Who would you consider to be an Ethical Manufacturer in the Audio Business?

[sejarzo]

I had taken that to refer to the notion that studio monitors are often thought of being near-field reproducers of sound, which may or may not be as successful in a real room. You are right, though, if we take a broader view of a monitor, that is the goal we should go for. One of the things that also impresses me more than the quote I linked to is that the company uses anechoic testing in their design.

Thanks for the explanation. It would have been helpful for the manufacturer to be a bit more precise as to specifics that show how monitor "voicing" is "lousy" and imply that they suck the "thrill and beauty out of music"...similar to the what the tube enthusiasts claim ad infinitum re transistor amps.

Then again...their job is to sell their product and make money, just like any other maker.

 

[Capitol C]

Thanks for the explanation. It would have been helpful for the manufacturer to be a bit more precise as to specifics that show how monitor "voicing" is "lousy" and imply that they suck the "thrill and beauty out of music"...similar to the what the tube enthusiasts claim ad infinitum re transistor amps.

Then again...their job is to sell their product and make money, just like any other maker.

When I was looking for new speakers a few years back(the first since I had bought my AR 3a speakers around 1972!) I was appalled to discover what had happened to the audio industry. People in the few stores remaining told me stupid things about cables, etc., and I looked online for someone--anyone--who would talk about specs. I bypassed GoldenEar at first because of the company name but found that, compared to many other companies at the time, they added some tech talk to the trash talk.

I still have the literature from AR in the sixties in seventies--graphs of frequency response, distortion, wow, flutter, and rumble numbers. My kind of stereo world. I'm happy to have discovered ASW!

 

[pseudoid]

I hope you don't mean 'ethical' in the sense that they don't use slave/child labor.
But I am all in for 'sustainable' audio hardware that lasts forever is reliable, without needing any visits for warranty service or having to order replacement parts for.

I think Richard Vandersteen started out with the notion that the price you paid for a pair of speakers should not include expen$ive looks. Unfortunately, I've only had experience with few of his 2C speaker flavors.
I've also had long-term reliability with Rotel products.

 

[jsrtheta]

A manufacturer whose goal is not money, but development of audio devices and people making them.

For example, Elon Musk's goal is not money. To him, money is an obstacle to developing people and resources.

Any company that treats money as the goal should be avoided. Buy from people who treat money as financial obstacles to developing resources.

I mean if making money is the priority, I don't want to buy from you. You actually need to want to make something. Development of resources and people making them should be the priority. I don't want to buy from people who just want to get rich and retire and stop caring about everything.

I hate most people's mindset toward money. It is the reason behind lots of snake oil. If your goal is money, then you have no problem with deceiving people with snake oils and deceptive marketing.

Not sure what you base your opinion of Musk on.

But people work for money. Food and shelter cost money. A desire to make money at what you do is not a failing.

 

[jsrtheta]

I don't know whether that is true, but Elon Musk is still not driven by money.

The point is if people in a manufacturer treat money as their God or the priority, we can be sure that their products are going to suck.

Have you been following what's going on with Twitter?

 

[Deleted member 58865]

But people work for money. Food and shelter cost money.

They work for shelter and food and basic necessities. Even if people work for something other than money, they still work only for their own comfort level.
If they don't care about what they make and if they care only about their own comfort, what they make will suck hard.

Think about the level of care toward products, possessed by audio engineers and food franchise owners. A day-and-night difference.

It's understandable that people want certain levels of comfort. I also want that. But, if comfort and money are all you work for, I don't want to buy what you make.

Most people care only about themselves, immediate family, and close friends. When their care extends beyond, then they can make lasting legacies. Deep care is what creates outcomes in the real world. There can be good care and dark care. People who deeply care about bad things will create bad things that have deep impacts in the real world.

