[TONEPUB]

One of the things that vexes component manufacturers is how to get more people involved in this world.

I know a lot of people are scratching their heads about it, and Im curious, have any of you had luck
dragging your freinds into our world?  (or their wives too, for that matter)

I seem to see a big gap between the people that just love music and those of us that like good
hifi systems as well.  TONE, Stereophile and TAS aren't a hill of beans compared to Rolling Stone,
Spin, Paste, Gramophone and the others.

How do we get them from there to here?

[rollo]

Ah!
       The million dollar question.The answer is marketing the product to the main stream[retail].
       At home I had A music appreciation party.Asked quests to bring their favorite recordings over.After a drink or two we started playing the music and everyone just stopped talking and began to listen.
      By the end of the evening almost everyone said Never thought music could sound like this at home.To date 4 out of the 6 couples have invested in high end.The sales were closed when they were able to hear the system in their OWN HOME.
      I.m in the process now of offering in home auditions for a small fee which will be deducted from the discounted purchase price.so far so good.I will post on AC manf. ads when business is official.
   rollo

[TONEPUB]

That's awesome!

I know I have influenced a number of freinds and family members that way too.
Never make it at all technical, just get em listening to some good music that they
like!

Keep up the good work.  If that really develops into a full blown thing for you,
I'd love to do an article on it in the future.  It's good to spread the word.

I have a dealer here in Portland Oregon that started selling Leica cameras
along with his McIntosh and Naim franchise!  Turned out there was a lot of
crossover and hes been able to sell more of both!

I say whatever works!

[WEEZ]

Good topic. I'm really surprised by the number of people who don't listen to music at all. Maybe in the car...but sometimes not even then.

There seems to be recurring comments from those who do listen to music, that "I can't justify that kind of expense..I can't hear the difference anyway". We all know that's not true, so it simply must be a matter of priorities for those people. I have an old friend who CAN hear the difference in good gear and mediocre gear, but owns a Sony 'mini-system'. It sits on bookshelves in his den/family room. Therefore, it 'blends in'. As much as he loves music, his priorities are obviously different than mine.

I think the manufacturers need to target potential customers outside the audiophile magazines and on-line publications, frankly. The people that read that stuff (like us) are already hooked. But the typical music lover doesn't read Stereophile or TONE. They read newspapers and general interest magazines.

(When I mentioned re-tubing my pre-amp to a friend the other day he said "you mean they still make tubes?")

More thoughts in future posts...

[ZLS]

The manufacturer's need to find the key to open the door.  What is the most popular form of music listening among young people? IPods and streaming music.  You are starting to see IPod docking systems that take the given medium and allow better sound.  Computer speakers are another opportunity to be developed.  The future is in Hard Drive based systems that stress portability and flexability of programing.  Once you have established this customer base, a certain percentage (albeit) small will be motivated to purchase better sounding systems.  You have now increased your potential customer base instead of mining the same old (both literally and figuratively) demographic. 
    Give the people what they want.

[TONEPUB]

I agree with you on making the stuff better looking..
We have definitely done some focus on Naim, McIntosh and
Nagra.  Always trying to make the whole thing more harmless...

Also agree on the iPod, streaming comment.  We have a section
on our website called POD PEOPLE that should have some content
in a week or two.

Last but not least, we are changing the format of TONEAudio
a little bit with issue 9 and putting music in the front and
gear in the back.  We figure the hard core gear people will
still go to where the gear is and if we position ourselves more
as a music magazine, we can lure more of them in for the music
coverage, and hopefully they will stay to check out the gear too!

Keep the posts coming, we love the input!

[mfsoa]

This is a really tough question, one that has so much momentum going against it.
Just two examples - I'm sure many of our wives watch the home design shows. What's the first thing they do if any AV equipment is visible? Hide it! It must be buried! We can build boxes to put those speakers in! And these shows are on 24/7. And watched by (and influencing) many many people. How are we going to compete with that onslaught?

A more specific example - My brother goes to do a site survey at a house. Two doctors. Two nice Benzes. Huge house. Now these people, somehow, have been convinced that they could never have an Accord/Camry in that driveway. Never could they suffer such humiliation!!  But they have no problem throwing an elegant dinner party with their Sansui rack system! This guy was stunned to hear that my bro wanted him to spend $500 on a surround receiver! (Can't we just run the surround speakers from the (non Dolby) receiver I already have?) Our industry has done a poor job of selling Luxury. But who is going to do that? Who has the resources? No one. Krell and Wilson I'm sure have swayed a few, but I just don't see the possibility of advertising on the scale that the accepted "upscale" brands can do.

