The Hi-Fi Industry and Hobby

[Colin Wonfor]

Quote in part from Doc:-

"Dave I used to deal with Hi-Fi retailers, I would prefer to have my balls cut off with a rusty knife than do it again. They take 50% of the money and even then you have to fight them to get paid. I would not treat my customers that way. Remember there is no dealer margin built into my prices, I sell to the end user at trade price. "

I agree Doc getting paid was in the days of Inca Tech a bloody nightmare, as to profit well we all need our kit seen and heard the NET is great but you can not compare sounds, sale or return maybe if every customer was honest but are they?
So the retailer offers away for people to compare and select systems without parting with money and sending it back and the time that can waste if it is not for your system or wife.

OK so who pays for the listening room? and maybe a good sale one a month may help after staff, rent, rate, electrics and all the other stuff shops have to pay for? and who pays for all the stock kept in good working order so you can compare, and from bitter experience at a shop in Yeovil some of that sits around for years, just because the owner had faith in the product. All this and more has to be paid for, the problem we have is not the dealers it is cheap and nasty import that have been seen on TV and marketed with huge sums of money, this can offer a good return so why bother with Inca Tech,Onix, NVA, etc
It is a shame Joe and Sue in the street never ever get a chance to be educated on what music should sound like because they have been brainwashed in thinking Bose, IPlayers, MP3, and crap radio station produce music and us little gem makers are not even noticed.
It bloody shit world where only Money and TV fame talk, because nobody wants to learn or question or think.

Sorry DQ grammar and spelling is crap.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well sorry I have to *completely* digsagree with you. Who is importing all this shit - MIDDLE MEN! (slurpers)

[Classicrock]

3 kinds of Import. 1. High end bling which you won't hear off in 5 years and likely difficult to service and repair. This is the stuff I think Doc is on about and dealers don't have repair engineers any more as back up even a very big one in Coventry I found. 2. Affordable middle market which is sold by Richer Sounds and a few others. Richer are only ones who sell a UK designed made in China 'Own Brand' . 3. Mass market audio (not hi-fi) which involves big corporations that often have their own outlets (Apple, Sony).

[Colin Wonfor]

Well sorry I have to *completely* digsagree with you. Who is importing all this shit - MIDDLE MEN! (slurpers)

I would agree also for most products except for the big ones, who have there own distribution net work, and they are the ones with money to burn.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Speakers are the simplest thing in a hi-fi system, and everyone is bullshitting everyone else to stop them realising it. There is a basic premise that ANY speaker design should be sold with - listen to them with your music in your system in your room and make a choice on that. But does anyone in the trade want that - of course not.

Start with the retailer, he wants bullshit so he doesn't have to work hard for a sale, he wants the bullshit to do it for him. If he followed my rule he would have to give more choice and work harder doing home dems. Plus he is under rep pressure and big company account dept pressure to do more business with the biggest bullshitters.

Next the reps, they NEED the bullshit or else they have nothing to talk about that sets what they sell apart from others, they don't understand it and don't need to as the retailer they sell to don't understand it either, just as long as the bullshit contains the right hi-fi bollocks talk / words as created by the marketing men and reviewers.

So that then brings us to the reviewers - a good review "I liked (didn't like) it, and I recommend you listen to it to see if I am right" - end of review! would he get paid for that, do the magazines want that, of course not, they need and want bullshit. The reviewer needs the marketing mans bullshit to play his word games around to justify his fees - that is the reality.

The designer, well in the old days, and hopefully now in the new upcoming days, they usually owned the company. But any that were successful sold out to the bean counters and bullshit marketing men, or the original owners were forced out as exampled in Colin Wonfor. So the companies now are owned by people who know feck all about loudspeakers even if they think they do, apart from what they have been told or what has become convention, so they repeat bullshit as though it is scientific fact. So a designer has bullshitted himself into being employed on a good salary, so to keep his job he has to invent more bullshit to justify his salary and keep his job - note nothing to do with good speakers and good music, all to do with bullshit test equip and anechoic chamber bullshit charts that have absolutely nothing to do with music. You see as long as he makes it technical, scientific, even if he makes it all up he will be given the job or keep an existing job as the bean counters and marketing men haven't a clue what he is talking about but will all nod along in unison. So you have Kef, B&W, Harbeth, Spendor etc etc

Here is an example of exactly what I mean http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... 877fb3597e complete fecking bullshit!!

Up until the late 60's it was all very simple, simple technology, well made and designed drivers. Solid heavy cabinets, MUSIC, even the studios were giving you good recordings. BBC design and the cashing in of it was the start of the decline.

This current bullshit industry is now dying, thank god. The bean counters will no longer find they can make enough money from us. Designer owned companies will emerge again, artisan hi-fi, music will come back and not just noise.

[antonio66]

I wouldn't have just limited it to speakers, agree 100%

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Speakers are an extreme example because in reality they are so simple.

[Lindsayt]

If speakers are so technically simple, why are there so many poor sounding modern speakers around?

It wouldn't be so bad if they were marketed and reviewed for what they are: lifestyle products.
Instead they are almost universally marketed and reviewed as if they are full-on attempts at producing the very finest reproduction known to man.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I explained why. Designers need to bullshit to keep their jobs so they produce over complicated bullshit to impress their bosses and give the marketing men bullshit stories to pass to the reps and the reviewers. It all started with the BBC bullshit, that worked for the marketing men and it has gone on from there.

FFS Lindsay you of anyone should know what I am talking about as you sing the praises of the big simple things that just played music, like the ones you own.

[karatestu]

Over the years i have gone from label worshipping to mild scepticism (brought on by my discovery of internet audio forums) . That is when i started messing about with the internals of equipent. Now i am mostly sceptical and hate all the dreamt up by the industry and the drivel written by a lot of internet warriors. There are some i listen to however.

I believe i have to find things out for myself and judge them with my ears, not how someone else says they sound or measure. Along my diy journey i have had no test equipment so it has all been subjective. When i finally decided to join this forum i relised my eyes are now fully open and i am free

Stu