I know for a fact that Elon Musk's care extends well beyond money and his little life. That's why he's creating impacts of any kind in the world. His intentions may or may not be good, though. A con man can care really deeply about bad things well beyond his own little life. A tyrant can work his ass off to enslave his subjects because he really really cares about domination at the expense of his own comfort levels. A small-minded man would not be making multiple companies that develop multiple products and working his ass off.

Just because someone is a con man or a bad guy doesn't mean he cares only about money or himself. A tyrant cares deeply about other people in a bad way. A tyrant would prefer control over people to money, so he impoverishes people and exploits poor people.

Good care leaves good impacts. Dark care leaves bad impacts. I haven't said whether Elon Musk is good or bad. He is certainly not a small-minded man.

So, it's better for people to care deeply about good things.

 

[jsrtheta]

They work for shelter and food and basic necessities. Even if people work for something other than money, they still work only for their own comfort level.
If they don't care about what they make and if they care only about their own comfort, what they make will suck hard.

Think about the level of care toward products, possessed by audio engineers and food franchise owners. A day-and-night difference.

It's understandable that people want certain levels of comfort. I also want that. But, if comfort and money are all you work for, I don't want to buy what you make.

Most people care only about themselves, immediate family, and close friends. When their care extends beyond, then they can make lasting legacies. Deep care is what creates outcomes in the real world. There can be good care and dark care. People who deeply care about bad things will create bad things that have deep impacts in the real world.

I know for a fact that Elon Musk's care extends well beyond money and his little life. That's why he's creating impacts of any kind in the world. His intentions may or may not be good, though. A con man can care really deeply about bad things well beyond his own little life. A tyrant can work his ass off to enslave his subjects because he really really cares about domination at the expense of his own comfort levels. A small-minded man would not be making multiple companies that develop multiple products and working his ass off.

Just because someone is a con man or a bad guy doesn't mean he cares only about money or himself. A tyrant cares deeply about other people in a bad way. A tyrant would prefer control over people to money, so he impoverishes people and exploits poor people.

Good care leaves good impacts. Dark care leaves bad impacts. I haven't said whether Elon Musk is good or bad. He is certainly not a small-minded man.

So, it's better for people to care deeply about good things.

Elon Musk is an idiot. He is typical of many of the new obscenely wealthy, an overrated mediocrity who made the mistake of opening his mouth too much, thereby showing the world what an idiot he is. Though the hilarity at Twitter at least provides the rest of us with boffo laughs.

You took my point and lost it under a sofa somewhere. All I was saying is that there's nothing inconsistent between wanting to make a good living from your work and also doing a very good job in your field.

 

[Saturn94]

Power Sound Audio

 

[pseudoid]

On[e] the other end of the spectrum I'd put PS Audio or AudioQuest -- who seem to have no shame.

That would almost be a whole other thread.
But I'll chime in with a few name-brands that I would not consider doing business with; as if I was a proponent of 'ethical' consumerism:
Bose <== 1970s' love-child ==> I have NEVER heard one w/satisfying results, in many (8+) set-ups p.o.f.
Polk <== Detested his lab-coat ==> 2021 peer-pressure purchase w/deplorable sound confirmed by AP tests p.o.f.

 

[sofrep811]

This is from my personal experience:
1. JDS Labs by a very wide margin
2. Yamaha - specifically their speaker amplifiers as well as their instruments division
3. Sennheiser

Edit: Had you asked me this question a couple of years ago, I would have put Schiit in the top 5 simply because of their price/performance ratio but the jury is still out for me based on their recent tendency to sweep under the rug multiple reports of premature product failures reported by customers - Lyr 3+, Hel 2E, as an example. I prefer much more transparency on the subject as witnessed by JDS Labs super-detailed update on their early Element III knob issues:

On EL3 Manufacturing – JDS Labs Blog

blog.jdslabs.com

JDS Lab having growing pains with their manufacturer? I recall them from a while back selling pretty well priced DAC’s for he dollar. I’m not expert on them, but I’ll finish reading the blog to get a better idea. Guess it’s good they’re meeting it head-on?? I can’t say as I never owned anything from JDS.

