How do you make audio "cool" to bring in new blood?

caesar · Mar 6, 2011

To grow, the audio industry needs new blood. Anyone have any thoughts on how to make the industry cool?

- Joint ventures with Apple?
- Publicity with celebrities considered "cool" by people under 40?
- Get articles written in GQ?
- Audiophile Branded car stereos in downmarket cars?

?????

garylkoh · Mar 6, 2011

This is something I've been ranting about for the past 5 years - the US audio industry will go the way of the dodo bird if it does not re-invent itself. Here are some ideas (not in order of merit - just what comes to mind first):

Grow the pie together instead of slicing it up before it's had a chance to grow
Manufacturers need to support each other and be positive towards competition
A national Buy American campaign (this should not be restricted just to audio)
Support the music industry and vice versa
Be open and inventive - not everybody is out to steal your ideas
Turn listening to reproduced music into a social activity

Mike Lavigne · Mar 6, 2011

caesar said:
To grow, the audio industry needs new blood. Anyone have any thoughts on how to make the industry cool?

- Joint ventures with Apple?
- Publicity with celebrities considered "cool" by people under 40?
- Get articles written in GQ?
- Audiophile Branded car stereos in downmarket cars?

?????

you don't worry about it. high end audio either is worthy of sustaining itself or it's not. the passion should be contaigious.

personally i approach this issue just like any other question in this hobby; it's all about listening and being captivated by what you hear. when people hear i'm an audiophile i invite them to come listen. many accept my invitation and a good percentage of those have become serious about the hobby.

forget about force-feeding the high end audio experience thru marketing. ask people to listen and the music will do it's thing with those who 'get it'.

great sounding music can stir your soul and is worth going to the trouble to be able to enjoy.

caesar · Mar 6, 2011

Mike Lavigne said:
you don't worry about it. high end audio either is worthy of sustaining itself or it's not. the passion should be contaigious.

personally i approach this issue just like any other question in this hobby; it's all about listening and being captivated by what you hear. when people hear i'm an audiophile i invite them to come listen. many accept my invitation and a good percentage of those have become serious about the hobby.

forget about force-feeding the high end audio experience thru marketing. ask people to listen and the music will do it's thing with those who 'get it'.

great sounding music can stir your soul and is worth going to the trouble to be able to enjoy.

Mike, I am not sure I agree with you 100%. Of course, great music can stir your soul. Sure, Marketing and sales have a bad connotation, and it seems like they affect you in this way. We think of some slimy car salesman in a cheap suit pushing something you don't want. But marketing is much more than this. It can also be much more subtle, and frequently it is about just getting people's attention and peaking their curiosity just as your invitation for folks to listen to great sound. But the big challenge is to get MANY new folks to have those life changing experiences you are talking about.

And it does not have to be a collective industry solution "to save high end". It could be done by individual audio companies and dealers to creatively market their products. Some dealers are very good about having open houses. One dealer, who may also be a member here (Elliott G???), advertised his open house in Absolute Sound and on their website. Definitely more audio companies should do this in audio dealers, Best buys, and video stores - and more frequently. Maybe they can rent out a room in Best Buy to demo their system, kind of like Chanel rents out a room in fancy department stores like Nieman Marcus. A broad range of people can come in and experience.

Using influential superstars (the Oprah effect) is another way. My memory is failiing me at the moment, but there is a scene from a Martin Scorcese movie that shows a stack of Macintosh gear in Matt Damon's apartment for a few seconds. What if Matt Damon could be photographed with this, and the picture shown in GQ? Or even better, what if there was a story about Matt Damon and there was a picture and mention of Mac gear in the story?

High end will be saved when individual dealers and companies creatively market themselves.

fas42 · Mar 6, 2011

This will reflect my own hobby horse, but the simple, obvious answer is that systems aren't good enough. If you appreciate the energy that music played or reproduced well brings to the environment then there should be no problems getting people on board. The trouble is, you take a favourite recording to a "good" dealer, and it sounds terrible on their fancy gear. "Your fault, sir", they say, "for bringing in a lousy recording. You see, you have to learn that a lot or most recordings are bad, and that a good system will reveal this, so you have get rid of all that rubbish, that poorly recorded material. When you play the RIGHT recordings, then you will understand how good this system is!"

