Meet the Good. Good sound with or without excellent marketing and dealer penetration.

Meet the Bad. Bad sounding. Typically has excellent marketing and dealer penetration [otherwise very few are sold – those being sold usually based on some amount of trust and personal connection the manufacturer is able to generate].

Meet the Ugly. Typically mediocre sounding. Sales are often based on any uniqueness of their technology and the desire of some people to stand out from the crowd.

Previous posts here have argued that audiophiles, unlike the general public, do not have good sound at the top of their list of requirements. That they do not ACTIVELY pursue good sound.

This post will continue that argument by suggesting, however, that audiophiles are passively interested in good sound. That good sound wins out in the end.

I would guestimate that about 80% of the gear in a typical street-corner dealership is Bad. [I wonder if this is just me being cynical or whether there is a general consensus that this percentage is just about right. Maybe I am optimistic here?].

But most of this Bad used to be competitive in its heyday and was actually Good. That the Bad is using the money and dealer network and goodwill it made from being Good and is just slaking off and becoming insipid and decadent and draining off the lifeforce of the hobby.

Then there is the gear that was Born Bad. No heyday. They just pushed themselves into the marketplace and dealer networks through force of will and lots of dollahs [a LOT more than a fistfull… ;-)]. Some of these that are Born Bad go on to evolve and improve and become at least much more sort of mediocre if not good [and successful. I am thinking of several of these. I think checking out an older Stereophile and its ads will feature many of these brands].

If the hypothesis is true, that audiophiles DO care about sound, only passively, then we should see the Bad die out, but verrrrry slowly [they would die out overnight if audiophiles were ACTIVELY pursuing Good sound, and immediately rejecting Bad sounding gear].

And this does seem to fit the facts. Look at how many major brands, that were perhaps quite a ways past their heyday and became, you know, Bad, have gone bankrupt and/or been bought out by Hedge Funds / Investment Groups.

We should see these brands get a little bump in life, perhaps becoming Born Again Bad, but if they are to survive they need to evolve and improve. Otherwise they will continue to decline, being passively rejected by audiophiles into obscurity [though there will always be some audiophiles who ONLY buy based on brand name and discounts. so it is only when these audiophiles die – not far off BTW – that some of these brands living off their heyday many decades ago will finally perish as well].

That is all well and, perhaps, a great theory about what is happening but why doesn’t Good just push Bad the heck out of the dealerships? You know, faster than geologic time?

Don’t know. Some product categories are just filled up by these brands that had their heyday come and go not leaving any floor space for the Good. Some, like Peachtree [which I consider to be pretty good], create a new product category and make their way into the dealerships that way. Others get their way onto the Stereophile Class A buying guide list and then elbow their way into a few dealerships.

There are so many Good out there that are Bad at business that dealerships are wise to stay away – these Good that are unethical kind of give a bad name to the other Good out there – scaring dealerships away from being bold and bringing lots of Good gear into their stores.

In the end, Good sound by brands with a decent to good sense of business [and hopefully ethics to go along with it] will rise to the top – it will just be so slow and only of benefit for the few of us who will still be alive [no, I am not depressed. No, we don’t really give a hoot that the Denver Broncos lost the Superbowl in such a pitiful and painful display. Just thinking we ain’t none of us getting any younger… that’s all…. 🙂 but thanks for all your condolences, anyway ;-/]

This question comes up a lot. It is usually referring to the youth market, but I think the reasons we list below apply to people of all ages, and specifically to people who are not audiophiles. At least not self-described as audiophiles.

One reason is peer-pressure. Social network-induced coolness factor.

An important reason. Probably the major reason. But this Oreo-cookie of a Vinyl Renaissance has a healthy chewy center.

1. Everyone knows that CDs cost pennies to make. So when people see $20 price tags on a music CD they experience a cognitive price disconnect. Similarly, when they see that music CDs cost as much as movie DVDs, which have much more content and generate perhaps 100X the viewership – another unpleasant price shock pains the brain.

LPs do not have this problem. We just can’t make our own LPs on our PCs [or 3D printers yet]. This is perceived as some kind of added value.

A. Corollary – LPs are also cheaper [except new audiophile-grade LPs. Whew!]. From about 50 cents [used] to 10 bucks [new jazz, used rock].

2. Everyone ‘knows’ that all digital playback sounds the same. It’s just bits, right? The range is pretty much a $50 blu-ray player at Wall-mart to a $300 Oppo or full-featured Sony at Amazon. The ultimate consumer electronics commodity.

But turntables? They are not seen as a commodity. Although most sound alike [much more so than digital, and at all price ranges] nobody has been beating them [or audiophiles either] over the head with this message; certainly not for decades and decades. A $1000 turntable is something special.

3. Free music downloads and subscription services like Spotify and Pandora make digital music seem ubiquitous and ‘corporate’. Digital music is a utility. No one is going to turn off their music stream, but it doesn’t feel ‘special’ anymore to lots of people who have lived with it for almost a decade now.

Analog however does not seem tied to a specific corporate entity. It is a little bit counter-culture-ish and unique, a little bit independent, a little bit ‘off the internet grid’.

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You notice I did not say it is being adopted because it sounds better.

The reason many people cannot hear the difference between cables is because their systems are not resolving enough [a pox on the manufacturers who sell $20K+ systems like this].

I do not know how resolving a system has to be for the average person to be able to hear a difference between analog and digital. I think musicality is a benefit of analog but not the driving force behind its adoption.