I have owned a few things from Schiit—when they first broke ground. Purchased their BiFrost for $250. Amazing it is $500 ten or so years later. It worked fine for me but I buy and sell. I just enjoy trying different component brands. I have tried all their $100-$150 products minus the Modi and was not impressed at all. Better off doing Raspberry Pi.

BTW - This thread has wheels. Glad to see it and everyone's posts. No right or wrong.

 

[Descartes]

Decent is a rather difficult to measure. It's even more difficult in audio industry because it's niche and low in volume.

Ultimately, a company must make enough profits to survive. If they can't, they go bust. Despite the price of the equipment, manufacturers are not making that much money from it.

Say, there is an amplifier that cost $10,000, 40-60% goes to dealer. It's low volume item, if the margin isn't there, they aren't even interested to sell it. This is rather typical of electrical/electronics market too. Stuffs like your washing machine, fridge etc are all low volume items.

Assuming $5000 to dealer, out of that remaining $5000, you still need to




3-5%


How do you define what is ethical or unethical?

1. As consumer, cheaper is better
2. As investor, higher ROI is better
3. As employee, higher salary is better
4. As CEO, higher profit is better
5. As dealer, higher margin/more sales is better.
6. Employee working for dealer, higher salary/commission is better.

Now look at this:

1. Cheaper price, good for customer, bad for dealer/manufacturer since profit margins affected.
2. Lower margins could mean lower ROI, bad for investor.
3. Lower profits means lesser salary and bonus for employee. Worse may lose job if business really poor.
4. Lower profits means CEO needs to answer to investors, board of directors. May also mean cost cutting measures needed. Eg. Salary cut, retrenchment etc.. bad for employees. Worst of all, company go bust and all jobless...
5. Dealer has to pay rental for shop space, salary for workers. So margin and sales matters.
6. Workers all need salary to feed family. Same as no.3

Give you a few scenarios:

1. I am customer. This xxx company sucks, unethical. Overpriced!! Its daylight robbery!! Should go bust!!

2. I am employee. This xxx company gives me good salary, good benefits and really care for employees. Great company!!

3. I am ceo. This xxx company is having way too little profit. Investors are not getting the returns. Operational cost is too high. I need to cut people and benefits etc to reduce cost.

4. I am the investor for xxx company. I invested millions into it but I am not getting the returns I am supposed to get.. time to fire the CEO!!

5. I am dealer. This xxx company is good. They are giving me good margins for their products. So I will continue to sell their products.

6. I am working for my boss in abc hifi shop. The boss sucks. He is giving me way too little salary and my working hours too long. He told us we are not earning enough. We are giving discounts and providing free delivery and installation is eating up our profits. Customer like it? Sure! But it's costing us.

My purpose is to show that we are in a inter-related world where what others do will affect us indirectly and vice versa. Depending on whose shoes you are in, you will see things differently. Every industry has its own list of "unethical" companies, but employees in these companies are still getting paid and able to feed their families. I am sure there will be some who treat employees well too.

Btw, I am not in audio industry (in case you are wondering).

Costco manage to offer benefits to their customers, employees and share holders

 

[sofrep811]

Decent is a rather difficult to measure. It's even more difficult in audio industry because it's niche and low in volume.

Ultimately, a company must make enough profits to survive. If they can't, they go bust. Despite the price of the equipment, manufacturers are not making that much money from it.

Say, there is an amplifier that cost $10,000, 40-60% goes to dealer. It's low volume item, if the margin isn't there, they aren't even interested to sell it. This is rather typical of electrical/electronics market too. Stuffs like your washing machine, fridge etc are all low volume items.

Assuming $5000 to dealer, out of that remaining $5000, you still need to




3-5%


How do you define what is ethical or unethical?

