2015, Chapter 4:
Bridging the Gap
[...]
And there you go. Speculation on what went wrong with the most visible high-end product in decades. Some parallels to another industry that went sorta mainstream. Some thoughts on where we are now, and what we can do.
Is it definitive? Not by a long shot.
Will my recommendations work? I don’t know.
But I do know one thing: we ended up with a real drubbing with Pono. It’s in our best interests to ask why…and find ways to change that in the future. These are my thoughts, as penned on one random Tuesday in February.
How about yours?
I think Pono has three much bigger problems that have nothing to do with Neil Young or its marketing copy:
- Streaming.
- Apple.
- People like me.
Streaming is straightforward: Buying music is rapidly being marginalized and falling out of the mainstream. Even the major players like the iTunes Music Store are seeing stagnation or a decline. Launching a new buy-and-download music store today is like launching a new film camera in 2005. You might get some niche customers, but it's probably on its way out.
Apple and
people like me are related.
I get the feeling, especially when I went to a Head-Fi meet last fall, that people like me aren't entirely welcome around here, or at least don't fit in particularly well. I'm an Apple user and blogger. I'm not an electrical hobbyist. I don't believe in fancy cables. I don't modify my headphones. I just use iTunes to play (properly-)compressed files and would never consider a DAP. It was a longshot that I even bought a DAC, and I'm still not sure I hear a difference. When Jason charitably refers to "objectivists", I know I'm in that camp: I don't know if it's impossible to detect differences among certain component types, but I go into such evaluations assuming that I probably
won't detect a difference, rather than the more common assumption around here that I
will or
should.
I'm not going to buy an amp that looks like a hobbyist kit in an ugly black box, because I'm not going to fill my desk with ugly equipment. I buy Schiit gear not only because it performs well, but because it's attractive and practical. When I got a Mjolnir, I upgraded from a Bifrost Uber to a Gungnir mostly so they would match and be stackable, not because I thought I'd notice a sound difference. (I haven't.) And I'd love the power switches to be moved to the front, even if it meant everything gets an inch wider and cost $25 more, because I don't want to leave these drawing 75W+ and emitting all of that heat constantly.
The "Apple" era of portable media devices, from the iPod to the iPhone and beyond — even including alternatives not made by Apple these days — has dramatically raised consumer expectations for attractive and thoughtful industrial design, hardware and software/UI quality, and integration with stores and web services. It's not enough to sound good or have good tech specs if you half-ass the rest of the product or can't meet people's minimum expectations for the category.
And a DAP needs to compete with the smartphone. The frickin'
smartphone. Nobody comes at the smartphone and survives. The smartphone is at least the "good enough" version, and often the best version, of practically everything. Convincing people to buy, charge, and carry another device for something a smartphone can do is an extremely uphill battle that almost nobody can win.
Now, back to the Pono player.
Putting aside the entire issue of sound quality and tech specs, most reviewers agree that the Pono player just isn't very good in physical design, UI quality, and practicality. The sound-quality arguments are irrelevant because the Pono player is not a device that anyone looks at and says, "I want that. I need to buy that. Right now."
If it were a nice, desirable, practical device that people instinctively wanted, they'd make excuses to buy it. They'd hear a difference, regardless of whether there's one to hear. They'd make special jeans with triangular pockets and carry it around. People would make excuses claiming that the lack of a Hold button is a feature, not a bug.
The simple truth is that if we want great personal audio to reach the mainstream, we need to understand the mainstream. We need to understand why people choose what they do, not just assume that they're idiots. Nobody who thinks they just need to "educate customers" has ever won. The customers don't need to be educated. We do.
Great headphones need to get more attractive, practical, portable, comfortable, and affordable. We need to stop writing off techy features like Bluetooth and ANC that people strongly demand. (Why does anyone buy Bose? Because they think they need ANC on planes, and nobody will convince them otherwise. Why does anyone use Bluetooth headphones? Because they ever have, and once you ever do, it's hard to go back.)
Beats and Bose succeed not because people are idiots, but because better-sounding alternatives aren't meeting people's other demands as well. The best-selling premium headphones are closed-back, relatively portable, low-impedance models with good isolation, short (or no) cables, iPhone remotes, and sometimes ANC for under $400. Why aren't there more Head-Fi-level headphones in this range? Why is one guy like me able to try and review
almost that entire category?
As for amps, DACs, and DAPs, that's a much harder question. I think targeting the portable market is a losing bet — you'll never overcome the smartphone barrier. Instead, target people at desks. People working at a computer all day in noisy "open" offices, and people trying to get work done at home, are booming markets. Sell them inexpensive audio gear that can make their inexpensive or medium-priced closed headphones sound great. Schiit has much of this market locked up — why are there so few other good choices?
And if Schiit wants to get even more of it — granted, that's a big "if" — it'll probably require some concessions. Power buttons on the front? A Magni/Modi-level integrated DAC/amp? Trendy features like Bluetooth? More tubes to appeal to hipsters? Possibly. They already have the industrial design down — that's a huge advantage in the otherwise desolate wasteland of ugly, geeky-looking premium-audio products. The market is theirs to lose.
(Smartphone apps? Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, never do that. App-controlled electronics are an abomination. I hate apps and any hardware that depends on an app for any meaningful features. And I make apps for a living.)
We do need to fix the hostility and snobbery to keep people once they show an interest. But the products first need to bring more people in the door. Because everyone keeps walking through the Bose and Beats doors instead for very good reasons that we need to appreciate. Make truly compelling products, and the rest will take care of itself.