"Blow this for a joke", say the potential initiate, and moves on ...

I have seen this happen just recently, with the friend I'm helping out with his analogue setup. Some neighbours who had been enthusiastic audio people many years ago popped in for a talk and listen. At the beginning the system was on song, and they were quite entranced. Then a weakness started to rear its ugly head, and the sound started to degrade. Subtle, but it was there, the sort of thing I mentioned here many times, earlier on. I could see the two start to get twitchy, and before long they stood up and made excuses for having to get on with the day. After they left, the system owner realised that he had made a slight mistake with a connection, and corrected the problem there and then. Presto, sound restored.

The point being, systems ALWAYS have to be on song, for ordinary people to "get it". People do have good hearing, and something not quite right will irritate them enough to say it's not worth it, and forget about getting involved ...

Frank

mep · Mar 6, 2011

tomelex said:
Big expensive systems with big speakers are not cool and nor do they have to be cool. Tom

Really? Says who? I think they are cool. Way cooler than a cheap system with small speakers or having to wear a pair of cans on your head. Cans aren’t cool. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

Phelonious Ponk · Mar 6, 2011

mep said:
Really? Says who?

All those folks who have noticed that almost no one under 50 owns a "high-end" audio system.

Tim

mep · Mar 6, 2011

Tim-I'm pretty sure that if the almost no ones under 50 that don't have a high-end system could hear a high-end system and assuming they love music, they would think it was cool and they would want one.

JackD201 · Mar 6, 2011

I would think we'd have to get back to the very core. That would be appreciation of music as the art form that it is. It is the only way for a person to make listening a primary activity. By that I mean, to have a person actually set aside time to do nothing but actively listen.

Putting myself in the shoes of the man on the street, a very young man on the street, we must all seem a bit odd. We sit in darkened rooms with our eyes closed sometimes with a drink in hand. The rooms are often littered with cables and more components and racks to hold them that look alien and intimidating. Kind of makes us look like movie villains taking a breather doesn't it? That could be a cool thing in a roundabout way. I imagine a scene with Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader or any Bond evil mastermind, chillin' to a kick a$$ rig would bring an aura of "cool". Product placement people! Product placement!

Seriously though, in today's world, the high end just has to make the process as simple as possible. I'd like to see joint efforts by loudspeaker and electronic manufacturers do sub $2000 complete packages that are so good that they will compel people sit down and listen again. Tall slender, wide dispersion actives that can go low with all cabling supplied comes to mind.

Go make a prototype Gary! Then license out the sucker. If it works I'll e-mail you my bank account for my consultation fee. Hahahahaha.

fas42 · Mar 6, 2011

Seriously though, in today's world, the high end just has to make the process as simple as possible. I'd like to see joint efforts by loudspeaker and electronic manufacturers do sub $2000 complete packages that are so good that they will compel people sit down and listen again. Tall slender, wide dispersion actives that can go low with all cabling supplied comes to mind.

Exactly what's required ...

Frank

Phelonious Ponk · Mar 6, 2011

Here's my serious answer: Civilians don't listen to gear, they just listen to music. Are they capable of appreciating really good reproduction? Sure. But to get them away from their flat screens and blu rays and surround sound, to get them to sit down and really listen to music, it's going to take something compelling in music, not in speakers or amplification. We need a new Frank, a new Elvis, a new Dylan, a new Beatles. We need a genre-creating, culture-defining, paradigm-shifting artist so creative and commercial that millions of kids would rather hang on every word and beat than watch Transformers 5.

It has been a long, long time. It wasn't the Bee Gees or Michael Jackson. God knows it's not Justin Bieber. We're still waiting.