1. As consumer, cheaper is better
2. As investor, higher ROI is better
3. As employee, higher salary is better
4. As CEO, higher profit is better
5. As dealer, higher margin/more sales is better.
6. Employee working for dealer, higher salary/commission is better.

Now look at this:

1. Cheaper price, good for customer, bad for dealer/manufacturer since profit margins affected.
2. Lower margins could mean lower ROI, bad for investor.
3. Lower profits means lesser salary and bonus for employee. Worse may lose job if business really poor.
4. Lower profits means CEO needs to answer to investors, board of directors. May also mean cost cutting measures needed. Eg. Salary cut, retrenchment etc.. bad for employees. Worst of all, company go bust and all jobless...
5. Dealer has to pay rental for shop space, salary for workers. So margin and sales matters.
6. Workers all need salary to feed family. Same as no.3

Give you a few scenarios:

1. I am customer. This xxx company sucks, unethical. Overpriced!! Its daylight robbery!! Should go bust!!

2. I am employee. This xxx company gives me good salary, good benefits and really care for employees. Great company!!

3. I am ceo. This xxx company is having way too little profit. Investors are not getting the returns. Operational cost is too high. I need to cut people and benefits etc to reduce cost.

4. I am the investor for xxx company. I invested millions into it but I am not getting the returns I am supposed to get.. time to fire the CEO!!

5. I am dealer. This xxx company is good. They are giving me good margins for their products. So I will continue to sell their products.

6. I am working for my boss in abc hifi shop. The boss sucks. He is giving me way too little salary and my working hours too long. He told us we are not earning enough. We are giving discounts and providing free delivery and installation is eating up our profits. Customer like it? Sure! But it's costing us.

My purpose is to show that we are in a inter-related world where what others do will affect us indirectly and vice versa. Depending on whose shoes you are in, you will see things differently. Every industry has its own list of "unethical" companies, but employees in these companies are still getting paid and able to feed their families. I am sure there will be some who treat employees well too.

Btw, I am not in audio industry (in case you are wondering).

This is known before. I think most understand how this biz works. Nothing you typed is out of the ordinary for many widget selling businesses. Thanks for the reminding as it is important to remind.

If I had the expendable money I'd buy a Dan D'Agostino Momentum amp.

 

[Deleted member 58865]

Elon Musk is an idiot.

99.9% of people are stupid, but they think they are not stupid. That's how they get deceived. Most people's egos are too big to admit that they are stupid and they can be easily fooled. Some idiots are slightly better than others and at least make more than enough money.

I'm stupid. You are stupid, too. The first step of awakening is to stop lying to oneself. If you don't consider the possibility that you are stupid and gullible, you will be fooled over and over.

Obviously, Elon Musk is less stupid than all of us are. If I was managing his companies, I would be a bumbling idiot. You have not seen real stupidity at the level of clinical retardedness. I think my sister is clinically retarded.

Earth is littered with stupid idiots. I think earth is a gravity prison for the stupid. People have damaged their brains through dopamine addictions. Some people have severe brain damage from dopamine addictions and bad foods and border on clinical retardedness. Dopamine and adrenaline can damage brain physically. It's important to keep dopamine and adrenaline at low levels if you want to do anything non-trivial.

0.1% of the population would be the rulers of this world who work their asses off and are very smart about how they themselves think and how other people think. They are the ones who manage prison guards. Elon Musk would be a stupid idiot, compared to them. But, I'm even stupider than Elon Musk.

When we accept the fact that we are fools, we can at least have any hope to stop making the same mistakes over and over.

 

[Trudius]

99.9% of people are stupid, but they think they are not stupid. That's how they get deceived. Most people's egos are too big to admit that they are stupid and they can be easily fooled. Some idiots are slightly better than others and at least make more than enough money.

I'm stupid. You are stupid, too. The first step of awakening is to stop lying to oneself. If you don't consider the possibility that you are stupid and gullible, you will be fooled over and over.