And it'll be even harder to get the vidoegame generation into this hobby, with the wretched music that they are being fed.

[bikes and beats]

Hey guys,
I just asked my fiance this question and she says,
"Make it accesible and really easy to use and Fu**'n cool (like Apple). And make it something we absolutely have to have. The problem with your audiophile stuff is its just too darn hard to use!"

It seems like pandering honestly to be asking us this question. We don't know. We're not part of that world. We're audiophiles, the more obsessive natured music appreciators of the world.

To the kind sir from Tone pub., I'd suggest some sort of survey or query or focus group of people who are not audiophiles and do not subscribe to or view your magazine online. Talk to Johnny on the street. What does the he think?!? I'd bet a major problem is that much of what the audiophile industry does flies in the face of what many people want. Something small, portable and cool. A wave radio from Bose probably. They don't WANT to be involved. They just pant to press play on the remote and go about their business. If THAT could be packaged and sold and still preserve some semblance of musical purity (and it wasn't $5,000) I'd buy it!

[bikes and beats]

Differentiation has to be readily distinguishable.
No one is going to pay 20-100 times as much for what they percieve is the same thing!
This may be a basic trap of any niche market. I work in the bicycle industry and we're hopeless at attracting new customers. Occasionally we brilliantly latch onto a current buzzword and market bikes as a a palative for obesity or global warming but we still are challenged to penetrate the main stream. And I know it's expensive, but someone's going to have to shell out for banner ads on Yahoo, MSN or Maxim's Web sites. You pays your money and takes your chances, right?
-mike

[Harmon]

I think that one of the main problems of getting people into high-end audio, as opposed to mid-fi systems, is the hyped up costs of high-end components. As most of us audiophiles know, whether they are AudioCircle members or not, very high-end stuff can be purchased at a reasonable price online but one has to do the research and thus have the knowledge of what components are the good stuff. Most people may not have the time or interest in gathering this type of knowledge. If the average person who has some interest in high-end components walks into a stereo boutique store they may get turned off by the high cost of the components. Just my 2 cents.

[AB]

The question should be recast: How do we get people to really listen to music rather than having it just as background soundtrack?

Once you convince folks that music can be/is worth paying close attention to, they will seek out the gear with which to listen carefully.

Unfortunately this is difficult to do. Who has time to sit and just listen?

Folks today are so busy with work and life and have so many options competing for their free time that you are as likely to find the average American or European sitting and listening to music as you are to find them engaged in a chaji.

[BradJudy]

Well, lets break it down a bit and discuss some parallels in other areas. 

First, let's forget about any comparisons to Rolling Stone/SPIN/etc because those publications are about celebrities (and sometimes music) - the important differentiation is that readers are buying because they are 'consuming' the person behind the music (my definition of celebrity status is when people begin to "consume" you as an individual in addition to, or rather than, whatever you create).

Let's look at car magazines:  In several ways, the automotive industry is the closest parallel to audio magazines.  Most people in the US have a car or motorcycle, but most aren't 'enthusiasts', they just drive their car to work/school/shopping/etc.  Audio equipment is very similar - most people listen to music on something, but not many are really into it (fewer than are into cars). 

At the heart of your question is 'what makes an owner into an enthusiast?'  Some answers: friends and family (always big influences), motivating products, good marketing and opportunity. 

First, motivating products must exist - there has to be things for people to get excited about.  There has to be great things to drool over like the Ferrari 599, and it can't all be super high-end either.  The enthusiast who lusts after a Ferrari 599 has to have something in their reach to get a taste of performance, maybe it's a Corvette.  The Corvette isn't some poor-man's knock-off though - it's a very good sports car that happens to cost a fraction of the super high-end ones.  The products must also be in-line with consumer interests.  We've all seen cars come and go that were products looking for a consumer.

High-end audio has struggled on a couple of counts in this area.  First is products that are in-line with consumer interests: iPods and plasma TV's.  High-end audio has been far too slow to catch on to changes in consumer interests and adapt.  Second is the Corvette - the very good option that is within reach of lots of people. 

Good marketing: Whatever people think about the products, Apple and Bose are the only two good audio marketers in the past several years (if Monster hadn't been greedy and generated bad PR for itself, it might have qualified too).  Everyone has or wants an iPod and a Bose home theater (don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise).  Why? Because the products were motivating and the marketing was good.  The answer isn't ads in audio pubs either - it's ads in non-audio magazines and websites.