Tim

audioguy · Mar 6, 2011

We are beating a dead horse. A dealer in Atlanta for 23 years folded his tent about 18 months ago. When I visited him as he was clearing out, he provided the following observation:

The days of a guy coming into the store to buy a $20,000 system (for example) including turntable, speakers, amps, CD player, etc are over. The same guy now comes in (with wife and children) and wants to spend the same $20,000 on a flat screen TV, 5 speakers, a sub, SSP, DVD player.

We need to get over it. While most on this thread love our music systems, there are now way too many opportunities to spend stereo dollars on other kinds of entertainment ; PCs, iPads, surround sound systems, MP3 players.

Mike L must have different kinds of friends than I do. While I have never had any visitor get into this hobby as a result of coming to my home (and while my systems may not be up to Mike's quality, they have still been outstanding systems), some may have decided to invest in a surround sound system for movies.

I am a firm believer that one can get a sense of what the high end audio business will do by attending classical concerts. I have had season tickets to the Atlanta Symphony for over 20 years. And what I have easily observed is that the audience is getting older. Much older. This does not mean that only classical music is played on good stereos but it does give an indication of who is willing to actually sit down in front of a system and just listen.

One man's opinion. There will always be that group of individuals who do enjoy just sitting and listening to music, but I see that group continuing to shrink -- not grow.

mep · Mar 6, 2011

Tim-I can't remember the last time a great group/recording artist sprang on the scene. I'm pretty sure we will never see another group like the Beatles in our lifetime. I don't buy much "new" music. Now that I have found a love for jazz, I'm chasing recordings from the 1950s and 1960s and loving them. I'm blown away every time I put one on and hear how great the musicians were and how great the recordings are-flawed analog and all. I'm not interested in pop stars that are created by record labels that can't really sing unless it's through a pitch box and then heavily processed so it sounds like they can sort of sing. It would be great if a new "super group" would appear and blow us all away with their talent.

And Audioguy, somebody is buying high-end gear or there wouldn't be so many companies still in business. The world is a different place now with a different pace. It does seem like people are too busy doing nothing. When I see how attached people are to their cell phones and how much time they spend yakking, I wonder how we ever got along as a society before cell phones came on the scene. People can't seem to go anywhere without having to yak on their phone. Somehow we used to manage without them. It makes me think that the majority of conversations are pretty much drivel unless you are talking business.

Phelonious Ponk · Mar 6, 2011

Tim-I can't remember the last time a great group/recording artist sprang on the scene. I'm pretty sure we will never see another group like the Beatles in our lifetime. I don't buy much "new" music. Now that I have found a love for jazz, I'm chasing recordings from the 1950s and 1960s and loving them. I'm blown away every time I put one on and hear how great the musicians were and how great the recordings are-flawed analog and all. I'm not interested in pop stars that are created by record labels that can't really sing unless it's through a pitch box and then heavily processed so it sounds like they can sort of sing. It would be great if a new "super group" would appear and blow us all away with their talent.

If they do come along, Mark, they probably won't blow us away. We probably won't get it any more than our parents got Dylan. I'm running down the jazz road myself. I've been at it for awhile, but there is just so much there to discover. Just the other day I picked up "Ella and Louis." Can't believe I hadn't heard it before. Just amazing. Certainly not audiophile, but who cares.

Tim

Alan Sircom · Mar 6, 2011

More people than ever enjoy more music than ever. They do so on smartphones, laptops and iPods while they go about their daily lives. They have no need of being forced to sit down and listen to their music in a specific place, and the idea of being so compelled by that sound as to put aside the minutiae of those daily lives and listen exclusively to music is absurd to them.

All of which means there's no magic bullet, no keenly priced wonder-system that will transform people into audio enthusiasts. Instead, audio needs to adapt to fit the requirements of modern users, instead of getting modern users to bend to the idiosyncrasies of audio. Then, and only then, can audio be cool again.

