Then comes trial and error!