The Power of Advertising

by James Leahy

Thou Shall Not Be Told What Sounds Good... Proverbs 101

The economic world of the audio industry is like the rest of the corporate hierarchy with each company having their own dedicated advertising campaigns designed to sway the buyer towards their latest and greatest offerings. But have you noticed the audio companies that spend the most on their advertising campaigns are usually the ones with the worst performing products?

One only has to look at some of the most high profile audio companies such as Bose and Bang & Olufsen to understand how through clever marketing and well orchestrated smoke & mirror publicity campaigns the majority of the general public can be fooled into believing the hype. This has led to these companies becoming household names in every corner of the world. But not for the reasons you might expect. Their products are designed and manufactured to fit a niche market that puts aesthetics and elegance above all else and where sonic performance can sadly take a back seat. Let the buyer make no mistake and have no misconception as to what they are buying into.

I get customers every week look shocked like stunned mullets, and their jaws drop when I tell them that the only people that buy these brands and many others like them are doctor's, lawyer's and architect's that are trying to impress people they don't even like and who know no better themselves. When I ask these people why they think they are so great all of them say because so and so has one or I just always thought they were. Never are their arguments based on any form of sonic performance criteria. Yes, we are talking about stereo equipment here not adornments or works of art to be hung on one's walls but you wouldn't think so sometimes.

They are mealy status symbols rather then Hi Fidelity components in my opinion and should be looked upon as such and little more. Yes they might be expensive but this I assure you is to cover their much bloated and over inflated advertising budgets which 'you' the consumer ultimately end up paying for at the cash register.

If you were to go into most hi end audio dealer's showrooms in any capital city of Australia and drop these names you would be looked upon with sympathy at first then probably humour. Some of the better hi-end companies such as  VTL, Conrad-Johnson, VAC, Quicksilver, ARC, McIntosh and Cary Audio barely raise an eyebrow from people that only buy what they see advertised in the local newspaper, on television in prime time or in their local bulk store. This is approximately 99% of the stereo buying population. These smaller but reputable companies prefer to let the quality of their products do the talking instead of corporate spin doctors that distort the truth more then is imaginable. Also their profits are more directly channelled into R&D that result in better sounding products that benefit their loyal customers.

Ironically, the brands I just mentioned inevitable spend the least amount of their revenue on advertising and it should come as no real surprise they consequently produce some of the best sounding products compared to the others that spend the most on advertising. Funny isn't it.... Their popularity among those in the know comes from the best advertising of all, which is 'the word of mouth' but at the same time this is only beneficial to the consumer if they know who to listen to. That's the problem with free advise. It is worth exactly what you paid for it. At the end of the day there should really only be one person in the world who's opinion means anything and that is yours.

It is also wise to be wary of Forums, Web Logs, Blogs and Chat Rooms. Unless you personally know the poster it's best to ignore what you read. These are what I like to call the trailer parks of the internet and are best ignored if you want to learn about Hi-Fi. It's much better to get a book out of the library. The only good reason to poke around these places is to look for a fix to some immediate and specific problem that wouldn't be in a book.

Not to sound too hoity-toity, but honestly the reason these are the best source of bad information is because you can't know the quality of the source of information. The worlds biggest idiot may have the clearest and most pervasive writing style, and likewise people who really know about Hi-Fi are probably spending their creative time listening to it instead of chatting about it. Almost all of the people who spend time contributing to these things are men, not women, who are measurebators. They find pleasure in piddling with equipment for its own sake, not in developing a better sounding system. They prefer talking shop to actually listening. These folks have what I call 'analysis paralysis' and never accomplish anything. It's their hobby to spend time reading and talking about it, and their little culture funnels them all into thinking alike. Sometimes their common thoughts are correct, but since they operate in a vacuum they are often completely off base.

These men often just have mud-slinging contests to show how much smarter they are by calling the other guys idiots. They are interested solely in equipment for its own sake. They will talk your ear off for hours if you let them. You should ignore them unless you really need to find an answer to some very narrow equipment issue. Does hovering over an oscilloscope analysing test data have anything to do with developing a fantastic sounding system? Of course not. Even worse, time wasted concentrating on tests is time not spent learning useful aspects about audio and certainly time that could have been better spent actually listening.

I have said it before and I will say it again and again.... There is no short cut to doing the hard yards and getting clewed up by listening to a lot of different systems rather then listening to the loudest, flashest commercial that promises the world and in the end delivers very little if you want to maximize your audio budget.

I hypothesize it is just easier and more socially acceptable for the uneducated consumer that wants a better then average sounding system to go for what is the most popular and well recognized to which their friends will commend them on their perceived 'good taste' rather then them try to have to explain and justify a seemingly 'odd ball' purchase to any doubting Thomas. Strange; but this is what many people are like.