[nanaholic]

Quote:

 
Maybe that's how it worked in the 60's and earlier, but not so much today.  The Edsel was launched without pre-release market research and look how well it found it new market!  It too was launched in bad economic times but in a larger period of great growth in car sales.
 
Today companies with any brains don't launch a flyer.  They have done their market research and have identified a viable market in advance of release into which its (new) products are a great fit.
 
Creating a new market is almost always tougher--and much riskier--than plugging into an existing and growing one--like the current ones for headphones.

 
No it most certainly still happens today.  Take some very relevant and successful example - the iPod and the iPad, both created their own market almost entirely from scratch which completely ignores what supposedly the customers want or should want from market research (the original iPod was argued to be too expensive, too much capacity etc, the iPad as a internet tablet has no Flash which most website has etc, all reasons from hind sight made sense but during conception and initial announcement was deemed unthinkable "mistakes" which flies in the face of careful market research).  What about Tesla?  Tesla also shunt the "eco electric car" that supposedly is what customers want (because customers buying electric are concerned about eco-friendliness as shown by the Toyota Prius hybrid, right?)  and instead made electric sports car and they are thriving.  Sure it is hard but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but when it happens usually it makes for some very big impact.  Heck in hind sight even the Beats brand did exactly this - who knew there was supposed to be a young generation of music listeners who want their headphones to be akin to fashion statements? 
 
There's a whole book arguing about how this work call "Innovator's Dilemma" (a book which is said to inspire Steve Jobs himself, and which I'm sure is read by many CEOs now)  written in the 90s which deals exactly how companies should be dealing with changing markets and disruptive forces, how sensible and competent managements can actually be fatal to a company, and why and when to ignore market research in special cases.  It's a good book and I recommend people to read it if they are interested in how technology products are developed.  
 
As for plugging into an existing market, again Denon had probably failed here from the old D series (the heavy discount as point out multiple times and not just by me now) which people seems to completely ignore.  You may not like their new design but I really don't think you can say their new target is completely left field either.

 

[Taowolf51]

Quote:

As for plugging into an existing market, again Denon had probably failed here from the old D series (the heavy discount as point out multiple times and not just by me now) which people seems to completely ignore.  You may not like their new design but I really don't think you can say their new target is completely left field either.

 
None of the discounts were done by authorized resellers, however (well, EE sold used ones for pretty cheap, but without Denon's knowledge). And it seems that pretty much every headphone sells for about half from unauthorized resellers (unless they are very strict about the MAP, like Grado and Senn).

 

[pogodrummer]

next up: Introducing our flagship model, the Denon D9500 Bluetooth® enabled Noise Cancelling headphone with Adaptive Syncspeech and Ultra Dynamic xBass boost...
i mean... really denon? -.-

 

[KingOfTheWild]

Indeed D7000, every Grado, and every Audio Technica. Is someone going to tell me they aren't great headphones because of low sensitivity? 

Impedance and sensitivity are two different things . . .

 

[ProjectDenz]

Since when were impedance and sensitivity absolute indicators of good or bad quality sound?

 

[burgunder]

Some news.....
 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57443746-47/denons-awesome-new-headphones/?tag=txt;title

 

[drez]

Quote:

Since when were impedance and sensitivity absolute indicators of good or bad quality sound?

 
It's indirectly related through damping factor, same as speakers (refer to my link to inner fidelity article).  Basically if a headphone has low impedance, the amplifier has to have low enough impedance to achieve a high enough damping factor otherwise the headphone wont be optimally controlled.  For example if you are using the DT880 for home use you should chose the 600 Ohm model as it will have a higher damping factor, and will be easier to impedance match to an amplifier.  But for portable audio high impedance is not ideal as [high impedance] requires a much higher voltage output to perform optimally and portable players and amplifiers will probably not provide this.
 
In theory to get the best technical performance out of this new Denon 7100 or whatever you will need an amplifier with very low output impedance, like less that 1.25 Ohms.

 

[obobskivich]

Since when were impedance and sensitivity absolute indicators of good or bad quality sound?

They never have been, and never should be construed as such. Any argument to the contrary is...ill informed, at best.

Onto the topic of the new headphones: I don't know if it's been said in the last 20 pages, but these look absolutely hideous. I think the wood/non-wood design could be very neat looking (some of the Headphile woodies pull this off, or Grado PS cans with the pads off), but these just look like Beats Studio with some DiNOC wrapped around them and an ever-increasing price tag. I wasn't a huge fan of the original Denon's cosmetic (they were fairly conservative looking), but I feel like this is a dramatic step backwards - they could've (and should've, for $1200) done a lot better. Perhaps they'll redeem themselves by sounding good, but I'm honestly expecting dolled up bass blasters. :veryevil:

 

[burgunder]

Quote:

Perhaps they'll redeem themselves by sounding good, but I'm honestly expecting dolled up bass blasters.

 
According to Steve Guttenberg they're not!

 

[obobskivich]

According to Steve Guttenberg they're not!

Hope he's right.

 

[Croozer]

I love the sound signature of my D7K's, I will definitely try out the D7100.

