by Michael

Demo Music at RMAF 2008

While checking out what other websites are talking about the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest I came across this thread at Steve Hoffman’s forum:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=153011

Which talks about what kind of music a new exhibitor should bring to a show with them.

I don’t know who any of these people are, I am not registered there and the site does not let you see people profiles unless you are registered :D.

Well, besides disagreeing vociferously with the suggestion that exhibitors should not play show-goer’s CDs because they will invariably sound bad [a true signature of a bad sounding system all around, eh? If the system can’t play the music that an audiophile loves, then what use is that system for that audiophile? An accent for the livingroom decor?] – our suggestion would be to bring music that you love.

If the exhibitor brings music they love, or just music they want to play to see what it is like, then at least one person [i.e. the exhibitor] in the room will be enjoying the music. Sure, show some eclecticism – don’t just bring country, but bring some of your runners up like western and rock-a-billy and country-rock and bluegrass, etc.

This has the side effects of at least putting the exhibitor in a good mood and of attracting ‘like minds’ who love the same music. There is also a level of honesty implicit in this kind of approach – which we happen to think is a good thing.

Yeah, we get blasted for this approach [as being ‘unprofessional’] from some other dealers and reviewers – who, in another industry, would not let people test drive their prospective new car, or maybe just for 2 or 3 minutes [yes, there are still car dealers out here like that – ones that we visit just ONCE] nor review a car without Corinthian leather bucket seats [OK, my metaphor sucks – but moving on…].

This year I feel that we want to bring mostly things we have gotten recently: a CD by the Dave Holland Quintet – Extended Play [yeah, yeah, plenty good audiophile quality – but the songs are long – a no no at shows 🙂 and it is complex enough that it’s depths are hard to plumb in just a few listenings… like Radiohead … except it is Jazz ;-). Oh, and way less complex than Sun Ra or even Ornette Coleman – or is that Ornette Coleman and even Sun Ra?].

Anything else? I don’t know … usually we just do a mad rush through here and pick things we like and want to hear. The only problem is that Neli and I usually disagree significantly on the selection. So – we just end up with a his and hers side on the CD and LP collection at the show.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / RMAF 2008 / Sounding Off 0 comments
 by Michael

Can Hi-Fi Go Big Time?

Mike Fremer and J.A. seem to be of the opinion that the Mass Media is to blame for the small size of the audiophile marketplace – as they editorialize in Stereophile.

regmac over at the Asylum described problems with this perspetive [look, I post a link to the show report there then I kind of check to see if there are any questions, and so I am over there. So I peek around to see what is happening. Seems that people are a little nicer to me and nastier to each other over there].

Messrs. Atkinson and Fremer are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore!

I agree with most of the thrust of this post – essentially that the Mass Media is the mass media. They conspire to help their owner corporations make more money in every way this side of blatant murder – and they just don’t seem to be focusing much on keeping high-end audio out of the hands of wealthy adults.

So, lets look at this a minute.

We want more people in high-end audio? It is called marketing. It is a known science.

Dealer organizations, Manufacturer organizations, and dealers and manufacturers themselves can put ads in U.S. Today, the Wall Street Journal, NYT, Inquirer, Car and Driver, Robb Report, … whatever.

Depending on the quality of marketing, and the investment, … and considering that we are starting out with essentially zero percent of the population, we could double, triple, … even grow the market by 10 times without relying on GREAT marketing [great marketing is Apple’s marketing of the iPod and iPhone].

The problem is, how many manufacturers could handle this? Some are at capacity now. Some can grow by 2X .. maybe. The ones not shipping anything can fill in the gaps, but then we have all these new people in the hobby getting second rate gear.

And what about customer service, repairs, and reliability?

So, the growth would have to be slow if it is not to collapse and make a bigger mess of things than they are now.

If we accept that dealer’s graphical restrictions makes it counter-productive for them to run ads, and that dealer and manufacturer organizations are hard to start, hard to keep from going corrupt, and hard to raise funds within a hobby that is shrinking,… then we are left with the fact that it is the manufacturers (M) that need to advertise. OK, like Honda or, say, Bose.

In order for the M. to justify this, they need to have a good dealer network, spare capacity to deliver product, a product that does not change versions every Tuesday, a product that is reliable, and enough profits to be able to afford to advertise.

I think that the number of M’s that satisfy all these requirements must be close to zero – which is why we don’t see these ads. [except for the every Tuesday part, Esoteric might be close].

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Sounding Off 0 comments
 by Michael

Press as the Public Relations Arm of Industry

There are a lot of pieces and parts of the show report – kind of sprinkled in amongst almost 2000 photos – and even I forget where I said what.

But one of the themes this year was influenced by a ‘Cranky Geeks’ episode (online or special TiVo download) that crystallized, for me, the problem with most reviews in our industry. Although Cranky Geeks was talking about the software industry – it applied equally well to ours [and the Washington Press Core as well, but let’s not go there].

That is that the press is serving as the Public Relations arm of the Industry. The corporations. They take press releases [well, in high-end audio, we don’t need no stinking press releases – so our reviewers have to do more work], massage it, and spit it back out as a review.

Thinking about this off and on during the last few weeks as I do the kind of laborious task of juggling CES photos, I think that there are telltale signs of reviews that are really just PR – that really just server as pages for the industry to link to, to serve as an incentive for the industry to donate free equipment to get more of, a safe place to advertise on.

And those signs are that it reads like PR.

PR, like your prototypical salesperson, never, ever, ever say anything bad about what they are selling. Nothing that can even be *slightly* construed as negative about the piece of equipment.

Now reviewers are famous for putting in clues that seem like they maybe might be a hint at what they really think about the component.

But, think about it. All components have a sound and have issues. .

So most reviews are like describing a car crash by saying over and over again how great the car was – and about what songs were playing in the car at the time of the crash.

Anyway, I grew up respecting the press as being honorable, reporting what was really happening, very often DIFFERENT from what the official spin was about the events. Now it is all in support of making more money. Not making waves.

And the only reviewer who I have any confidence in that they actually write real reviews is Mike Fremer.

Sure, he ignores his prejudices, and ignores how badly his poor sad room affects the sound, and ignores the fact that much of his system equipment is flawed and affects what his results are going to be. So he ain’t perfect [and he has some anger management issues – or at least, he should learn to count to ten before posting. I know. I know. Many people want me to count to a billion before posting]. But I think he is the best we got. [Which is saying a lot about the state of the press industry here, huh?]. And I think he has been getting better.

HP hasn’t written a real review for years and years. Art Dudly, Srajan are runners up – and they may be just as good as Mike, but I just don’t read enough of their reviews, especially of equipment that I am familiar with that have easily agreed-upon issues.

As far as the other reviewers go, as far as I have time to read their copy – uh, well, there is really no reason for me to go farther.

I haven’t met Mr. Fremer, nor Art Dudley and have no specific desire to do so [I emailed once or twice with Fremer about 6 years ago]. I have met Srajan at shows when he used to go to shows here in the U.S. [and he is the only member of the press that acknowledges we exist – all the others try hard to ignore us because we encroach on their (abandoned, as this post testifies) domain] but he doesn’t review stuff I am familiar with – and I instead mostly end up reading his editorials.

Anyway, to wrap this up – it is not like reviewers, in general, are any more a**holes than the rest of us – in fact, of the few I see at shows, most of them are just like the rest of us. It is just that I see the responsibilities of being a reporter differently than they do.

in CES 2008 / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Reviewers / Show Reports / Sounding Off 8 comments