[marcoarment]

  I don't think that's the case. There aren't a lot of non-forum reviews of Schiit's higher end products. I understand Jason at Schiit likes mac's and I feel like the chassis design is somewhat influenced by Apple's simplicity and elegance.
 
I think your connections via reviews, podcasts and discussing this stuff with other Apple enthusiasts can bring Schiit more customers because Apple enthusiasts appreciate nice, well designed things. To the average consumer Schiit gear is outrageously expensive, but your audience isn't the average consumer so I think it makes sense why the target market (you) wants to try it so badly.

 
Honestly, their extremely tasteful designs are one of the biggest reasons I choose Schiit's products over others. So many boutique audio products end up looking like low-budget DIY kits in bland black boxes tackily covered in screws, or an overclocker's self-built PC in 2002 full of blue LEDs. (Seriously, blue LEDs were cool for about a year, and that year was about 15 years ago. No consumer product should have a blue LED in 2014.)
 
My audience is also an audience of skeptics. We don't believe in magic cables, audiophile power conditioners, etc., and we're turned off by the voodoo, pretension, and snobbery prevalent in much of high-end audio. Schiit's pragmatic, no-BS, unpretentious attitude aligns well with us.

 

[SSteve]

In the 90s I worked for a small music software company. It was the owner and his girlfriend in Norway and me in the U.S. I did telephone and email support, fulfilled orders, and eventually became a programmer. I learned that some customers are definitely not worth having as customers.
 
One guy who bought the program sent me a four-page letter the following week with a long and detailed list of all the shortcomings in the program that needed to be fixed. I appreciated feedback and fixed every bug that got reported, but I knew this guy would never be happy. So I sent him a polite reply saying that I was sorry our product wouldn't meet his needs and that I refunded his purchase and he was welcome to continue using it.
 
Another person sent us many pre-sales emails and even called over to Oslo while I was working there for a while. He wanted details about the ownership of the company and copies of our financial statements before he would buy our software. Needless to say, he was also politely diverted.
 
Later I was working for Emagic, the makers of Logic, when we were bought by Apple. At the time I was temporarily doing tech support but got stuck there when we got bought because the job I was going to move to no longer existed. We had a product called Sound Diver which was a patch librarian and editor for MIDI devices. I had one guy who wanted me to explain everything about how his synthesizer worked. When I politely told him that this was outside the scope of Apple tech support since it was a non-Apple product he got more and more angry until he finally threatened to come to our office and kill me. I ended up quitting that job.

 

[judmarc]

I wanted to tell two customer service stories about the same company that illustrate what Jason's written about regarding setting up your customer service (and your service in general) to do well.
 
The company is Apple.
 
Here's story number 1:
 
- I bought Apple's office software on optical disc from a third party seller.  My MacBook Pro's disc drive refused to read it.  (It did read other discs.)  I went to the local Apple Store and asked an employee if he could see whether one of their optical drives would read it, and if so, whether he could put it on the USB stick I'd brought along, or if it failed, I could return it to the seller.  Instead, he simply installed the same software from an external drive there in the store - no questions asked, no charge.  I couldn't thank him enough, and he simply deflected all the compliments as if this was to be expected.  And maybe it is normal operating procedure, I don't know.  So think about that - Apple gets their money from the reseller; I'm thrilled; and this must be at least the tenth audience to which I've related this story.  Message: You've got no worries if you buy an Apple product, we'll stand behind it.  And all Apple had to do was empower some smart human beings dealing personally with customers to do what made good sense to them.
 
Story number 2 involves the evil twin of "treat others as you would like to be treated," which is "You create what you fear:"
 
- I've paid to be part of Apple's OS X developer program.  Program members get advance OS X builds.  I'd eagerly awaited the first developer preview build of the newest OS X version, Yosemite.  I got the email that said the build was available to download, with the key to unlock the build server.  Entered the key, and the download crapped out halfway through.  Entered the key again, got a message saying "You've already used this key [duh], it's no good."  Spent 20-25 minutes on various forms of hold (waiting for a customer service rep, waiting until the rep talked to a supervisor and got the OK to send another key, waiting until the rep gave me the key on the phone) and went back to the download site.  Get the message "You've already used this key...."  What?  No I haven't.  Another 20-25 minutes, another key, stay on the phone while I try this one, nope, same message.  Wait another 5 minutes on hold until the rep comes back with a third key.  Same message.  Rep says she apologizes, must be some glitch in the process, please try again later.  So I went to a couple of third party Apple developer forums, and that quickly (within a couple of hours of the developer preview becoming available), folks had posted about the glitch and a couple of workarounds, the first of which didn't work for me, but the second did.
 
How many hours did various Apple reps and supervisors spend on the phones with how many developers that evening, costing Apple how much money, because Apple was more afraid of losing money to people with pirated keys than they were concerned about making sure developers had a good download and install experience that worked smoothly?  So they created what they feared.  Think how different it could have been if they'd operated more out of a sense of responsibility to their developers, and less out of fear.

 

[disastermouse]

Honestly, their extremely tasteful designs are one of the biggest reasons I choose Schiit's products over others. So many boutique audio products end up looking like low-budget DIY kits in bland black boxes tackily covered in screws, or an overclocker's self-built PC in 2002 full of blue LEDs. (Seriously, blue LEDs were cool for about a year, and that year was about 15 years ago. No consumer product should have a blue LED in 2014.)

My audience is also an audience of skeptics. We don't believe in magic cables, audiophile power conditioners, etc., and we're turned off by the voodoo, pretension, and snobbery prevalent in much of high-end audio. Schiit's pragmatic, no-BS, unpretentious attitude aligns well with us.

