Roger Skoff writes about saving our hobby
Do us both a favor; the next several times you get the chance, ask anybody you come across who isn’t an audiophile what the word “hi-fi” means. Or “high fidelity,” its meaningful form. Or “stereo.” If the person you’re talking to is over fifty, there’s a possibility they’ll be able to answer you. If they’re under forty, it’s almost certain – except for the random or special circumstances oddball – that they won’t.
I first discovered that years ago when I went to Toronto for a Hi-Fi Show. In passing through customs, a young lady Customs Agent asked me why I had come to Canada, and when I told her that I was there for the Show, she didn’t know what I was talking about, and asked what show? So I told her ”the hi-fi Show” (You know, the one about stereo? ) and she still had no clue. Only when I told her that it was an electronics Trade Show did she let me pass.
When that happened, I gave it little thought: Obviously, she was young, female, and Canadian, so I just shined it on. Why would she know about hi-fi or stereo, anyway?
When, over the years, though, it kept on happening, and with people of every age, gender, and nationality, I got worried, and I still am.
Put very simply, I am afraid that our hobby and the industry that supports it may soon either be no more, or, like the electric train – which used to be ubiquitous, with every kid having one and, during the holiday season, every Christmas tree having one circling its base – is now reduced to just a score or less of dealers serving a declining audience of old men.
When I was a kid, in the mid ‘50s, all of my friends were hi-fi fans and, by the late 1950s and early ‘60s, after the stereo LP was introduced and movies with a stereophonic sound track had become normal, just about every household either had or wanted “a stereo,” and multiple mid-fi dealers claiming hi-fi performance “for the family” at bargain prices were running competing full-page ads in the Sunday papers every week.
It was a hi-fi boom, and everybody had to have one.
Another boom came along a decade or two later, when the CD first appeared (1982), offering “no ticks, no scratches, no pops,” “perfect sound forever.”
Over time, though, that has gone away, and now, even the idea of stereophonic sound seems to have passed, with people getting their music from a “smart speaker” or – for a still small but encouragingly rising market of young people – from headphones (which, although they do give stereo sound, don’t, despite efforts by companies like Stax, AKG, and others, who have tried to mimic it, can’t ever offer the imaging and soundstaging possible with a loudspeaker-based system.)
It’s not just us in audio I’ve heard that the entire music industry is in a years-long slump, too. Both our problem and theirs could be that the music nowadays simply isn’t as good as it was in decades past. To me, at least, Hip-Hop or whatever the current music genres are simply aren’t as good as music was when I was growing up or younger. Gangsta Rap is simply no comparison to Doo-Wop (which I still love) or the later music of the ‘60s and ‘70s – or Country and Western, or Mexican music, or the thousand year tradition of classical music, so why would anybody want to listen to it?
That excuse – at least for us – goes away when you consider that our music (whatever it might be that we love) is still around, in recorded form, and probably will be, forever.
It’s also been suggested that hi-fi has simply gotten too expensive, and that its price is making people lose interest. Simply nonsense! A new Ferrari or Lamborghini sportscar now averages about $300,000 to $400,000, depending on the model, and that doesn’t keep people – even people who would never even dream of driving one to its full potential – from wanting one.
People buy what they want, and they want what they have heard of. And the fact is – as you’ll find out for yourself if you do as I asked at the beginning of this article – most people haven’t got the slightest idea of what hi-fi or stereo is or might be.
And even if they do, we’ve still got a problem: The average person may think it’s crazy or impractical to spend Ferrari or Lamborghini money on a car, but he’d love to be the crazy person who could afford to do it. If someone he knows, however, were to spend even half that much for a Hi-fi system, he’d probably just think they were crazy.
What’s necessary if we are to save – or possibly even resurrect – our hobby and our industry is for people to become aware of hi-fi; to see “everybody else” having and enjoying it; and to make having a hi-fi system – like owning the “right” shoes, the “right” car, or living in the “right” place, “cool,” “hip,” or a status symbol. Preferably all of those.
