[xanlamin]

Thanks for the clarification. Looks like this one is still up in the air. I have high hopes on this!

 

[zorin]

 

"The managers of Sony in the 1980s were much better than the ones today".
Sure, that is why the company earnings from the sales of audio products started to tank in the late 1980s. Considering the consequences of their actions they were as bad as the Sony managers of today.
 
 
"Sony was a tour-de-force in that era as evidenced by Trinitron,CD,TPS-L2 Walkman, Handycam, Betacam,Floppy Disk,Discman etc."
The 1980s management had nothing to do with them. The conception, the research, the testing and the green light to manufacturing of those products was the work of the previous generation of executives, going back to 1960s. The 1980s Sony executives only reaped the rewards of work of others.
 
"Sony had a very different market in mind i.e the upper end audio who would pay 3K in 1980s money for a headphone."
Sure they also had that in mind, but please explain to me why would a big manufacturing company like Sony not care at all about capturing the middle and the low market segments as well. That's not how the capitalism works; any decent capitalist wants to capture as much of a market as possible and wipe out the competitors.
Most typically, when a company comes with a superior product at a high price point then the Darwinian care is taken to make sure that the lower segments of a market would be covered as well. Consider what Mercedes-Benz or BMW do, they have a 'flagship' car and then the lower priced "derivatives" [cheaper imitations] of those 'flagships'. This way they cover a lot more market [they make a lot more money] than if they only had a solitary super-expensive car to sell.
All Sony had to do was to make two or three cheaper versions of MDR-R10, then do a proper marketing campaign and then ship those headphones to stores worldwide. The market was ready, Sony proved it with the walkmans. The Sony executives 'dropped the ball', the headphones market explosion could have had come ten years earlier. [...could have had come ?? I am not sure this construction is right]. As I said earlier, a colossal opportunity was lost.
 
"Your average Beats customer wouldn't know a R10 if it hit them in the face."
They would learn very quick, MDR-R10 are pretty heavy.
 
"Beats wasn't paid billions because of their amazing sound quailty, they were paid for brand recognition and the Radio/Music"
Think about this and make logical connections - when the Beats appeared no consumer knew the brand name. Contrary to this the name Sony was one of the top five most known company / brand names. If consumers were willing to shell out money for a brand name that nobody ever heard before than how much easier it would have been for Sony to sell headphones under their phenomenal brand name ?? If [false] doctor Dre made billions then why Sony could not have done the same or even better ? Your  "Radio/Music" argument makes things even worse because in the 1980s Sony bought a large chunk of both Hollywood and of U.S. TV broadcasting and music production companies and studios. Sony could have had virtually free marketing of their headphones. What happened instead was Sony corporate boardrooms failure.
 
"Would you call Bugatti stupid because it loses money on every Veyron?"
Yes, I firmly would. Bugatti have no excuse of 'making a company statement'. If that is what happens, if Bugatti sells their car for less than what it costs to make then people who run this outfit are plain stupid.
 
 

 

[Hawaiibadboy]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

  "The managers of Sony in the 1980s were much better than the ones today".
Sure, that is why the company earnings from the sales of audio products started to tank in the late 1980s. Considering the consequences of their actions they were as bad as the Sony managers of today.
 
 
"Sony was a tour-de-force in that era as evidenced by Trinitron,CD,TPS-L2 Walkman, Handycam, Betacam,Floppy Disk,Discman etc."
The 1980s management had nothing to do with them. The conception, the research, the testing and the green light to manufacturing of those products was the work of the previous generation of executives, going back to 1960s. The 1980s Sony executives only reaped the rewards of work of others.
 
"Sony had a very different market in mind i.e the upper end audio who would pay 3K in 1980s money for a headphone."
Sure they also had that in mind, but please explain to me why would a big manufacturing company like Sony not care at all about capturing the middle and the low market segments as well. That's not how the capitalism works; any decent capitalist wants to capture as much of a market as possible and wipe out the competitors.
Most typically, when a company comes with a superior product at a high price point then the Darwinian care is taken to make sure that the lower segments of a market would be covered as well. Consider what Mercedes-Benz or BMW do, they have a 'flagship' car and then the lower priced "derivatives" [cheaper imitations] of those 'flagships'. This way they cover a lot more market [they make a lot more money] than if they only had a solitary super-expensive car to sell.
All Sony had to do was to make two or three cheaper versions of MDR-R10, then do a proper marketing campaign and then ship those headphones to stores worldwide. The market was ready, Sony proved it with the walkmans. The Sony executives 'dropped the ball', the headphones market explosion could have had come ten years earlier. [...could have had come ?? I am not sure this construction is right]. As I said earlier, a colossal opportunity was lost.
 
"Your average Beats customer wouldn't know a R10 if it hit them in the face."
They would learn very quick, MDR-R10 are pretty heavy.
 
