Bonus Chapter: Perspective
Author’s Note
Hey all,
Thank you all for the condolences. I wasn’t in a particularly good place last week. This week is still a morass of things to deal with and unexpected surprises, but I am getting back into the swing of things.
So, what does this mean for Schiit Audio, Ragnarok, Yggdrasil, and everything else in general?
First, the Ragnaroks are not in the dumpster, and Mike and Dave continue to move ahead. I’m going to shut up on pronouncements about when you’re going to see them…but you will. Mike (Baldr) can provide additional commentary, if he’d like.
Second, Mike and Dave are also moving ahead on Yggdrasil. Same here, not gonna promise dates anymore. Ask Baldr.
Finally, everything else? Everything else is moving ahead, much more rapidly than you might imagine! Everything else is fun. Everything else has no pressure of artificial launch dates on it, and we can take our time to get it right. It’s a great time to be in engineering at Schiit…because you ain’t seen nothing yet!
Yes. It’s a bright future. And I’m going to keep it that way.
And so, instead of the next chapter I’d planned to write, I’d going to do something completely different. Here’s a completely unplugged, unfiltered treatise on perspective. Perspective, both in business and personal terms. It’s far too easy for everything to devolve into shouting matches about meaningless stuff like formats and technologies, while the big issues get a pass. So let’s pull the elephant out of the corner and talk about what might be the hardest thing of all: maintaining perspective.
All the best,
Jason
A Prescient Comment
“After a few pages of the DSD/PCM/provenance/upsampling/etc debate, do you wonder why so many people think us audiophiles are a little bit nuts?
Time to listen to some music, I think. Does it sound good? Yep. Then all is well.”
From the Schiit Happened Thread
Posted by Jason Stoddard
July 13, 2014
The Audio Biz and Loss of Perspective
Okay, let’s get some stuff out of the way. In my opinion, we work in an industry with some profoundly broken corners. I’ve mentioned that Mike and I got out of high-end largely because we didn’t want to chase the then-new trend of “superprice audiophilia.” The price escalation for the sake of price escalation, with no new ground broken in terms of technology—that wasn’t for us.
And today, it’s a hundred times worse. People argue over $20K+ DACs. Reviews of $40K preamps are common. There are dozens of speaker models with retail prices over $100K. I was told that a “moderate price” system was $250-500K at a recent show, by a guy who said it with no trace of irony in his voice.
Let’s be clear. This is insanity.
Obsessing over $250K system is out-and-out nuts, no matter how much you make. Period. Get out. Buy a Ferrari. Get laid. Listen to real music. Start a band. Travel the world. This is what people do when they haven’t lost perspective.
Similarly, producing products that cater to this uber-priced segment is nuts. It just fuels an additional “my price is bigger than your price,” escalation—and this escalation usually doesn’t result in pushing the limits of actual audio performance, except in a handful of cases where implementation is astoundingly challenging (I’m thinking of discrete R2R DACs, and, to a lesser extent, turntable designs.)
Yes, I’m indicting an entire sector of the industry, but that is my honest opinion.
And…this is why I like headphone audio. By and large, the “price-is-everything” attitude is much, much less. Yes, there are expensive products. But not orders of magnitude more expensive. And, with a more tight-knit community, products that offer poor value are usually deconstructed pretty quickly. There’s still a reasonable amount of perspective out there.
I’m really hoping we can keep our perspective, as personal audio grows up.
So how do we do it? Hell, I don’t have all the answers. But I think I can at least outline the signposts on the path to lost perspective, and maybe, just maybe, help some companies and individuals avoid the loss.
Business Perspective, and Avoiding Devolution into an Algorithmic Robot
This is every businesses’ dilemma: how do you avoid devolution from a human business, into a soulless robot driven only by algorithms and metrics?
Most businesses start human. People usually don’t start a business only to make money and screw people on customer service. They usually start a business because it’s something they love, and something they believe in. They put their soul into it. And this love and soul is reflected in everything they do. When a business is small, everything happens at a human level. When you talk to them, you’re talking to a real person. When something goes wrong, it’s a personal failure for the business founder, and they scramble to make it right.
Then they encounter their first insane customer. Yes, they exist. And I’m not talking about insane in terms of “they didn’t like the product, and returned it,” I’m talking insane in terms of “they scammed you,” or “belligerently tried to take down your business,” or something of the sort. And they are out there.
That encounter chips away at that love. That soul.
Then they get another. Then they get yelled at for something beyond their control. Then they get dismissed as a hack or incompetent. And every one of those encounters wears away a little more of that love and soul.
Warning sign: if you ever start saying, “It’s good enough,” start worrying. You’re starting to lose the love. Yes, even if you have to ship something late.
This continues as the business grows. Businesses get scammed by people with bogus credit cards. Or their dealers don’t pay, if they’re silly enough to have dealers and give them terms. They get people who make it their mission to take them down, over some imagined (or sometimes real) slight.
