I'm interested to know if the engineers believe in the own marketing or the own company push in various unproven technologies, like high resolution benefits (beyond human hearing ability). For instance, the engineers at Sony or Audioquest or . I expect they do believe in its benefits and aren't intentionally lying. And the marketing guys believe in it just the same. It doesn't mean that it's true. It's just that the snake oil salesman doesn't always know he is that. He often doesn't. It's assumed in a kind of cartoony way that he must be devious, out to get you... but i think with audiophile companies they are not generally "preying" on the consumer's ignorance, it's that they are ignorant too.
I think customers also believe in someone else more if they believe it themselves; it's more convincing. It is probably true with various people on stage that have been called con-men or snake oil salesmen. Like my mom (Castle was speaking of moms earlier, so...) detests Dr. Oz and hates whenever one of his commercials, web ads or just his face appears on a magazine cover while she's in the checkout at the grocery store, she says. She says she wouldn't trust him for a second... and the way I see it, or figure it, he probably is a sincere person about whatever "magical" weightloss supplement he might be selling next. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know Dr. Oz. I don't know engineers at Sony or Audeze or wherever. Maybe they're all out to get us. But I think they do their work better when they believe in it themselves, their bosses and co-workers like that, it's good for team spirit and getting along. Having a lot of Doubting Thomases around when you go up a podium, like in the picture at the top of this article...
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0315/Interview_Yoshioka_Sony_NW_ZX2.htm
you're backed by all those Hi-Res logos, and all those logos are important to all the company's new products, they're on everything audio that they're selling. A guy in that position, even if he has secret inner doubts, he cannot express that or reveal that there in a presentation... he has to try to convince himself that it's true! (And that's
if he has doubts).
I mention "the engineers" because in a lot of those webpages by Sony they include interviews with the designers. To me, that is a kind of marketing, just as Jason Stoddard here openly describes his own posts here as a kind of marketing, even when it's in chit-chatty form and not a part of The Book or whatever that he's continuously writing. See, like here, in their Headphones Park, they have plenty of interviews (promotional interviews, all 100% positive about their design intentions):
http://www.sony.jp/headphone/special/park/engineers_interview/
Are they telling the truth? Maybe, as they see it.
Is it the truth about various things claimed, that brass produces this or that sound quality in a headphone, or that the enclosure of the Walkman needs to be made of these materials to bring about better transparent sound and... maybe not! Maybe none of that is true, but the designers actually still believe it is. Who knows.
Probably a lot of companies don't want to hire workers that are like "oh we could have made this for $400 less and sold it at..." if they want to keep their products in the $1000+ range. And engineers that are put on a project to make the best new most transparent sounding DAP or whatever... they don't want to disappoint their bosses. But even if they have doubts themselves, they try to believe in it because they don't want to let down their fellow workers. That would be my guess.
As for marketing purely, I look at the photographs, and well, I do think if they put a lot of effort into their photos it does say something about what they think of their product. They do (usually) want to sell you their best stuff. Word gets out fast if a product is bad, especially a lemon (breaks). So they want to put their best foot forward. The photos give a "lifestyle" impression of who it might appeal to, ideally, or what kind of joy or interest it might excite and so forth. I don't find them too lying usually. I mean, it might show someone dressed unrealistically nice in a city location enjoying his phones outside... or but it's not like impossible. Most of the advertising photos in audiophile world can have a fairly boringly down to earth quality to them, although they over-do it on the decor of houses and apartments, usually looking amazingly minimalistic or clean and futuristic... sometimes they get carried away with that and I think "gee, the marketing really isn't too in touch with the product, or the designers have no input on this."
I think the marketing affects people with the confidence it exudes, or a sense of luxury it's trying to imply.
There's also a problem where audio reached "near perfection" a long time ago, didn't it, I mean in terms of sources and digital reproduction, maybe not so much the speakers and headphones? The "perfect sound forever," that's 1982. So it's a problem. What does a company churn out next, what do they have to show at the next audio exhibit? Gotta keep their name out there somehow. Boring to keep selling the same products - right? There may be integrity in that, but it's not exciting, people want talk and write about it unless it's seemingly a NEW product. So there's a push. But it hasn't been the natural, more effortless success of advances with computers, with like a new phone or game system can easily demonstrate its new technical achievements, by showing more pixels (and you can count them) or more accurate colors, and so forth. Easy to see and measure and for multiple people to see at once in the same room.
Audiophiles on the other hand, the headphone variety especially, it's a personal activity. But I suspect this technology too has peaked or come close to it with the best that's out there now, or even from a few years ago.. so I don't know where it goes next, but the marketing is all that's left. It's a bunch of gooey dreamy nonsense maybe, but what else can you say about the new product that is the same as the last 10 or 20...? A similar thing has happened with digital cameras.
I think it is best to enjoy the marketing and find it beautiful as its own sort of art. It's been like that with cars for a long time because people haven't needed many of the new advances in cars and trucks for many years, aside maybe from navigation systems if that isn't increasing the rates of distracted driving.
It's also noteworthy that not much of the audiophile adveritising makes it out there in the general digital landscape, of like CNET or Digital Trends or whatever. I mean, I've seen some (targeted) headphone ads before, like of V-MODA on YouTube that play before a video, but it's kind of its own separate niche culture of weird enthusiasts who apparently are lonely sorts too, who are always on the lookout for equipment that accurately reproduces female vocals without sounding harsh. It doesn't belong in the mainstream, which should be telling. I mean, at CNET you have Steve Guttenberg and he'll review various things, but he's kind of in his own corner as "The Audiophiliac" (basically a columnist, but the word sounds like he has a disease), while the main stories on the front page of CNET are all about the new phones, laptops, even cars. But not some new DAC or amp or something; not unless it's truly revolutionary technology? Well maybe Pono got in. That was what was "special" about Pono because it edged in due to the celebrity of that musician.
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