Or the names of many different electronics, as well as their components.
I've often wondered. For instance, FiiO Q1 Mark II looks pretty good, but why is it called Mark II instead of Q2?
The PCM5102A DAC is common, but if it's a revision of the first one, why didn't they call it the PCM5102B?* And does "5102" mean anything? Was there a 5101? Will there be a 5103?
With Sony product codes I get the sense they intentionally use combinations of numbers and letters that seem to sound cool or perhaps give off an air of mystery. The "Sony TA-ZH1ES" has a certain strong, impenetrable but mysterious quality to it, perhaps. But not very "cool." For "cool" Sony I would go with the ones like "EX650" (which they have used for both an earphone and at least one TV) and "V6" which sounds very cool, because Vs are cool, and so are 6s, like Nexus 6 from Blade Runner and Google.
So does marketing decide this thing or engineers? How does it work in a company?
Sometimes companies choose boring and obvious names -- did I just answer my question by calling them "boring"? Well boring can be nice. Boring can also be called honest and straightforward, "no BS." like Topping D30 for DAC and A30 for amplifier, although I'm not sure if there was a 20, or if there could be a 35 or a 25, and so forth.
I get the sense many companies start kind of in the middle with their product codes and then work around it haphazardly depending on demand, success, changes in prices of parts that end up affecting what new products they'll make. They can't plan too far ahead (although Schiit has seemed to admirably with their Norse mythology ), so they have to work around various numbers and letters they've used so far.
It might can come off bad, too, if an expensive product has a simpler code name than their less expensive products. So for FiiO, they use "A1" to describe one of their simplest and cheapest amplifiers, but others get special names like Alpen and Kilimanjaro (although with the normal product code, which is still pretty simple, but I still don't know what they mean or why the numbers were chosen, like E17). Maybe actually it was sequential after all and I just don't realize it... like E17 was their 17th product.
(On the other hand, starting over with simple product names can have a clean slate / rebooting effect, meaning a new standard, like Sony MDR-1R, Sony A1E, Sony Z1R, etc. Sorry if I seem to be picking on Sony. I pick on them because I love them).
But it's like this in any electronics, or in cars and all sorts of stuff.
I kind of like how CEntrance has sort of dorky-cool names like Dacportable and Dacport Slim (as someone on Reddit joked, the latter will be a name he gives himself when he becomes a rapper one day). At leas they're English and easy to type. That's more than can be said for many of Sony's products. But why is the "E" in their name capitalized? Or what does "CEntrance" even mean? Central entrance? It's nice that it's easy to find in search results, though, so maybe that's the point.
I guess it's hard to come up with new product names and codes that aren't used for other things. They have to be unique. And it's a random process. But obviously some of those letter and number combinations aren't so random.
Earlier on in this audiophile exploration I've been doing I got hooked on wanting a "Wolfson" DAC just because I thought the name sound good. Heh, it sounded kind of "warm" like so often described with those DACs. Plus Sony used them so I figured they must be good, and Apple (correction: Cirrus Logic) later bought them. But wolves are cool, they like wintery areas...
*I think I see now that they "A" may stand for "Active" (not discontinued).
I've often wondered. For instance, FiiO Q1 Mark II looks pretty good, but why is it called Mark II instead of Q2?
The PCM5102A DAC is common, but if it's a revision of the first one, why didn't they call it the PCM5102B?* And does "5102" mean anything? Was there a 5101? Will there be a 5103?
With Sony product codes I get the sense they intentionally use combinations of numbers and letters that seem to sound cool or perhaps give off an air of mystery. The "Sony TA-ZH1ES" has a certain strong, impenetrable but mysterious quality to it, perhaps. But not very "cool." For "cool" Sony I would go with the ones like "EX650" (which they have used for both an earphone and at least one TV) and "V6" which sounds very cool, because Vs are cool, and so are 6s, like Nexus 6 from Blade Runner and Google.
So does marketing decide this thing or engineers? How does it work in a company?
Sometimes companies choose boring and obvious names -- did I just answer my question by calling them "boring"? Well boring can be nice. Boring can also be called honest and straightforward, "no BS." like Topping D30 for DAC and A30 for amplifier, although I'm not sure if there was a 20, or if there could be a 35 or a 25, and so forth.
I get the sense many companies start kind of in the middle with their product codes and then work around it haphazardly depending on demand, success, changes in prices of parts that end up affecting what new products they'll make. They can't plan too far ahead (although Schiit has seemed to admirably with their Norse mythology ), so they have to work around various numbers and letters they've used so far.
It might can come off bad, too, if an expensive product has a simpler code name than their less expensive products. So for FiiO, they use "A1" to describe one of their simplest and cheapest amplifiers, but others get special names like Alpen and Kilimanjaro (although with the normal product code, which is still pretty simple, but I still don't know what they mean or why the numbers were chosen, like E17). Maybe actually it was sequential after all and I just don't realize it... like E17 was their 17th product.
(On the other hand, starting over with simple product names can have a clean slate / rebooting effect, meaning a new standard, like Sony MDR-1R, Sony A1E, Sony Z1R, etc. Sorry if I seem to be picking on Sony. I pick on them because I love them).
But it's like this in any electronics, or in cars and all sorts of stuff.
I kind of like how CEntrance has sort of dorky-cool names like Dacportable and Dacport Slim (as someone on Reddit joked, the latter will be a name he gives himself when he becomes a rapper one day). At leas they're English and easy to type. That's more than can be said for many of Sony's products. But why is the "E" in their name capitalized? Or what does "CEntrance" even mean? Central entrance? It's nice that it's easy to find in search results, though, so maybe that's the point.
I guess it's hard to come up with new product names and codes that aren't used for other things. They have to be unique. And it's a random process. But obviously some of those letter and number combinations aren't so random.
Earlier on in this audiophile exploration I've been doing I got hooked on wanting a "Wolfson" DAC just because I thought the name sound good. Heh, it sounded kind of "warm" like so often described with those DACs. Plus Sony used them so I figured they must be good, and Apple (correction: Cirrus Logic) later bought them. But wolves are cool, they like wintery areas...
*I think I see now that they "A" may stand for "Active" (not discontinued).
Last edited:
I think naming is random because anyone can give a product a name and they do! 