And that leads to the first of three phases in becoming a soulless, algorithmic corporation.
Retraction phase. This is when you stop caring. When “Good enough!” becomes your mantra. When you start saying things like, “There’s nothing we can do about it.” You’re pulling back from your business, removing the love and soul. When you start bitching about your customers in front of other people in the business, and spreading the contempt. This is a disease. It has to be killed before it spreads. Because, you know what? It’s your humanity that separates you from the rest.
Codification phase. If you don’t actively stop the retraction phase, you’ll end up spreading it throughout the company, where it can end up being codified. Your production line will take “Good enough,” and run with it until it isn’t “good enough” to compete. Your engineers will stop caring about what they should be doing, and start copying other company’s designs that are “good enough.” Your customer service will stop answering inquiries quickly, and put in their own rules of “Well, 24-48 hours for response is fine,” or “Put it in the ticket system, we’ll get to it.” Once the company has reached this point, you’re in big trouble. The founders may be celebrating success by buying Ferraris or taking long, expensive vacations, but the end is in sight. Soon, you’ll end up like Time Warner or AT&T, where people only “Like” them on Facebook to bitch about their poor products and abysmal service.
Algorithmic takeover. Once it’s been codified, it’s time for the professional managers to move in. These are the number-crunchers, the beancounters, the benchmarkers. They’ll bring in data about how you’re doing relative to other companies in your industry, so you can “improve” your processes. What this usually results in, unfortunately, is usually the same-to-the-penny offerings and beyond-abysmal level of customer service. Because nobody else is doing any better. And it’s very easy to look at a CEO dashboard that says, “Hey, we have a 39% higher customer satisfaction rating than our competition,” without revealing that your competition’s customer satisfaction is at 9%. At this point, congratulations. You’re not a person anymore. You’re a robot, moved only by algorithms. If you’re lucky enough, you may be able to move fast enough to survive.
So, how do you avoid this fate?
First, by recognizing why you started your business: your love of music, or cars, or code, or whatever—and never forgetting it. If it works to put a banner up on your wall that you see every day as a reminder, do it. Otherwise, make sure you have enough time to sit back and remember.
Second, by defining a philosophy. Your philosophy should be a natural outgrowth of what you love about your business. It will help keep you on track. Need another banner? Add it to the wall.
Third, by active reflection. Remember the great customers, the wonderful accolades, the moment you first held (or heard) a new product. Take time for yourself. Don’t pack your schedule so full that you don’t have time to sit back and put your feet up. Because your business has many wonderful times. Don’t forget them in the rush to do “What’s next!”
Or, as I’ve said before: stay small, stay human.
Personal Perspective, and Avoiding Mutation into an Inflexible Ass
This is a common personal dilemma. Someone buys an expensive product, and is told by someone that it “really isn’t that good,” which then turns into a shouting match about minutiae that no sane person really cares about. Or they buy into an ideology that must be The One Right And True Way, and begin inculcating everyone around them into that Way.
Add instant, anonymous communication into the mix, and boom! You have a recipe for transforming an otherwise sane and rational person into a didactic, inflexible ass. Now, this doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes I wonder if the ability to disagree congenially is on life support.
And yes, I understand that this inflexibility can be an expression of personal philosophy, or love of an object or idea. That’s cool.
But…ask yourself one question before you hit the keyboard: does it matter?
Most of the time, the answer will be “no.”
Yes, I know, when you love something, or believe in something, it’s easy to take any negative comment as a personal attack. And that might get you going to the point where you want to “educate” the attacker.
But will you convert them? No.
Some people love French wine. Some people like California wine better. Neither is going to convince the other with words. Some people love Corvettes, and some people love Porsches. Same deal. Some people love Schiit, and some people love other products. Same.
DSD vs PCM? Same.
Rock vs classical? Same.
Objectivist vs subjectivist? Same.
You know what, if you love it, then that’s fine. It doesn’t matter what other people think. And if you think you’re going to convert them by pounding a keyboard on an online forum, or writing a book, or yelling at them in person, you’re profoundly overconfident. Or a much better writer or speaker than I am.
(And, here’s the thing: the other guy might have a point. Try something new. You might surprise yourself.)
So, it’s simple. Ask yourself: Does it matter?
And, if you want to get a little introspective, ask yourself: What do I really know? If you’re just parroting marketing blather or some “consensus” opinion you derived from reading two posts, well…you may not know as much as you think.
And, if you’re interested in broadening your horizons, remind yourself: Maybe I should try some new things.
That’s the path of sanity. Everything else, not so much.
And now, time for some music. Probably 16/44. Probably forgot to turn Bitperfect on. Who knows? Who cares? It sounds good. I like it.
And that’s what matters.