Argyris
Head-Fi's third most long-winded poster.
I've often wondered that myself. It takes a certain sort of person to knowingly pick up a turd and sell it as a truffle. You'd be more likely to have a huge marketing department if you're interested in maximizing profits, as opposed to making quality products. All that engineering that our favorite companies do takes money, and any given company only has a finite amount of it.
I also think that, when your primary concern is image and not sound quality, you're much more flexible in targeting the uninformed masses, as they mostly only care about image themselves (just make sure you give 'em MOAR BASS!!!111!111!!!!!). Dress up attractive, smiling, and (if possible) famous people in your wares and keep telling the masses that you're the best, and eventually they'll buy your product. They have to buy it. All their friends have it. It might be hard for non marketing-driven companies to compete here, as they have to A) pay their R&D department, and B) try to convince somebody, without the help of Miss Jane Interchangeableblonde the supermodel, that Sennheisers are it (I personally have nothing against Sennheiser, I'm just sayin').
I also think that, when your primary concern is image and not sound quality, you're much more flexible in targeting the uninformed masses, as they mostly only care about image themselves (just make sure you give 'em MOAR BASS!!!111!111!!!!!). Dress up attractive, smiling, and (if possible) famous people in your wares and keep telling the masses that you're the best, and eventually they'll buy your product. They have to buy it. All their friends have it. It might be hard for non marketing-driven companies to compete here, as they have to A) pay their R&D department, and B) try to convince somebody, without the help of Miss Jane Interchangeableblonde the supermodel, that Sennheisers are it (I personally have nothing against Sennheiser, I'm just sayin').
Why do real headphone companies suck so bad at marketing? I think that's the real question here. It truly doesn't take a genius to be a good marketer.