"Beats wasn't paid billions because of their amazing sound quailty, they were paid for brand recognition and the Radio/Music"
Think about this and make logical connections - when the Beats appeared no consumer knew the brand name. Contrary to this the name Sony was one of the top five most known company / brand names. If consumers were willing to shell out money for a brand name that nobody ever heard before than how much easier it would have been for Sony to sell headphones under their phenomenal brand name ?? If [false] doctor Dre made billions then why Sony could not have done the same or even better ? Your  "Radio/Music" argument makes things even worse because in the 1980s Sony bought a large chunk of both Hollywood and of U.S. TV broadcasting and music production companies and studios. Sony could have had virtually free marketing of their headphones. What happened instead was Sony corporate boardrooms failure.
 
"Would you call Bugatti stupid because it loses money on every Veyron?"
Yes, I firmly would. Bugatti have no excuse of 'making a company statement'. If that is what happens, if Bugatti sells their car for less than what it costs to make then people who run this outfit are plain stupid.

 
 
 

 
I live and work in Japan and teach business English to folks including Sony workers.
 
The generation that built the behemoths was slowly replaced by one that started destroying them around the time frame you mentioned when the Japanese economic bubble burst.
 
Sony could have all the way up until right now reversed the hemorrhaging. This Z7...no offense is neither "audiophile" or mass consumer.
You live in Japan?
I can take a photo of the dusty dummy walkmen near the back and the ipods/iphones on and ready and right up front.
 
Who are they aiming for and what % of the market do they represent?
 
Dropped the ball again. They are not even listed on the Gov backed stock exchange
 
Sorry for the OT rant but this whole episode blew my mind. They have everything it takes to steal back the market aside from the biggest thing....fresh minds and ideas about how to get the kids and their parents money and then work from there. Half stepping to flagships is a pointless self defeating pivot.

 

[gikigill]

"Sure, that is why the company earnings from the sales of audio products started to tank in the late 1980s. Considering the consequences of their actions they were as bad as the Sony managers of today"
 
No, they started tanking after 2000. Get your facts right and while you,re at it, check Sonys balance sheet and the contribution of their Personal Audio division.
 
There was a global recession in the 1980s but Norio Ohga stepped in and put Sony firmly back in the driving seat.
 
 
 
"The 1980s management had nothing to do with them. The conception, the research, the testing and the green light to manufacturing of those products was the work of the previous generation of executives, going back to 1960s. The 1980s Sony executives only reaped the rewards of work of others"
 
More rubbish, the Sony execs (or anyone else) in the 60s weren't dreaming of Mindisc and CD,s. They were busy making transistor radios for the American market.
 
Norio Ohga is the one who stepped in and developed the Sony of 80s.
 
Besides engineers need management approval to start and work on projects like the Trinitron,CD/MD etc etc.
 
 
 
"Sure they also had that in mind, but please explain to me why would a big manufacturing company like Sony not care at all ....... As I said earlier, a colossal opportunity was lost"
 
Sony was the king of electronics, the Rolls Royce of gadgets. They didn't NEED to go downmarket besides there would be no guarantee that cheaper Sony would sell,
 
just look at the Rolls Royce Ghost, a poor mans Rolls Royce which no one in their right mind would touch with a ten foot pole. We had a Sony household and paid
 
through our nose because it was a Sony. We could have bought cheaper stuff but we wanted the best.
 
 
"What happened instead was Sony corporate boardrooms failure"
 
Dont blame Ohga and Morita, blame Stringer and Idei.
 
 
 
"Yes, I firmly would. Bugatti have no excuse of 'making a company statement'. If that is what happens, if Bugatti sells their car for less than what it costs to make
 
then people who run this outfit are plain stupid."
 
 
You are not familiar with Veblen goods or Ettore Bugattis philosophy but then again you probably consider yourself a bigger genius than Ettore ever was.
 
Bugatti is flush with VW money so they could give all of the 450 Veyrons at half price and it wouldn't affect them much.
 
They earned a boatload of reputation and consultancy contracts from other auto companies, hence the half price Bugattis.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[zorin]

Exactly what is bad about putting IEMs in correctly?

I.E.M.s increase the risk of ear infections. When I.E.M. is pushed in into ear canal the humidity within starts to increase and that brings in the growth of bacteria, all well within 30 minutes. The bacteria proliferate and leak into the inner ear and cause problems there. One's body anti-pathogen defenses usually work to eliminate the bacteria but during the prolonged I.E.M. sessions the amount of harmful bacteria is too large and they attack the inner ear organs and cause infections. The chronic untreated low level ear infections cause gradual hearing loss.- http://www.entnet.org/content/hearing-loss-and-ear-infection - I.E.M.s should not be used as primary means to listen to music, they should be only complimentary to headphones and should be used only in situations where the use of full sized headphones is not possible.

