What High End Manufacturers Could Learn From Bose

I met the VP of marketing for Bose at a party once. I told him I was into audio, but didn't tell him to what degree. To my surprise he pretty much said what you have said. Bose is a marketing company--not an audio company. Mind you, this was the VP of marketing so he was blowing his own horn. But he readily admitted that Bose does not sound that good, but most people don't need something that sounds so good. What they need is simple, easy to use, and packaged in a way they can relate to it.

Can you imagine the guy that bought the one box surround system with 5 mini speakers and a subwoofer, that all neatly plugs into each other in a matter of 5 minutes being the least bit interested in cables that cost more than the whole system--and the fact that you need 20 pairs of cables to set up a really state of the art Levinson, bi-amped monster system?

Marketing efforts (this includes their design philosophy) from Bose target the mass market, which is why they can put ads in general interest magazines and run TV ads. High end audio would fail miserably with that type of marketing, unless they changed their design philosophy to something that "sounds good enough for most, and is very easy to use" thereby meeting the needs of the general public--but then it wouldn't be high end, would it?

Does any high-end company advertises itself on any general interest magazines???????

give me a break!

No, nor should they. Krell is never going to be a mass-market product, so following the Bose strategy would be ruinous. High-end is a niche product, and always will be.

A good post, as usual, Onhwy61. To some extent, I think those companies you mention are starting to move in that direction, particularly in the home theater area. I'm sure a large part of the reason more companies don't is, of course, the cost in dollars of doing that; at least Harman and probably Krell have enough funds to publicize themselves more, but many of the best high-end manufacturers can't afford the advertising spreads that a Bose can put out. Unfortunately for the high-end purists (and that probably includes me), I do think that the future of sound reproduction will be in the home theater area, and that may not exactly be the high fidelity we're hoping for. I will also note an observation, which may or may not be true, that the more a high-end company tries to increase its advertising and profile to the general public, the more it seems to lose some of the mystique that comes with being a high-end company. I'm thinking of a Krell, for example, which in my view makes good products but has received a good deal of bashing, far more now than in the earlier days when it was a small unknown company which was more admired for building no-compromise powerhouse amps (sort of reminds me of a quote from a little known pro basketball player, who thanked his agent when a fan yelled out he was overrated, as he thought no one even knew who he was!). Some of this undoubtedly comes with making more affordable components to attract a wider customer base, where corners invariably have to be cut and sound quality suffers in comparison to the products which may first have gotten the company on the map. But I do wonder if a company which does succeed at getting a large market presence will be viewed by the high end community as selling out, or no longer a high-end company (look, as another example, at some of the audiophile community's view of Stereophile as it has gone from a small underground publication to a larger media glossy). Curious to see what others in this forum think.

I do hope you are kidding? Bose is mass mid fi, they are in it for the money, and in actuality I see nothing wrong with that, it is what they chose to do. But in no way could a Krell, Martin Logan, Revel compete in that market or do I doubt they even want it. Highly unlikely they even have the means to produce the #'s it would take to capture a % of that market. Then there is the fact that simply put, who buys $3000 amps or speakers, hell who buys $3000 stereos? Less than 10% of the market. You may have 2 out 20 friends that walk into your house and are able to recognize the makes and brands of your audio equipment, people who don't ask you to turn the bass up or why are you still using that old tube amp when pointing at your Tube Innovations amp sitting on the floor. People who aren't internally smug when you tell them it puts out 100 wpc, thinking to themselves, that fool, my Pioneer from Sam's puts out way more than that, smaller too! High end audio is a very small market, and even then highly tiered. And then I feel many are trying to make the market smaller by not educating those who ask the most rudimentary questions about high end, choosing instead to ridicule them for wanting to basically know "Why?". I see too much of that on these pages and way too much of it on the unmoderated groups.
IF and I write IF in a major way, the high end manufactorers want,IMHO, an example to go by, I would send them Magnepan's way. Magnepan builds entry level high end gear, allows decent trade up policies, makes you feel good about yourself for "only" spending $550, and doesn't insult by telling people no way can you use a reciever with their products and expect good sound. It will be better than what they had, and it is a first step toward what I am sure is what they hope to be a budding audiophile. IMHO again, I think a lot of the high end companies are missing a huge market by not building more affordable entry level gear. Its as if they build for those of us that think nothing about spending more on an amp that will some day die than a wedding ring where at least the diamond lasts a lifetime if not the relationship. But most
people will not do that. Most purchasers are going to cap out at around $1500 to $2000(and actually I would love to see the average on this) on an ENTIRE system, not just one piece of gear.
None of the above is to say that there are many of the high end makers who don't build or advertise this way because they are truly intent and content with building the very best product they can, and marketing it knowing there will be only few buyers. I applaud them, it brings audio up to the next level when it finally trickles down. But many can't or choose not to afford their gear. And where I think there will never be a huge high end market, it would be nice to see some come down into the mid fi market and bring it up a notch or two more, as I believe Magnepan and a couple of others do. I applaud the Canadian gov. intheir efforts and in their providing the facilities to allow some very small and very good companies the ability to do just that. By the way, another thread kinda covers the subject with the demise of Sonic Frontier, a high end maker that is being either closed down or sent in a different direction by its parent company because of its limited demand in the market.