 

[KG Jag]

Quote:

 
No it most certainly still happens today.  Take some very relevant and successful example - the iPod and the iPad, both created their own market almost entirely from scratch which completely ignores what supposedly the customers want or should want from market research (the original iPod was argued to be too expensive, too much capacity etc, the iPad as a internet tablet has no Flash which most website has etc, all reasons from hind sight made sense but during conception and initial announcement was deemed unthinkable "mistakes" which flies in the face of careful market research).  What about Tesla?  Tesla also shunt the "eco electric car" that supposedly is what customers want (because customers buying electric are concerned about eco-friendliness as shown by the Toyota Prius hybrid, right?)  and instead made electric sports car and they are thriving.  Sure it is hard but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but when it happens usually it makes for some very big impact.  Heck in hind sight even the Beats brand did exactly this - who knew there was supposed to be a young generation of music listeners who want their headphones to be akin to fashion statements? 
 
There's a whole book arguing about how this work call "Innovator's Dilemma" (a book which is said to inspire Steve Jobs himself, and which I'm sure is read by many CEOs now)  written in the 90s which deals exactly how companies should be dealing with changing markets and disruptive forces, how sensible and competent managements can actually be fatal to a company, and why and when to ignore market research in special cases.  It's a good book and I recommend people to read it if they are interested in how technology products are developed.  
 
As for plugging into an existing market, again Denon had probably failed here from the old D series (the heavy discount as point out multiple times and not just by me now) which people seems to completely ignore.  You may not like their new design but I really don't think you can say their new target is completely left field either.

 
 
Apples and oranges. 
 
New and innovative products are not at all similar to another flavor of headphones or another line of cars in the late '50's. 
 
Beats properly read an emerging and underserved market of young headphone customers who wanted style and bass heavy cans and were ready willing & able to spend big bucks to get them.  That's the classic outcome of well done market research--whether or not it happened in that instance.
 
I don't know much about the Tesla, but tend to discount any short term success of government subsidized products (e.g. government picked "winners").   What market share does the Tesla have in the US--even with government social engineering help and cash?  I'll bet it's tiny.  The run from $50,000 to about $100,000 per car.

 

[nanaholic]

Quote:

 
 
Apples and oranges. 
 
New and innovative products are not at all similar to another flavor of headphones or another line of cars in the late '50's. 
 
Beats properly read an emerging and underserved market of young headphone customers who wanted style and bass heavy cans and were ready willing & able to spend big bucks to get them.  That's the classic outcome of well done market research--whether or not it happened in that instance.
 
I don't know much about the Tesla, but tend to discount any short term success of government subsidized products (e.g. government picked "winners").   What market share does the Tesla have in the US--even with government social engineering help and cash?  I'll bet it's tiny.  The run from $50,000 to about $100,000 per car.

 
Other mp3 player existed before the iPod, yet the iPod was a carefully designed product that was in direct contradiction to what the market research says the customers wants and willing to pay.  It is the same for the iPad, tablets existed before iPads, customers told the companies what they think they want (to run full size desktop application) and companies like Microsoft designed it to those specifications but they failed, again Jobs designed the iPad to be against what the customers said they want.

Funny you brought up cars because through out history it is full of changing and disruptive styling changes.  Off the top of my head take the Mazda MX-5/Miata, which was introduced at a time when market research says there isn't a market for sports convertibles and it literally single-handedly revitalised that segment.  What about SUVs even in the time of rising petrol prices?  So many example in the industry where a big gamble single-handily turned the direction of the market.
 
EDIT: Another example is the upcoming Toyota GT86, which was initially a car carefully designed and marketed to revitalise the young sports driver market by making it cheap and affordable, yet in Japan they were surprised that that the majority of the buyers turns out to be people in their 50s and older who knew about the original Hachi-Roku but never got to own them.  
 
Tesla wasn't the only one that got government subsidy - for example the big 3 also tried to make electric cars that we supposedly what customers want (I believe GM who made an electric pick up truck in response to the law changes) yet Tesla are the only one left with a pure electric car on the market now, again totally flying in the face of market research. 
 
The Beats story is also a well-known one - they wanted to make sports shoes first but changed, and it was done on a hunch and chance meeting not market research.  Read the story here, everything about it says they were doing it against what market research told them because everyone said it was impossible that they would succeed.  Their hunch in reading the market was successful - not proper market research.  Also if it was so easy as just properly done market research then what were the other headphone companies like Sennhiesser, Sony etc doing before Beats?  You don't think they do market research too?  Of course they did and I'm willing to bet that's why they didn't move that way because conventional market research told them there wasn't a market down there worth their time so they kept focusing their energy in developing products for the audiophile and professional market which was their bread and butter.
 
Of course this says nothing of whether Denon is going to succeed in their own gamble to change direction, which we will just have to wait and see.

 

[roadcykler]

This may have already been stated (I'm not reading 20 pages of posts to try and catch up) but "artisan" is the new buzzword and automatically makes anything better. It's been used for food up to this point but clearly Denon thinks it applies to headphones too. Silly name, hopefully good sound.

 

[drez]

Quote:

This may have already been stated (I'm not reading 20 pages of posts to try and catch up) but "artisan" is the new buzzword and automatically makes anything better. It's been used for food up to this point but clearly Denon thinks it applies to headphones too. Silly name, hopefully good sound.

 
This is true - its a horrid buzzword that gets thrown around a lot these days.  They probably are referring to the lacquered timber as "artisinal."