Apart from the sound it makes, more fundamentally, people get the feels from a brand halo; entry into a special club, acquiring status or peer approval, keeping up with the Jones's – or even having the best stats: but they're all the same thing when it comes to motivating sales.
Such halos are being replaced at accelerated rate with logic and knowledge.
Prior to late 1980s, products were sold with wonderful, technical material. Sony would have a four page, glossy brochure talking about transistors they used, circuit topology, measurements, etc. Audiophiles like myself, ate that up.
Then a transition happened. Folks decide to appeal to human nature of "more expensive, the better the performance must be." So high-end audio was born where empty marketing material claiming hearing the live performance, was the highlight. Magazines decided that this is good for them too. Only they could get the attention of these expensive brands to get loaned products for reviews. Fluff articles talking more about what music the guy played than anything technical took over. "Specifications" for products then turned into size and weight! Nothing about performance.
In the last decade or two, that idea expanded to tiers below. Even a new audiophile started to think that a $400 cable would make his system sound better than a $10 one. Ditto for DACs, amps, etc.
Then 10 years ago, we came around. Started to measure gear, with no motivation to sell anything to anyone. Just sheer interest to speak the truth about performance of products. Folks at first ignored us. Then started to be dismissive. Then angry. Meanwhile, new entrants such as Ascilab decided that there is a business to be had, selling to our very large and educated audience. They came on the heels of many electronics manufacturers who had realized the same and with it, hugely grew their business.
The old guard is there to be sure. But their voices are no longer the loudest or even the next loud. What put us on the map continues to grow. Folks want reliable data to make buy decisions on and we provide it. And we feed their desire to really learn more about audio and sound reproduction. Our expert members are participating without any comparison elsewhere.
So no, we are not a club. We are not here to drink together and watch a game. We are serious about righting the ship and brining control out of fluff marketing to engineering excellence. With products being so reasonably priced to boot, there is little competition going on to get the next expensive thing.
Net, net, your generic comments don't apply here. You are shooting from the hip and are better served to understand where you are and who we are.
