My news article about the AmEx Plum Card commercial is located on this site.

jason victor serinus

Quote:
Another category that is helping to raise the profile of high-quality sound reproduction is the partnerships between auto manufacturers and high-end audio stalwarts.

Don't forget Bose and GM, etc.

Hopefully high end manufacturers will have better success in cross-marketing than BMW had when it placed an ad in Stereophile. I was astounded with the letters to the editor from readers complaining that an ad for an automobile did not belong in Stereophile (some probably cancelled their subscription). It's not surprising that we haven't seen more ads for non-audio equipment.

The additional irony is that readers (including some here) routinely assert that Stereophile favors those manufacturers that advertise when reviewing their equipment. If the ads were placed by others such as BMW there would be no such speculative "conflict".

I should have put an emoticon after "Bose", but we don't have a tongue-firmly-implanted-in-cheek icon.

OTOH, Bose did succeed in convincing the average consumer that it stands for quality through product placement, etc. Thus, perhaps they are an excellent example of what you are proposing.

Glad to hear that about Rolling Stone magazine. I recall, many years ago, they would have a feature article about stereo systems, I think once per year. Photos, etc. And I think, but not sure, that once or more they had "stereos of the stars". Guitarists posed next to their killer systems, wow!

I've rarely heard Bose. Have heard it quietly for background music at a neighbor's house, and heard a boomy 5.1 HT system in a very noisy store, impossible to tell quality there, and the subwoofer was probably overboosted to compete against other noise. But I heard one movement of a Mahler symphony on an old pair of 901's a while back, in a small chapel. It sounded nice, there. What's the beef against Bose?

Let's not forget Naim doing audio for Bentley, the cars we can all afford. I think Naim's doing some other auto maker, no?

And check this out: the new Russian President Medvedev is a hard-core audiophile. See the picture where he's in front of the Kuzma Reference TT, admiring a record! He may be Putin's tool but he's got style!

http://www.itogi.ru/paper2007.nsf/Article/Itogi_2007_04_15_01_4813.html

Who knows, maybe we'll have a Prez in the White House who rocks out to a Caliburn. (Fremer for President? )

This is akin asking why seeds don't grow in infertile soil.

I think what it comes down to is that the average person does not have the patience, analytical skill, budget, or inclination to become an audiophile. What we are doing (when we are not debating the merits of the hobby) takes skill.

There is a lot of thought that goes into building a really, really good high-end audio system. It is a technical hobby that deals in trial and error experimentation, research, data and benchmarks, physics and acoustics. We dumb these things down into our own layman's terms but that doesn't change the fact that audio is a multidimensional hobby and not the easiest one to grasp. Not everybody gets off on that type thing.

Even my friends who have heard the results do not care and have no interest in following up themselves. Then I've had pizza delivery kids practically bust through my door to get a better look at my B&W speakers. It is just for a certain type.

But really what is missing is real mass market media exposure, and you're right that American Express commercial is not insignificant. I noticed it as well.

But you know, the sad fact is that most people don't want to pay a premium for high performance in consumer electronics.

A perfect example of this is Pioneer, who is loosing money in their plasma Television business while making hands down the best flat panel displays on the market. All the critical review information about the Pioneer is there, on the internet waiting to be found, but the consumers don't read up. They buy inferior sets.

It isn't just the price of the unit, it is the price of finding it--the information costs that are the biggest barrier.

High-end audio is a race to the top and a lot of people just can't relate to that.

You can expose a wider market to audio products but that is not the same thing as exposing the hobby. Having Thiel speakers in your house is not what it is really about.

Pioneer has dropped production of Plasma, it's a dead product for all tv makers, it's obsolete. LCD is getting all the improvements, every 6 monts it seems a new better, cheaper unit is out, with more functions, and sells more, so price drops are big time. OLED will be next for super thin displays. Panasonic will be next to call it quits on Plasma, watch, Philips did in teh U.S. already...

The thing that works for the 901, is that the drivers are full range. Eq'd yes, but full range. The direct sound comes first to the ear, so the all important phase coherence of a full ranger is preserved (by enough db to be recognizable by the ear, but barely), which is critical to the ear.

So, in all fairness to Bose, they have that aspect correct, which a speaker with a crossover flatly, does not. Phase coherence in the midrange is critical for human enjoyment of music. I myself deal with this incredibly frettish and 'spinning in your sleep' aspect of passive crossovers. The best that can be achieved is a compromise at a given frequency range. Some say 24db crossovers work, but the reflected energies and dynamic impedance inconsistencies in the drivers and crossovers make their sonics a compromise-at best-like any speaker with a passive crossover.

Electronic crossovers are not really all that much better. Phase is skewed via similar methods in electronic crossovers. In digital crossovers, phase is damaged again, but in not quite the same way. Then again, in digital crossovers, the numerical algorithms transform the phase coherence of the original signal to something that is damaged EVERYWHERE in the frequency range,and far more in their 'crossover regions'...so that's no solution either!

Back to Bose.

The average due on the street CAN hear phase coherence in a signal. For example, white van speakers. They don't use inductors, so all drivers have their upper frequencies running-wide open. Like an Epos speaker crossover, but no where near as high quality of a system.

This cuts the phase error to a maximum of 90 degrees, as they only use a cheap capacitor on the bottom range of the midrange and tweeter. The average idiot on the street can hear this. It sounds good. The rest is crap, but hey, the average man on the street is used to sonic crap. But they hear that ever critical phase coherence throughout the ever critical midrange area..and love it.

High end audio lost the basic understanding of this point -long ago, it seems.

They seem to have the vast majority of you trained to listen past/through/ignore/'tune out' this very obvious point of crap in the vast majority (a seeming 99% of high end audio speakers) of speakers out there.

www.legacy-audio.com Has it figured out. Also a very good informative manual is from Pro Audio Handbook from RANE www.rane.com and another good book is Sound Reinforcement Handbook from Yamaha. It's an education, that makes it all sensible and real. Then ya attend live performances and can easily see the good stuff and see and hear the flaws. http://www.rane.com/ranestore.html

It has to be as easy as pushing a button. And the button must be right beside them, so they don't have to get up to push it. Then you get market penetration. Until then, nothing will happen, as effort is required.

The money..is in pursuing partnerships with companies who work in the video field. Their market penetration is far better.

For example, Infocus..with the x-1 projector. they were pushing MASSIVE numbers of them through the channel. The numbers were something like 100k lots coming out of china at any given time.

What a lost opportunity for market sharing! holy sweaty batsocks, batman!!

I can get 10-20-50x more guys to spend $2-5k on a video projector than I can get to spend money on high end audio. I should know. I'm in both businesses.

If I wanted to, I could EASILY spend my entire day talking to a minimum of 10 and as high as 25 guys per day, who are mulling over what projector to buy.... and WILL -and I mean WILL do exactly what I tell them to do, when it comes to spending their money.

The only reason it works, is I am 100 percent up front and honest to the buyer. We are not connected to any given projector manufacturer, at all --no bias. That is the sole reason it works.

This is not a joke. I've broken off from doing that, as answering the same question all day can drive you nuts, so I stepped away from it-but only after 5 years of doing exactly that. I've had over 200 messages on my phone at one time, waiting to be called back on.

I had to step away, I was loosing my mind. I was starting to look like this guy:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000005B4T.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Also figured it all out ? It says so here, must be true http://www.radiohof.org/pioneer/amarbose.html