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We may be neighbors, but we're miles apart...

Posted by robert young on March 21, 2007 at 13:56:50

In Reply to: That may be your take, and your reasons for reading audio mags, but..... posted by Rick W on March 21, 2007 at 10:54:56:

"manufacturers/dealers spend their $$ on ads (which keep the mags afloat) and send the review samples you enjoy reading about for one purpose only....SALES. I don't read car mags, but I doubt Audi or any other car maker provides cars for review purposes and/or ad $$ to car mags just so people who will never buy their cars can enjoy reading about them."

Maybe you missed the point of the post: I see no need to turn an enthusiast magazine into a consumer buying guide. The comparison I posited is between AUDIENCES, not ADVERTISERS, though I believe there are valid comparisons there as well. My analogy continues to hold true even with your "doubt:" Audi loves having the R8 reviewed, because people really like to read about supercars. There are very few made, and they are priced out of the stratosphere. What does Audi gain?? Trickle-down effect. They sell more A4s and A6s because they have a Posche-beater on the market. Audi sure doesn't hit their profit goals with an exotic sports car. The hit it by using the extreme to help market the technologies available down through the line. Likewise, WAVAC doesn't make their $350,000 amps to increase their profits, but to market their exclusivity and sell more of their reasonably priced amps.

The long and short? The mags compare well because the are ENTHUSIAST mags, not Consumer Reports.

"While I understand your point about i-pods and the like, other than casual observations what can you site to back up the idea that the hi-end is shrinking (hmm, you did say "if there's a problem")? There seems to be an ever increasing number of companies making/selling a greatly increased number of hifi products when compared to, say, 15 years ago. Maybe JA could tell us definitively, but what I've seen at four S'phile shows certainly doesn't indicate diminishing attendance. AFAIK S'phile readership ain't in decline. Dunno about TAS and other mags, but just in the last few years a number of audio e-zines have sprung up and seem to be flourishing. It seems that for every hifi B&M retailer that fails or concentrates on HT a web hifi outlet opens."

Umm, this time you got it right. I DON"T think there is a problem with the high-end. My point I tried to make was that IF there was any problem, it certainly wouldn't be because of editorial policy in a couple of enthusiast magazines. IF there is a problem, I would be looking to other sources, like the dropping of music education in public high schools....

"I think you're wrong about fewer people learning to play instruments and/or taking music courses. Yes, maybe fewer amateurs than many moons ago before recordings were ubiquitous and people played/sung for entertainment in their homes. But I doubt there's less amateurs since 20-30 years ago, and I definitely don't believe there are less pros. I know first hand that Manhattan School of Music in NYC is packed with students, as is Julliard and quite a few other conservatories. Jazz programs have sprung up in colleges all across the U.S. where there had been no such program 20 years ago. When I finished my studies at Berklee (1971) there was a total of 300 students at the school, now they have over 3,000. I do agree that the work scene for musicians is worsening, but despite this young talented players (classical, jazz, and rock) are still streaming into NYC from all over the world every year."

Well, I'm from Manhattan too, and I'm a bit surprised at your examples. Not because I don't believe you (I design music venues, among other cultural institutions, and was the designer of Zankel Hall under Carnegie, for one, so I am lucky enough to deal with the professional musician world frequently), but because I'm surprised you would use what happens in New York as an example of what's happening in the rest of the country. That is rarely, if ever, the case. And Berklee is a special case anyway. My point wasn't about professional musicians nor about college students: I was talking about public High Schools. Now are you going to tell me that public High Schools, who still "educate" a vast majority of the high-school-age students in thiis country, haven't cut music education to the bone?? Without treating music ass a major part of our cultural heritage, it becomes valueless to the masses who would eventually buy equipment and read audio mags. (The problem of the pro's is very different: they are not the most likely group to care about high-end music reproduction. They live with the real thing all the time, so the near-reproduction of what they do just doesn't seem too important...)

"I'll stand corrected if you can show me I'm wrong, but your view that "The existence of the information can't produce the desire: it is the desire needing the info that will make the enterprise successful..." seems to stand the whole concept of advertising on its head. Nobody is born with a desire to purchase 140 wpc tube amps, re-conditioned/re-plinthed idler wheel tt's, $7,000 cdp's, or even "budget" $2,000 systems (let alone Shun Mook, Shakti, the IC, Nespa, $5,000 racks, $2,000 power chords etc.). Reviews and ads create and spur the desire to get 'em. If it wasn't working mags like S'phile wouldn't exist."

Oh dear. My "view" was an opinion: You don't have to be "corrected," and I don't have to "prove" an opinion. And no, it doesn't stan advertising on its head at all: what it means is that for someone to want to own a 140 wpc (there's the "info") tube amp (to use your example), one has to love the music first (there's the "desire" part). "140 wpc" doesn't mean diddly all by itself, and I doubt that an advertiser just throws that fact out there without any regard to their target audience. The "target audience" already has the desire. That same target audience is the readership of the mags, and they read them not because there are 140 wpc tube amps advertised in them, but because the auddience is drawn to the equipment because they have the desire: they have a passion for the reproduction of music. Without that PASSION, the mags wouldn't exist.

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