Oh wow! Hey Marco! I love the ATB. Is it weird that I find it reassuring that your friends bust your balls about expensive/quality headphone gear almost as much as mine do?

As for the clean industrial design of Macs vs headphone gear though, I think there are some significant differences. Macs and iPhones/iPads are quite different in function than niche headphone gear. They're tools with which a person actually needs to interact significantly and therefore the clean and understated aesthetics are an invitation to interact with the machines with an absolute minimum of distraction. Even most of the software is like this (with iTunes as a noticeable aberration).

Enthusiast audio gear has such a different purpose. Although I agree that too much gaudiness in audio gear can be distracting, some essential markers of personality and quirkiness aren't necessarily as problematic in the niche as they are in the PC/smartphone/tablet market.

As for why I like Schiitt products, it has little to do with an Apple-like design aesthetic and more to do with value and high quality. I consider their understated design as part of their value proposition and an outgrowth of their somewhat streamlined production process.

 

[drez]

Sales are bad for consumers too - end up buying things things you don't really want just to catch a deal.

 

[jacal01]

Ha!  I used to say about my ex, "50% off, and we own it."

 

[BournePerfect]

Some people would start smoking if there was a BOGO.

 

[Eee Pee]

I'm a total sucker for McD's Big Macs when they're buy one get one.  And an orange drink.  
 
Mooch their Wi-Fi and post up on Head-Fi about it. 

 

[kkcc]

I really hope the folks at Light Harmonic are reading this - they are in the midst of some CS 'growing pains' over there and could learn a thing or two from this blog.

I think it is grossly unfair to Jason to even put LH and Jason&team in the same sentence.

From what I experience and observed (I'm not even yet a schitt customer, but R&Y will likely fix that), LH seems to practice exactly what Jason advocates against: Building ultra e$pensive high-uber-high end products, charging full before even having a working prototype, building a gazillion modernising increment features/performance flatware confusing as hell to charge more, responding (or not responding) to support requests like robots, mess fulfilment... everything but Fast, Simple, nor Human.

/step down from my box

 

[tonykaz]

the Schiit stuff is like Toyota's stuff : it's Vanilla ! but it's the best vanilla you can buy . 

 

[sofauxboho]

 
My audience is also an audience of skeptics. We don't believe in magic cables, audiophile power conditioners, etc., and we're turned off by the voodoo, pretension, and snobbery prevalent in much of high-end audio. Schiit's pragmatic, no-BS, unpretentious attitude aligns well with us.

 
Yup. And for the record, I found both this thread and Schiit in general via Marco's blog. I now have a Modi and Magni at work and a Gungnir and Mjolnir at home.
 
So Marco, while you may not be driving NYT level traffic, I can vouch that you aren't doing Jason any disservice. 

 

[doublea71]

I think it is grossly unfair to Jason to even put LH and Jason&team in the same sentence.

From what I experience and observed (I'm not even yet a schitt customer, but R&Y will likely fix that), LH seems to practice exactly what Jason advocates against: Building ultra e$pensive high-uber-high end products, charging full before even having a working prototype, building a gazillion modernising increment features/performance flatware confusing as hell to charge more, responding (or not responding) to support requests like robots, mess fulfilment... everything but Fast, Simple, nor Human.

/step down from my box

I think you've misinterpreted what I said. My whole point is that LH can learn a lot from Jason's blog as far as CS is concerned (I have said nothing about product design), so we are actually in agreement from that perspective. Despite my concerns, I won't write them off and assume the worst - they have time to sort everything out and change their tack (at least for me since the Geek Wave is expected to be out next March).

 

[kkcc]

I think you've misinterpreted what I said. My whole point is that LH can learn a lot from Jason's blog as far as CS is concerned (I have said nothing about product design), so we are actually in agreement from that perspective. Despite my concerns, I won't write them off and assume the worst - they have time to sort everything out and change their tack (at least for me since the Geek Wave is expected to be out next March).

I do got what you mean. You are probably a better person than me and is more optimistic on things

Just that my view LH is a company that is found by people who has vastly different views on running a business than Jason and team. It's not like they lack the resources and know-how to do (imo) "the right things" for their customers, but that they simply have a different set of beliefs and priority. The CS issues you see are just the end results of their fundamental business model. But I digress.

I'm really interested to know from Jason his view on how big is too big. Does he believe there is a hard cap of the size of a company to his set of beliefs of how to run a business? Or eventually everyone turns into big corporate robotic evil empires? How would he take the next step to grow and what challenges he foresee and his thoughts to overcome them, what are his thoughts towards overseas/international customers/markets? I'm really grateful Jason had spend his time and effort to details his experience and show us the business/development side of his industry. Fascinating read and discussion.

 

[doublea71]

As far as size is concerned, I doubt Schiit wants to become huge; I think it would take all the fun out of it for them. Can you imagine Jason in a board meeting with a bunch of suits who want to move manufacturing to some developing country in order to save a few shillings per unit? I can't and I find that very reassuring.

 

[davidsh]

I'm really interested to know from Jason his view on how big is too big. Does he believe there is a hard cap of the size of a company to his set of beliefs of how to run a business? Or eventually everyone turns into big corporate robotic evil empires? How would he take the next step to grow and what challenges he foresee and his thoughts to overcome them, what are his thoughts towards overseas/international customers/markets? I'm really grateful Jason had spend his time and effort to details his experience and show us the business/development side of his industry. Fascinating read and discussion.

I think that are some very interesting questions right there!