Opportunity: The first two are about generating a desire for products, this is about actually acquiring them.  Opportunity is both the costs involved and the exposure to the products.  You can't buy something you don't know about or that you can't afford.  You need to have a chance to get your feet wet.  Granted, there are many enthusiasts who never have an opportunity to acquire what they desire, but they usually don't drive an average car either.  They likely drive a bang-for-the-buck sports car, restore an older car, or modify their car for performance. 

I'll have to end my musing there since I need to head out.

[launche]

I would agree with most of what's been said before.
Especially, stop giving the impression that a nice hi-fi system has to cost $50,000.  IMO that is the biggest mistake.  Marketing is key.  Also it would help if brands would make complete systems again, newbees don't want to do all the component matching etc.  So vendors should develop partnerships or what have you  and deisgn ready made systems built to work together, that would go a long way for our hobby.  Hi-fi in a box is the ticket ( and I don't mean that in a cheap way) and as the interest grows the consumer can mix and match as they like.  Wonder how folks are finding it much easier to make the leap into home theater, whether it be a HTIB to building a full blown dedicated space.  And they seem to enjoy it immmensly.  No one other than an audiophile wants to build a dedicated music room, it's too specialized and too personal.  With HT a family and friends can enjoy the experience.  With Hi-fi it's pretty much a one man show and that's how the masses see it and mostly how it is.   I have many friends and a few people I share my little audio system and home theater system with and most of them walk away enjoying the HT more and wanting to do that for themselves.  HT is marketed better and is much cooler to be into now than hi-fi IMO.

Just some quick thoughts, gotta go watch a movie.

[chadh]

Maybe audiophilia is sort of like peoples' passion for sports cars.  Except in one major respect.  Sports cars get you laid, and stereo systems don't.

Seriously:  the person who is nuts over cars, and owns some flashy sports car is someone others admire.  He is cool.  The person with the really expensive stereo is a geek.  Or worse:  if his speakers are way too big, he's a geek trying to compensate for his...ah...shortcomings.

Ultimately, the secret to attracting a lot of interest is to find a way to link your activity (any activity) to sex.  It works for political and religious youth groups, it works for cars, it works for musicians...it can work for home stereo too.  I'd play up the "Bolero" angle, from 10.

Chad

[WEEZ]

Most old farts like me grew up with hifi. When I was young, my hometown had (4) stereo shops. It now has none.

What if the "Industry" attempted to market to music students? How? Maybe thru the Music Educators Association?

What if the print magazines and the webzines marketed themselves thru 'student newspapers'?

What if local associations or audio clubs gave a talk/demonstation in local schools?

What if a manufacturer put a 'system' on display at a local record store? Or at a local furniture store?

Most producers of audio gear market only within the small world of audio geeks like us. It's like preaching to the choir.

Is it time to think outside the norm?

[tex-amp]

Make the stuff easy enough to use that our spouses can walk up to our systems and figure it out!  I've taken to recommending the NAD L53 as it is all in one box. 

The industry needs a remote standard. My HT has five remotes! TV, cable, DVD player, VCR, and receiver remotes(6 with the master). The master remotes and macros aren't easy for the average person to set-up nor to convince them to buy a $200+ remote and then pay someone to set it up for them. Now my 2 channel rig is all Audio Refinement and the one remote handles all of it.

Keep the hundreds or thousands of dollars wires out of the public eye.  It is a few feet of copper or silver for goodness sake!

The major CE companies have done a lousy job educating the consumer about the advantages of products such as; SACD, DVD-A, HDCD, and so forth.

Maybe someone can get the big boxes to hold Saturday how-to clinics for electronics like Home Depot and Lowes do for home improvement.

Maybe your magazine could have an Audio For Idiots section where things are explained very simply.   Such as SACD- what it is, what it takes to use it, whether or not there is any sonic advantage to SACD over redbook, etc. Or on music servers- again what it is , what you need do with your computer and stereo to get a music server up and running.  Put together so low cost systems and evaluate them.  The British hi-hi publications put together systems as well as rating multiple components against each other all the time. Why do none of the US publications do this?

Someone like Apple is going to come up with an easy to use affordable music(video too?) server that is going to kill off the CD player and receiver/ pre-pro.  What is the receiver/processor but a type of computer?  Why is the computer of the pre/pro so expensive compared to the other computers in our lives? The CE industry doesn't want it to happen cause they want to sell their separate products. Look to the computer industry for the next big change in audio. The sooloos server at CES was an amazing product. Now if someone could get that price down around a thousand.....

[JLM]

Keep cost down, complication within reason, design to the lifestyle of "the straights", make it cool, and have it sound something like "real stereo" (IMO it must do "the imaging/soundstaging thing"). 

