REGISTER NEW USERLOST PASSWORD? WELCOME, Logout

Bad storytelling

Paul's Posts — 06 January 2012

By

Bad storytelling

Marketing a product is all about telling a story.  The story tells the customer what the product’s about, why he might need it and how it relates to the customer.

The story might focus on the company that makes the product or the product itself but in the end, the idea is to engage the reader and try and connect in such a way that the product or company is appealing enough to create interest.

Of course there’s always good storytelling as well as bad storytelling.  I think in our industry there’s a lot of both but many of the fringe products tell some really bad stories.

I remember the green pen on CD’s that became a product.  The RainX windshield waxer for CD’s that became a product.  The cable lifts that became a product.  All had stories associated with them and the stories were all attempts at explaining from a scientific perspective why they worked.  They were bad stories at best, inaccurate stories at the least.

It is important in our industry to get our stories straight and as accurate as possible.  If we don’t know why a product makes an improvement, it’s ok to say it.  ”I don’t understand what’s going on, but it sure works!”  Is that any less intriguing a story than some psuedo scientific BS?

Be straight and tell a good story we’ll all want to hear.

email Bad storytelling Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers

Get new and fresh stories like this each morning by joining the folks reading Paul's Posts. Click here

Related Articles

Get that mole! Treat the cause or the symptoms? Jelly rolls If you have to ask …..

Share

About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(8) Readers Comments

  1. justin

    January 6, 2012 at 4:54 am

    Anything that requires BS to sell it is most likely relying on the placebo effect.

    *cough*Schumann Resonance*cough*

    The single reason why I bought a PWD and a P10 is because my dealer gave me a loaner and both units made massive, repeatable, verifiable (blind testing with friends) differences to my system.

    I’m afraid your marketing guys had nothing to do with it – give the credit to whoever designed the gear!

    However, I must admit I ordered the MKII upgrade based on blind faith alone.

  2. Terry Franklin

    January 6, 2012 at 5:48 am

    I still have CDs that I play that have CD rings. It is better to leave them on than to try to remove them.

    • January 6, 2012 at 5:51 am

      Yes indeed. And Rainx works as does the green pen. The whole point of the post was not that these don’t work but that the stories behind them didn’t make sense. I should have been clearer.

  3. hahax

    January 6, 2012 at 6:45 am

    The Bose 901 is sort of a reverse of today’s missive. The theory was probably correct in a sloppy way but the speaker didn’t and could not do what it claimed correctly. That most sound we hear is reflected is true but that it’s 8/9 parts reflected in all venues and in all frequencies is not likely. But a good recording already has the reflected sound in the mix and therefore minimal reflected sound from the speaker is desired rather than 8/9. Other wise you’re adding to the reflected sound, a distortion. Perhaps an anechoic recording could be made(difficult) and then you’d get the sound of the room you’re in. Imagine Mahler’s 8th in your den! So here the tale is real and the results are low fidelity, albeit impressive which along with a good story(add in the MIT professorship) sold lots of inaccurate sound.

    • Soundminded

      January 7, 2012 at 11:14 am

      Oh no it’s that 4 letter “B” word again. I looked it up in Wikipedia. They say the 901 series VI has been in production since 1986. That’s over 25 years. And still it never seems to be far from some people’s minds. I still wonder in amazement at it, how one product has bothered so many people so much for so long. That alone makes me glad it was produced and marketed.

      “The Bose 901 is sort of a reverse of today’s missive. The theory was probably correct’

      Actually his basic assumption was dead wrong. A gross oversimplification based on false reasoning. He measured 89% of the sound the audience hears just 16 feet from the stage apron at Boston Symphony Hall is due to reflections so he built a speaker that radiates about 89% of its sound indirectly. The tacit implication is that his 901 will produce something like the sound of the acoustics of Boston Symphony Hall. In fact the reverberant field produced by his speaker in a home under any circumstances has nothing in common with the sound you hear at Bostoh Symphony Hall or any other concert hall. Nobody’s else’s does either, it isn’t in recordings and that speaker couldn’t reproduce it accurately if it were.

      Another design goal was to eliminate the shrillness of string instruments he heard in other loudspeakers. He did this by practically eliminating the top octave of sound from 901′s usable range. In this respect I think Gordon Holt was right, the inertial mass of a 4″ midwoofer as we now call it is too great to make it much of a tweeter and due to its diameter, whatever high frequencies it can reproduce will beam directly on axis. Since the front driver establishes the presedence effect for the stereo image and high frequencies are so critical to determining directionality, it’s small wonder there are so many who observe that the speaker doesn’t produce anything like pinpoint imaging from sources that are for all practical purposes point sources.

      To compensate for lack of high frequencies so that the speaker did not sound radically out of balance and to keep power requirements within acceptable limits in the acoustic suspension version he initiallly manufactured was a speaker whose deep bass response falls too far too fast. To keep the speaker from sounding thin it has a broad peak in the upper bass. This was observed by more than one reviewer including e/e magazine but I think one of the others said more or less the same. They say they didn’t hear it, I do.

      All this does not mean this speaker is without merit or that it is poorly constructed. In fact it was manufactured to very high standards. The design can be salvaged, the concept can be put to good use but not in the way Dr. Bose said it could IMO. But not to achieve all of his stated goals in the way he implied they could.

  4. Gordon

    January 6, 2012 at 7:58 am

    EVERY PRODUCT HAS A PURPOSE.
    iF 9 OUT OF 10 PEOPLE DO NOT HEAR A BENEFIT FROM A TWEAK DOES THAT MAKE IT USELESS?
    I would suggest the most of the people who downplay something that works for others, have never even tried it.

    If we subtract dreams and creativity and experimentation from our lives, then what of true value is left?

  5. hahax

    January 6, 2012 at 9:20 am

    When tweaks work they are great. But many tweaks seem to be lucky dart tosses with a story that doesn’t explain them. And the story is important. Without an accuratel explanation you can’t really repeat a process nor can you make it even better.

  6. Soundminded

    January 7, 2012 at 11:20 am

    ” If we don’t know why a product makes an improvement, it’s ok to say it.”

    Well maybe it’s ok to say it but that doesn’t make it ok to buy it. This $2000 pair of wires is made from 99.99% pure silver that has been stripped of all oxygen, kept in liquid helium for 6 hours and has been woven by the best carpet makers in the orient, far better than any machine could. So what makes it cause my speakers to sound so much better? Well the truth is that the shunt capacitance is so high it filters out the resonant peak in your tweeters. You could get the same results from a 50 cent capacitor but that would send the rugmakers back to weaving oriental carpets. Yes it matters to the consumer how it works. It’s the only way he has of knowing whether or not he could get the same results far more cheaply and efficiently. Not much profit though in a sale of two 50 cent capacitors.

Leave a Reply