 

[ogodei]

  Where's the link for the Japanese seller that got them to your door for under $600 stateside?

 
http://www.pricejapan.com/front/e_good_info.php?code=1428&category=10

 

[TheBoss]

  You would not make a good big company executive [no put-down of you intended]. Some ten years before MDR-R10 there was a zero market for walkmans when Sony literally created demand for them. Astute marketing campaign convinced zillions of consumers that life is not worth living if the do not have a portable music system on their belts or in their handbags. Just a smaller push was needed to convince many this time to take their hi-fi stereo rooms with them wherever they go, just by buying a good pair of headphones. There was no effort on Sony's part, as I said before the top management of the company turned their sights to other things, they neglected the audio manufacturing part of Sony conglomerate.

 
 
I know you love raving about the legendary R10, but that headphone was only made possible because of the baburu keiki, where Sony R&D money was limitless because of cheap money... and the R10 represents corporate ego writ large, trying to find an audience after the fact,
 
Sony wasn't alone going balls out in the R&D department because of cheap money...  check out the other crazy stuff made possible during that time in other engineering firms.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/04/generation-why-demographics-and-the-insanity-of-japans-golden-bubble/
 
We all know how that bubble bubble era turned out. If there's lesson from any of this, R10 represents what's made possible during the bubble era... unrestrained R&D for a statement, non-mass marketed product, and this kind of move will never be repeated again.

 

[Makiah S]

   
 
I know you love raving about the legendary R10, but that headphone was only made possible because of the baburu keiki, where Sony R&D money was limitless because of cheap money... and the R10 represents corporate ego writ large, trying to find an audience after the fact,
 
Sony wasn't alone going balls out in the R&D department because of cheap money...  check out the other crazy stuff made possible during that time in other engineering firms.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/04/generation-why-demographics-and-the-insanity-of-japans-golden-bubble/
 
We all know how that bubble bubble era turned out. If there's lesson from any of this, R10 represents what's made possible during the bubble era... unrestrained R&D for a statement, non-mass marketed product, and this kind of move will never be repeated again.

Until the next Bubble arrives, and it shouldn't be to much longer till that bubble hits. What it centers around, when it collapses and what kinds of insane statements are generated during the next bubble will ofc only be understood when that bubble arrives 

 

[telecaster]

Loads of BS... Sony began the redbook cd project with extensive research and cooperation BEFORE the 80's. Get your facts straight

 

[grizzlybeast]

Dang you guys know some history about this stuff huh.

 

[Muinarc]

Sony was the king of electronics, the Rolls Royce of gadgets. They didn't NEED to go downmarket besides there would be no guarantee that cheaper Sony would sell,

I have always agreed with this sentiment. Sony's race to the bottom of the market and making sure they had boom-boxes on the shelves of Walmart and Radio shack did them no favors at all. If you look at a Walkman WM-501 with its aluminum body and tiny screws holding it together, it oozes quality.

Would Sony have gotten as big and bloated if it had refused to make the ultra cheap stuff? Absolutely not, and that's probably the crux of the arguement, the fans wish they had stayed only a little bit big, like a giant McIntosh.... and just stayed that way. You can make arguements both ways, but tech. companies that refuse to "cheap-out" always seem to have more staying power in my opinion. Sony could have easily been in Apple's position, their overpriced laptops would have seemed more digestible if they weren't known for "also" making cheap crap that breaks. I just don't think that business model works for the really long run. Look at cars, would as many Veyrons be sold for $1.2 million if it had a Chevy badge on it but was in all other ways identical? The chevy that makes $13,000 pieces of crap? No, people would instead buy the "exclusive" mark, the Ferraris, Koniggseggs, or Pagani's.

 

[Saraugie]

  I.E.M.s increase the risk of ear infections. When I.E.M. is pushed in into ear canal the humidity within starts to increase and that brings in the growth of bacteria, all well within 30 minutes. The bacteria proliferate and leak into the inner ear and cause problems there. One's body anti-pathogen defenses usually work to eliminate the bacteria but during the prolonged I.E.M. sessions the amount of harmful bacteria is too large and they attack the inner ear organs and cause infections. The chronic untreated low level ear infections cause gradual hearing loss.- http://www.entnet.org/content/hearing-loss-and-ear-infection - I.E.M.s should not be used as primary means to listen to music, they should be only complimentary to headphones and should be used only in situations where the use of full sized headphones is not possible.

Yes, I can understand that. For me, when the customs are in sometimes its an airtight seal.

 

[HemiSam]

No more reflections on these cans?  The corporate history is fascinating and all but how 'bout some tuneage feedback...
 
 

 
 
 

 
HS

 

[gikigill]

Oh yeah, my wallet is anticipating the damages after hearing impressions.

 

[Makiah S]

I kinda like the history though tbh, while we wait an what not