When $1500 gets you an entry-level integrated amp (or $2000 for separates) and passive pre-amps fetch hundreds/thousands it's time to admit that the price to step into high-end audio is too high.  (And those are prices from AC vendors which most here accept as quite reasonable.) 

Now folks are paying hundreds just for HT setup.  One look at the back of a 7.1 receiver tells it all.  We also need to avoid tweaks and expensive accessories ($4000 isolation feet, $2000 wires, exotic/massive racks, dominating room treatments).  Offering the simple alternative to this should be on the agenda.

Forget old technology like vinyl and tubes, think downloads and MP3.  The goal is 90% of the gain for 10% of the sweat.  Come to the market and where they live, don't make them "climb the mountain". 

Introduce them to the magic of stereo (which originally meant "solid" as in imaging, but that unfortunately gets lost all too easily).  I'd vote for small single driver speakers, like Omega Super 3 or TBI Majestic Diamond (be sure to read both 6moons reviews) that can perform as "active" speakers, focus on the heart of music (80 - 8,000 Hz), and easily fit into most domestic settings (or be moved in and out of place).

Shanling just introduced something along these lines: 

http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2007/011007shanling/

For $1000 USD you get CD/AM/FM, I-Pod cradle, remote, eye candy Shanling looks with exposed tubes, 3 wpc (could use more juice, especially so you could move it into the main/larger room), and it's compact.  Just add a pair of small/efficient speakers (sub could come later).

Vendors will have to decide if whatever they come up with will compete with or embrace HT.  Even Bose advertizes a 2.1 HT system, so John Q Public might be ready for an audiophile system that embraces video. 

Vendors should also consider offering:
1.)  PC connectivity for access to ripped music and internet streaming;
2.)  XM downloads.

[tex-amp]

When $1500 gets you an entry-level integrated amp (or $2000 for separates) and passive pre-amps fetch hundreds/thousands it's time to admit that the price to step into high-end audio is too high.  (And those are prices from AC vendors which most here accept as quite reasonable.) 

Arcam, Cambridge Audio, Dussun, Jolida, Music Hall, Nad, Onix, Rotel, and others have entry level integrated amps for half of that $1500 or less.

[jkelly]

BTW, this is a great topic to ask at the lunch table.
Have you actually asked friends about our world?
You'll get some interesting answers!

Some have said to me that it is similar to when
entertainment from radio moved to TV.  All of a
sudden audio wasn't enough.  Multimedia moved
to electronics.  Sitting in front of a radio just didn't
seem to make sense anymore.  Ever think that when
you see an old photo of a family in the living room
looking at the floor listening to the radio?

Today multi-tasking is the keyword.  Music is with us
when we are driving, commuting, jogging, watching videos, etc,
but very rarely for single-tasking.  For large amounts of people,
sitting in front of a stereo doesn't seem to make sense anymore.

I have to ask - is this why the iPod has been so sucessful?
 
It is not the equipment folks alone that are trying to figure this out.
The whole music industry has been turned upside down with this
culture change, distribution change and "audio player" change.

The single song approach,  PC's as media centers, iPods as media
players all result from this culture change.

Like anything - it's a classic question of what's in it for me.
If the small amount of people willing to enter a lifestyle relationship
with audio can get a taste of the enjoyment of high quality
audio reproduction, some might pursue it.  And I am talking
about just audio as a hobby - not even the idea of big bucks.

I would love to see industry funded listening rooms in
high traffic areas, similar to the AR live/recorded demos to
market the experience of high quality audio.

So on the S curve of high-end audio - where do you think we are?

Jeff

PS - I firmly believe that DRM is the worst thing possible for audio.

[sleepysurf]

IMHO, as a baby-boomer audiophile, with 3 NON-audiophile, but iPod-centric kids (ages 14-22), here are some things the audio/music industry should do, if they want to survive...

1) Get rid of DRM
2) Include FREE Apple Lossless demo tracks on all iPods, and some FREE Apple Lossless downloads, to introduce the "new" generation of music consumers to higher fidelity recordings
3) High(er) end manufacturers/retailers need to go "outside the box" with new promotions, e.g. sponsoring live music concerts, advertising and/or audio demos at malls, coffee shops, bookstores, and other high-traffic areas
4) High(er) end shops, WITH THE SUPPORT OF MANUFACTURERS, should invite folks to bring in their iPods, MP3 players, and favorite CD's to audition on entry level (or higher) equipment, with no strings attached (no pushy selling, or "high end" attitude)

I'm beginning to think there are actually <10,000 "audiophiles" left in the world, and most of us are just reading and cross-posting to one another in the various online audio forums.  The industry needs to reach out to everybody else who is NOT surfing these sites!