What High End Manufacturers Could Learn From Bose

Justacoder's car analogy is most revealing. I for one have never driven a Ferrari, but I know know their mystique. I don't expect high end companies to battle for mid-fi market share, but I want high end companies to at least define in the public's mind what is high end audio. Harmon's deal with Lexus for Levinson car systems is an excellent example. I also think Red Rose's Whitney Museum store is an example of the type of marketing high end companies need to be doing. The audiophile world needs to look outward to the uncoverted if it is to avoid shrinking to the point of irrelevance. There will always be a state-of-the-art products that by definition have no mass market appeal. But that doesn't mean that reasonably priced, good sounding, easy to set up and great looking high end products cannot become made and sold in reasonably large numbers.

I do not believe your premise that Bose is grabbing (for the future) the "high fidelity sound reproduction market." There are two (or more) different market niches. As Ed pointed out "high-end" means small market (an entirely different market niche). Because, very few people actually sit down and listen to music, very few would even care about "Krell" sound. For those that do there is the high-end. Because this market is small the high-end will never employ similar Bose marketing strategies-it would simply cost too much.

Even assuming your premise is correct, I don't believe that the future of "high fidelity sound reproduction" belongs to companies like Bose because of their marketing efforts. In fact, I believe that Bose is good for the high-end. The high-end feeds off of Bose; It gives non-audiophiles a starting point and a basis for comparison. Both Bose and the "high end" can coexist as long as there are people like us who really care about high fidelity sound reproduction.

I think it's a matter of what the audio market is like.

I can listen to a new CD of the Goldberg Variations and quickly say a lot about the performance. On the other hand, I know very little about wine and usually ask the store clerk, "Which is better, X or Y?" I know nothing about what that store clerk's knowledge or tastes are but go with it. I don't have the depth of opinions about a wine as I do about a recording the Goldberg Variations.

I know there's good wine out there, but I just don't know enough to feel comfortable trusting my own tastes, and it's not that important for me to invest my time: I'm satisfied that I picked an $80 brand-name wine over a $40 wine, though a wine expert might easily pick some $40 wines that would be better than what I bought. I figure, so this is what $80 buys and don't really think much more about it. Maybe I note that it's sweet or not sweet.

Some people balk at my attitude towards wine, while I don't understand why they can't hear how my hissy mono recording is obviously better than their DDD version of the same piece.

Audiophiles read stereo magazines, study up on audio and take months to carefully choose and match components. A typical consumer goes to Circuit City and asks, "Which is beter, Yamaha or Sony?" instead of doing A/B/A listening tests. They buy stereos the way that I buy wine. People don't know enough to feel comfortable using their own ears, and it's not important enough to them to work on it.

My friends say that they just can't hear all these differences that auido magazines fuss over. They're not thinking about the 30 things that we do -- they just hear more or less bass. It also doesn't help that everything sounds same-same when you're working with what's available at Circuit City. More reason for people to just go with whatever they see put out there.

the robb report, arch digest, dupont registry and more carry ads for high end hifi companies. they will also contain ads for multi million buck boats, cigars you couldn't buy even if you had the money, and jewelery that
queen elizabeth would be embarassed to wear. placing high end audio ads in "people" magazine however is unlikely to
yield satisfactory return. Still, one would think blowing all your ad budget on audio rags, where readers are already aware of your product is backward too. seeding a new
patch of bare ground occasionally instead of the crowded garden seems logical.
as far as the 30 grand benz goes, it has a star on the hood, but thats about where the comparison to the 70 grand mercedes ends.
b**e seems apathetic towards any aspect of their business apart from marketing. if 10% of the annual ad budget went to actual r&d instead of herbie on t.v., that $0.23 cent 2 inch paper cone they cram in everything would be a distant memory. don't even bother commenting on the 4" "subwoofer". by the way, dr. bose was a gifted theorist and designer, it's just that his conclusions and results were wrong. invaild equations are hardly unusual in tech and engineering endeavors. (you'd think the odds that at least one idea would work were high though, wouldn't you?)
one more little slice of evil from that corp. is a rabid litigation team. Better Off Sueing 'Em than being a positive contributor and respected member of the industry. a recent example supporting "lawyercide" and the viewpoint of "them" towards this wonderful hobbie and all of us in it took place in boston. a new company formed by two of the industry's most regarded leaders built an amp that sent all but the very best scurrying. audiophile sonics, 5 mono channels, 1500 watts, bullet-proof,under 2k$. since the company was in boston and proudly so, they called it
Bostronics. after the expense of putting that name on everything from boxes to lit, and getting a national magazine review praising it as perhaps the best multichannel ever built, the B**e lawyers crawled from the brimstone and demanded the small company change it's name. the current one sounded too much like "bose electronics". the suit was weak as 4" subwoofers and very easy to beat in court. the problem? 3-4 years of battle and min.$50,000 in court costs. read this in a trade journal.
know what? B**e belongs in the outlet malls. next to the fridge magnets store. i sure hope they don't read this.

Thanks for some thoughtful and illuminative posts on this thread. Let me add another perspective.

It seems to me that two phenomena interact here: (1) Quest for the best possible sound WITHIN ONE'S OWN FRAME OF REFERENCE, and (2) pride of ownership/snob appeal/equipment-as-an-end-in-itself. That observation is nothing new. What occurs to me, though, is that these same variables interact all up and down the continuum from Aiwa boomboxes to Levinson et alia.

Examples: I have seen people in Best Buy arguing with just as much vehemence and sincerity over the sonic merits of this boomer versus that boomer as people on a-gon argue over the merits of Plinius versus Krell. I've also seen folks choose boomers on the basis of glitzy LED displays, futuristic extruded plastic cabinets, and "supermegawoofers." And, God knows, that same phenom goes on in the high end, if a bit more subtly.

I've noted the same phenomenon at the mid level, with some people listening earnestly to the musical merits of Bose versus Polk versus Cambridge Soundworks and others choosing from that group on the basis of perceived cachet.

My point is that the high end is a niche market primarily because of price rather than because of more esoteric phenomena. By that I mean that the factors of quest for sound and quest for ego-reinforcement operate just the same way at our level as they do at the Circuit City level. There just aren't many people who can play on the high end field, not matter how much they want to.

If we as a-file end users could get past the ego thing, we could exercise some clout with high end manufacturers to get them to price their gear reasonably. An EE/audiophile here in Orlando recently disassembled a >$20K amplifier from a well known and highly respected manufacturer. He then priced out EVERY SINGLE PART from the case screws to the capacitors to the hand-machined face plates. Even in one-each quantities, the total cost was well under $1,000. People like Brian Cheney can cite instances of speaker systems selling for $50,000 that contain $500 worth of parts and cabinetry.

Why does this apparent contradiction of Adam Smith persist? Because people are willing to pay those prices. Period. In fact, as y'all well know, inexpensive gear is instantly suspect among a great many audiophiles because of the belief that superb equipment is of necessity extremely costly to produce. This despite readily verifiable evidence to the contrary.

So why don't high end companies trade off selling price for volume? First because even at reasonable markups their gear would be out of the affordable range of the masses. Second, because their own egos are substantial. God help them, the Wilsons of the world really have convinced themselves that the stuff they sell is worth the absurd prices they charge for it.

That's the view from here. As always, YMMV.

Will