The way to do that is by exposure. And, weirdly enough it’s already happening , but not nearly as much as necessary. Think of how many times you’ve seen a hi-fi product – usually an LP turntable or speakers, but sometimes hi-fi electronics or even a complete system, as well – in a movie or on television.
They were put there as part of the set for a home, a club, or even an office, to give the room a desired “feeling” – culture, lifestyle, affluence, or whatever – or simply as a means of providing the background music the scene requires. And even though the producers, director, or set people did it for the benefit of the production, it helps us, as well.
Whether intended or not, having that product or that system seen by thousands or millions of people helps us by creating a link in the viewers’ minds between hi-fi and the way of life the producers are trying to show.
Even if having a product or system on the set is the idea of the movie or program’s creative types, having a particular product or system in the scene is often a form of paid-for advertising called a “product placement,” and major advertisers use them all the time.
Not usually hi-fi manufacturers, though. Compared to other industries, ours advertises very, very little as a percentage of gross revenues, and even when it does advertise, it tends to advertise almost exclusively to people who are already its fans and customers. Across all other reporting industries, the average annual advertising spend is now between 2% and 4% of gross revenues. The hi‑fi industry typically spends under 0.5%, with almost all of that spent only on existing audiophiles. Our industry advertises in hi-fi magazines and media and will pay money to participate in Hi-Fi Shows to sell stuff to people who are already its customers, but it practically NEVER advertises to people outside the fold in an effort to bring them in.
And that’s why nobody other than us knows what the words “hi-fi “ and “stereo” mean, and why we really are on the path to becoming another electric train industry – a fond memory to most, but no longer a viable business reality.
It’s not too late to save it, though. What we need to do is to get product placements anywhere we can. And to start heavy advertising – not for any particular product, but for the love of great music played in
Great sound. And to make hi-fi shows cheaper than movies, with live entertainment attractions, so that people who have never heard of us or what we can do will finally have the opportunity and will come see/hear for themselves.
The problem, of course, is that all of that takes money and – at least to this point – nobody, whether a dealer or manufacturer of hi-fi gear, has been willing to throw money into a common hat to advertise for our hobby and our industry and not just their own store or product line.
And yet that’s what it’s going to take if we are to keep on circling that Christmas tree.
There have been attempts made in the past to form an Industry Association to promote our hobby and industry and bring back the boom times we’ve enjoyed at least twice before. Most of them have been either poorly thought-out or poorly executed, have turned into nothing but aa self-congratulation society, giving awards, holding banquets, and accomplishing nothing.
That’s because they forgot their purpose, and having done so, could never achieve it.
A different kind of Industry Association was proposed a couple of years back, however. That was no banquet society, but was designed to do nothing at all except to promote and bring back our hobby and our industry.
With a dedicated staff of advertising professionals, headed by the former Creative Director of one of the world’s largest advertising agencies; with the support of the agency for some of the world’s fanciest-name luxury goods; with the declared support of most of the most influential audio industry publications, and with an easily achieved annual budget of millions a year, spent 100% to promote us to the general consumer market – NOT just music lovers and audiophiles – it would put our hobby and industry back on the map again for a cost to our dealers and manufacturers of less than one fifth of the typical advertising budget for all reporting industries.
The idea was proposed and eagerly accepted by everyone the promoters spoke to and then…people had other things to do and temporarily set it aside, to eventually be forgotten entirely.
That same Association, with most of the same players, the same support, and many of the same connections is still available now, when it is even more needed.
All it needs is for someone to pick up the ball and run with it. If you are in the industry and are interested or know someone who is, contact me through this publication and I’ll make everything – all the plans, the details, and the connections, will be made available to you. I’ll even join and be of as much help as I can.
When, in the very near future, somebody asks somebody else what hi-fi is, let’s make sure they know the answer.