Until that time, there's no point seeking out associations with bigger consumer electronics brands, expensive celebrity endorsements and product placement, ICE tie-ins or any other bright marketing idea. Audio has to retask itself and be dragged fully into the 21st Century before such things have any chance of real success.

jazdoc · Mar 6, 2011

I think Alan is spot on. We are literally surrounded by music; in the car, on TV, on the radio, on our iPods, Muzak at work and shopping mall, etc. Ironically, the fact that music is ubiquitous, the act of listening to recording music has become mundane; just part of the background noise of everyday life. I think what sets audiophiles apart is that they still feel the act of sitting and immersing themselves in excellent sound is special.

JackD201 · Mar 6, 2011

Hi Alan,

If I were to look at things from your perspective, audio already IS a huge success. So successful that it has been commoditized like oven toasters or brake pads. You can enjoy your toast and stop your car but I don't think that was what the OP meant when he started this thread. My understanding is of the OP is how can the industry make listening as a primary activity cool again.

So far I'm really liking what members are coming up with, yourself included of course. In essence we're all talking about creating or opening gateways to the mass market. Gateways that lead not to simple entry but entries with more ambitious performance trajectories. So, like unfortunately the most successful marketing model ever employs, the drug trade (both legal and illicit) you give a sample. You create a need then satisfy it. Gosh that sounds awful but excuse me if I shelve political correctness for the time being. I'm finding it very difficult to communicate on tip toes.

audioguy · Mar 6, 2011

I think Alan has hit it spot on.

While it may not be applicable any more, in the heyday of the high end (the mid 80's) I remember a local high end shop setting up a very nice but moderate system (Martin Logan speakers and reasonable electronics) in a BMW showroom. Right target audience. It worked like a charm and given the less than superb acoustics, sounded reasonably nice.

I'm not convinced the same strategy would do quite so well today.

AMP · Mar 6, 2011

jazdoc said:
I think Alan is spot on. We are literally surrounded by music; in the car, on TV, on the radio, on our iPods, Muzak at work and shopping mall, etc. Ironically, the fact that music is ubiquitous, the act of listening to recording music has become mundane; just part of the background noise of everyday life. I think what sets audiophiles apart is that they still feel the act of sitting and immersing themselves in excellent sound is special.

I couldn't agree more and to add....

I typically look at most audiophiles as a combination of two disparate types. There's the music lover who is simply looking for a better way to fulfill his passion for music and there's the analyst who is looking for a way to extract more and more information from his music. I, and most audiophiles I know, are a combination of the two, but the common thread is the fact that sitting and enjoying a piece of music is considered to be a worthwhile activity in and of itself.

If you look at younger generations in today's society you'll note that the common thread is multi-tasking. The thought of sitting and doing one thing, especially one thing as passive as listening to music, is completely foreign. Even I'm not immune to that as right now, I'm watching TV, surfing Audiogon, replying to emails, and writing this post. Assuming for a second that there's nothing wrong with the ever-increasing pressures to multi-task the one thing that people are forgetting how to do is spend some concentrated time appreciating something. It can be music, art, film, a good book, or good company.

Think about it, how often do families sit down and enjoy each others company anymore with no other distractions? When was the last time you went to a movie and didn't see someone holding a text/email conversation on their smartphone while simultaneously watching the movie?

Audio in itself isn't the only thing that's dying here, it's much worse than that. People, especially younger people, are losing their ability to truly concentrate and create intimate knowledge of their environment. They're losing the ability appreciate the creations of their fellow human beings.

High end audio is simply a casualty of this larger problem.

AMP · Mar 6, 2011

audioguy said:
While it may not be applicable any more, in the heyday of the high end (the mid 80's) I remember a local high end shop setting up a very nice but moderate system (Martin Logan speakers and reasonable electronics) in a BMW showroom. Right target audience. It worked like a charm and given the less than superb acoustics, sounded reasonably nice.

I'm not convinced the same strategy would do quite so well today.

I own a high-end independent BMW repair shop... we're currently tooling up to provide the absolute best level of service possible and targeting the high-end customers. We have a spotless facility and a very comfortable waiting area. I am seriously considering doing just this... in partnership with my high-end audio dealer.

How do you make audio "cool" to bring in new blood?

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