I had mentioned that most audio industry evolved on profits, to which bigshot annoyingly said that this is "laughable". I quote:
Then goes on to say audio perfection was the goal since the 1920s and that mankind has only worked toward achieving its pinnacle ever since until we finally got to the invention of the CD:
However, some posts later, we go back into saying that the audio industry is mostly based on BS and sales pitches:
There is absolutely no contradiction there.
OK. I am going to answer this question and spend time to answer it thoroughly. I wouldn't throw pearls before swine with Dave, but I will work with you, because you ask the right questions.
The engineers who developed sound technology had audible transparency as a goal, beginning in the 1920s. If you asked the scientists at Bell Labs in the 1920s what their ideal sound reproduction technology would be, they would describe an audibly transparent medium that does not have generation loss or surface wear, a long playing time, and has a small storage footprint. Their description would match the Compact Disc perfectly.
Sound engineers who design audio formats and components have to consider efficiency and cost as well. The designers of the compact disc did that. They designed a format that was very practical- discs could be recorded and mastered in the home, burned or replicated for less than a dollar, and the manufacture of the playback equipment was scalable to the point where devices that played to spec could be made for under $50.
All of this progress follows a path that serves society and fills a need efficiently. Commercial compromises have been completely overcome.
Since 1985, we've enjoyed perfection in sound reproduction and the cost has steadily declined from high end prices at the beginning to $30 or $40 for a player today. The Compact Disc completely blew other formats out of the water and replaced them. Then MP3s and other compressed file formats came along and blew CDs out of the water. The file you can download from the Apple Music store is just as audibly transparent as a CD, even though the file sizes are a tenth of the size. With small file sizes and without being tied to a physical object, that made it possible to distribute music
through the air like radio. You can share your music with your friends over bluetooth. They don't even have to buy it! Huge benefit to consumers. As far as consumers are concerned, we are living in a golden age of sound reproduction. It couldn't possibly get any better.
Now is where the commercial interests come in... If music can be distributed from person to person for free without being anchored in a physical product, and if the players for the music are mass produced for less than two twenty dollar bills in China, how can the home audio industry make any money on it? Put yourself in the place of Sony or JVC... or Universal Music... or even the high end audio retailer downtown that competes with the big box stores. What would you do?
Think about that a minute.
OK. We are now in the year 2000. Everything from Bell Labs in the 1920s to today has led to perfection in audio reproduction. But all of the advantages are with the consumer and the retailers, manufacturers and record labels are SOL. What would you do if you were them?
If you are a record label, you would...
• Put a lock on the files. DRM or Digital Rights Management
• Discourage permanent ownership of files and transition to streaming services. How do you charge someone for Dark Side of the Moon when they own three copies already? Get them to trash their permanent copies and charge them rent!
• Centralize the availability of music to discourage peer to peer streaming or file sharing and instead direct people to use huge online music sources operated by record labels to stream music for a fee.
• Create physical copies to buy in "collector's editions" or esoteric formats... Vinyl, blu-ray audio, big box sets with fancy books and outtakes... How do you convince someone to buy a physical copy of Sgt. Pepper or Dark Side of the Moon when they can just stream it? Create a collector's box and encourage consumers to upgrade to a shelf filling super deluxe edition.
• Try to convince consumers that there is sound quality beyond audible transparency... 24/96, SACD, blu-ray audio, etc. Even though all of these sound formats are exactly the same to human ears, promote the THEORETICAL differences to plant doubt in consumers' minds about whether CDs or MP3s are "good enough". "Maybe there's some information missing in lossy audio that might make sound
more realistic." Of course there is no difference, but all you need to do to make a sale is plant enough doubt. People will buy the MP3, then the CD, then they'll wonder if HiRes music has more "detail" and "a wider soundstage". Even though it doesn't they'll buy an SACD or download a HiRes file anyway...
just to be safe.
If you are an equipment manufacturer, you do similar sorts of things...
• Design your equipment to look different to create brand identity (Apple) and then plant doubt that (maybe) your equipment has (theoretically) better sound quality without presenting any proof (MQA).
• Invest your product with status. People will pay more for a product that makes them feel good about themselves. A shinier finish on the box, some bigger knobs, maybe a little bit of hardwood as an accent... voila! You can add a few hundred dollars to the price. The electronics inside can be stock components that are the same as in every other brand, but the consumer now has perceived quality in workmanship, and that will rub off on their perception of sound quality. That aqua glow of McIntosh components instills confidence in their products. And that confidence translates to expectation bias when a customer compares sound. Once people have invested their self-worth into your product, you've got them on the hook. Pride in ownership! They can't change their mind without scuttling their own ego and admitting their own inability to hear differences.
• Buy off the press. Magazines are suffering financially anyway. It's easy to negotiate your advertising budget to include plenty of favorable advertorial articles and ensure positive reviews. Invest authority in magazine writers who will say whatever you want. Quote their reviews on your website. Tell people that this reviewer is the leading authority in the field. You own him, so he won't be causing any trouble.
• Create brand loyalty in social media. Ever notice how people in forums congregate around certain brands? That's seeded by the manufacturers. They identify influencers among the crowd and give them free stuff. That happens right here on Head-Fi. Most of the time, the influencers never mention the stuff they get for free to talk up the brand. Create walled gardens. Establish forums with rules that punish opinions and facts that hurt sales. Have the admins talk about "fairness" in letting completely made up opinions have equal weight (or better) than well supported ones. That will control what consumers hear and direct them in the profitable way. Once you've closed off dissent, the sales pitch becomes "general knowledge" and everyone will parrot it as "fact". Most of Head-Fi is cut and paste sales pitch from manufacturer's websites presented as individual posters' words.
• Publish deceptive equipment specs... Focus people's attention on things that don't matter, like super audible frequencies and noise floors far below the threshold of audibility. Encourage them to choose one model over another simply by looking at numbers in the abstract.
"This set of headphones goes up to 28kHz (+/-9dB)! That must be better than this set that only goes up to 22kHz (with a +/-3dB variation)." Most audiophiles haven't a clue about where the thresholds of audibility lie in the real world. A lot of sound science people don't even know because they focus on test tones and absolute thresholds instead of just what matters when you are sitting on the couch listening to Beethoven.
• If science doesn't sell the product, then spread distrust of science. Push ideas like "If we don't know everything about sound, we can't know anything." or "Blind tests have been proven to be faulty at times, so I don't believe in blind tests." or things that completely go against established facts like "You can only compare two sound samples by living with each one for a long period of time." or "I can recognize my bias and eliminate it from my sighted comparisons." Manufacturers can be scientific when it comes to trying to explain the inaudible theoretical differences between their product and a competitor, but they should poo poo science when someone threatens to do an actual controlled listening test to compare the two. When in doubt, call for more stringent controls until a test isn't practicable any more, and second guess the testing methodology after you find out the results didn't go your way. Cherry pick just information that serves your argument.
OK. That's enough of a rant for now. My point is that if you look at the progression of home audio development from the dawn of recording at the turn of the century to today, you will find science leading the way and solving all the problems. If you look at it from 2000 to today, you see an industry that has been raped by commercial interests. Those two aren't mutually exclusive the way your question at the top of this post puts it. You have to consider the time frame you're talking about, because today isn't the same as 30 years ago.
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) ... But a lot of very interesting things here. 