Obviously, Elon Musk is less stupid than all of us are. If I was managing his companies, I would be a bumbling idiot. You have not seen real stupidity at the level of clinical retardedness. I think my sister is clinically retarded.

Earth is littered with stupid idiots. I think earth is a gravity prison for the stupid. People have damaged their brains through dopamine addictions. Some people have severe brain damage from dopamine addictions and bad foods and border on clinical retardedness. Dopamine and adrenaline can damage brain physically. It's important to keep dopamine and adrenaline at low levels if you want to do anything non-trivial.

0.1% of the population would be the rulers of this world who work their asses off and are very smart about how they themselves think and how other people think. They are the ones who manage prison guards. Elon Musk would be a stupid idiot, compared to them. But, I'm even stupider than Elon Musk.

When we accept the fact that we are fools, we can at least have any hope to stop making the same mistakes over and over.

We are all fools but that is not a sign of stupidity, it is part of the human condition. As Richard Feynman stated (maybe):

• The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool

A poor farmer in the Middle East or Africa barely making it trying to produce food on land that is not arable may not be vey intelligent, but he or she is worth every penny of admiration and not the "gravity prison for the stupid" as you write.

As for Elon I do think he is a freaking genius. I have a couple of co-workers that drive Teslas and they loved them. I think his companies are true innovation engines. So are some audio companies. But Elon also has serious personality issues (Asperger's by his own admission) which affect his personal and business life in a way that is destructive to him and those that work with and for him.

 

[jsrtheta]

We are all fools but that is not a sign of stupidity, it is part of the human condition. As Richard Feynman stated (maybe):

• The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool

A poor farmer in the Middle East or Africa barely making it trying to produce food on land that is not arable may not be vey intelligent, but he or she is worth every penny of admiration and not the "gravity prison for the stupid" as you write.

As for Elon I do think he is a freaking genius. I have a couple of co-workers that drive Teslas and they loved them. I think his companies are true innovation engines. So are some audio companies. But Elon also has serious personality issues (Asperger's by his own admission) which affect his personal and business life in a way that is destructive to him and those that work with and for him.

Teslas may or may not be great cars, but Musk isn't responsible. He bought into the company, but he did not design any of the cars (he has no such skills). And since he's joined the company it's had big problems. And today we know that Twitter has lost half its value, and continues to lose money.

He at the least implied that he designed the Roadster. When it was pointed out that this was demonstrably untrue (he has no degree in engineering), he changed his story to say he "led" the team.

Musk bought into Tesla. He is an investor. Do not believe his self-hype.

 

[Deleted member 58865]

Elon Musk is largely a high-level manager for his companies. He oversees his companies. That's all he does.

Put me in his position, and I will make terrible mistakes. His companies will either fire me or be destroyed.

 

[Deleted member 58865]

he or she is worth every penny of admiration and not the "gravity prison for the stupid" as you write.

A farmer working on barren land may very well be a bad person. Just too stupid to inflict harms on a large scale.
Just because someone is a farmer doesn't mean the person is good.
Make him or her a prison guard, and the person may inflict horrible damages upon prisoners, when given orders.

Prison experiments revealed that most people are either bad or evil. They follow evil orders instead of their own conscience.

If you want to know the current human condition, conduct prison experiments again.

Humans are not inherently evil. But, in the current human condition, most people are evil. Humans are programmable bio machines. They are programmed wrong. I don't know how long it will take to fix humans.

 

[Angsty]

Sutherland Engineering

 

[Mr. Widget]

If low cost is of prime importance then you will likely disagree with me, but I think Pass Labs is a very ethical manufacturer. They may be costly, but they are extremely reliable. They maintain a massive inventory of spare parts to repair their products for decades after the sale. They treat their employees well which while it contributes to the high cost, it probably also contributes to the reliability and QC.

Yes they sell products to the "golden eared audiophiles", but I don't think they make outrageous claims and they don't include or offer ridiculous power or other cables.

 

[D!sco]

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism