What High End Manufacturers Could Learn From Bose

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

good comment will, but one more thing--this industry NEEDS consolidation. how many speaker / amplifier manufacturers can a niche mkt support? well, it shouldn't support the amount that it does, but it does through the low overhead (working in my garage) model along w/ outrageous markups that are the norm for the industry...little more than collective unorganized collusion.

and another thing--a fool and his money are soon parted. the best gear is rarely the most expensive...i feel sorry for krell owners who never considered belles.

rhyno

Learn from Bose? Well.. how to make small crappy speakers I guess.

Sincerely, I remain

Rhyno, you are a man of discernment, taste, and impeccable audio discrimination. I knew that the instant you revealed your fondness for Belles....

I don't particularly support consolidation in the high end. It would discourage innovation and rob the a-file community of grist for our conversation mills (and more than a little unintended humor). Market diversity also SHOULD (but does not for the reasons I cited above) control costs.

I say let the boys build their toys. Some of them are definite winners. Most, even the ones that receive the plaudits-of-the-moment, are nothing more than trivial variations on long-existing themes. I'm not a republican--quite the contrary--but this is an instance in which I'm quite content to let supply-side forces act at will. Let 'em come; let 'em go; my only concern is parts availability(!)

Don't think, though, that marketing doesn't work in the high end. Krell, for example, has managed to promote good components as though they were great components and price them accordingly. Why? Distribution through major chains and lots of advertising in the slicks. I bet that if someone researched matters, they would find that Krell spends darn near as large a percentage of its limited revenue on advertising as Bose does of its vast revenue.

If the high end really implodes, as so many think it will, perhaps we'll be left with the garage builders (imaginative but flakey and unreliable) the ego builders (niche suppliers to the conspicuous consumption community), and good-but-perhaps-not-great volume suppliers like PSB, NHT, Paradigm, Carver/Sunfire, Sony ES, and (dare I say it?) Mahhhhhhhhhhhnster Cable.

In the meantime, let's keep having fun.

Will