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What Market Segment?

Tom Brennan said:
The OP asked about the market segment the speaker was aimed at and market segments are by their nature a divisive thing. You know as well as I that a big part of marketing is indentifying groups of people and then appealing to the aspirations, fantasies and self image of those groups. That's simply the way of things.
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I concur. After looking over ARs marketing from the 70s, they were targeting the discerning audiophile. They sought to couple jazz and classical, both of which arguably are more sophisticated than, say mere rock, with their speaker line. Infinity did the same thing albeit later in the 70s with their pictures of orchestra instruments in their ads. Whether or not one likes Miles Davis is not the issue. AR certainly thought that he would add a certain sophistication and gravitas to their campaign for their products.

The OP asked a direct question regarding market segment. Let's see AR speakers, jazz, Mercedes cars, and a good single malt. I always thought both the AR and Infinity ads were very dignified and exuded a sense of style and sophistication. Both of which some would consider pretentious. The whole point of advertising is to place your product away from the competitors, that is, to divide.
 
Some audiophiles want to hear ultra-detail.

They want to hear a vocalist's every little nuance. They want to hear every little glottal stop. They want to hear the uvula flailing around as the singer changes phrasing.

They want to hear a vocalist breathe. Even if it's labored after swallowing a Life Saver too soon.

I don't want to hear that stuff.

Doug
 
JohnVF said:
I had a nice pair of AR-2ax. Like pretty much every other vintage speaker I've owned, they had their day and it is not today or tomorrow. I never played Miles Davis on them, though. Must have been the secret to enjoying them as much as the hype suggested I would. They sounded very natural as long as nature exists in a box with a blanket over it.

ouch!
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My bedroom is box shaped and nature surely exists under a blanket in it.
 
Rockyhill said:
Hey, can we get back to audio fidelity and forget about the consumer profiling?
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The question is about what market segment the product in question was aimed at. The thread is supposed to be about consumer profiling.
 
AR seems then to have played a big part in the assumption that all audiophiles only listen to classical and jazz and that those genres are somehow the only acceptable music to listen to on fine speakers such as what they made. Whatever. I'm about to put on The Ronettes, in mono.
 
JohnVF said:
AR seems then to have played a big part in the assumption that all audiophiles only listen to classical and jazz and that those genres are somehow the only acceptable music to listen to on fine speakers such as what they made. Whatever. I'm about to put on The Ronettes, in mono.
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If you consider the history, it seems rather clear that "audiophilia" grew out of the classical and jazz genres, namely, trying to recreate an orchestra or jazz in the home. The oft cited goal of recreating that live experience with all its nuances. Today, it is quite different in that all the post instrument manipulation has become a creative process, for better or worse, itself. Personally, I still much prefer less manipulation. The Cowboy Junkies' "Trinity Sessions" is a great example of the type of recordings I prefer.
 
Nature exists under a blanket, but it thrives when uncovered.

Some people need to grow a little sense of humor. The AR owners I bumped into at college loved to have their three or four jazz albums, plus a few classical albums, and they loved to pull and play them so you could hear all the sounds. Back in the day, there was little more pitiful than witnessing a poser show how cool he was by pulling out a Miles or P-Funk album.

Now the jazz freaks who had a couple hundred jazz albums - that was a whole different scene. Very, very few of them had ARs. They grabbed whatever they could, as they spent their money on wax.

At least around our college, if you wanted to talk about your gear you bought ARs. If music was the target, you avoided ARs. Maybe it went down this way in Chicago and St. Louis and nowhere else, who knows?
 
bhunter said:
If you consider the history, it seems rather clear that "audiophilia" grew out of the classical and jazz genres, namely, trying to recreate an orchestra or jazz in the home. The oft cited goal of recreating that live experience with all its nuances. Today, it is quite different in that all the post instrument manipulation has become a creative process, for better or worse, itself. Personally, I still much prefer less manipulation. The Cowboy Junkies' "Trinity Sessions" is a great example of the type of recordings I prefer.
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Don't get me wrong, I love classical music and simple recordings like Trinity Sessions. But there's an assumption that that is all an audiophile system should be able to do. I disagree. Good gear should be able to reproduce almost any genre, and that gear is out there. In my experience, it hasn't been the ARs I've had, though. They're pleasant enough to listen to, though. But I found them to be voiced, instead of letting the recording be the voice. And I didn't like the voice. I know I've been joking about it, but I really did find them to sound way too laid back, even compared to something like a Boston Acoustic A-150, which is not a bright/forward speaker. It was like they were forcing me back into the hall on classical music, when I think the recording should place me, not the speaker.
 
JohnVF said:
I don't think there's a single person in that band that's been let off uptown.
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Ah John, if you knew your history. Those cats are the original hipsters. O'Day and Krupa (both from Chicago by the way; Krupa went to Austin and O'Day to Senn) didn't pick up their drug habits hanging around in Oak Park.
 
JohnVF said:
Don't get me wrong, I love classical music and simple recordings like Trinity Sessions. But there's an assumption that that is all an audiophile system should be able to do. I disagree. Good gear should be able to reproduce almost any genre, and that gear is out there. In my experience, it hasn't been the ARs I've had, though. They're pleasant enough to listen to, though. But I found them to be voiced, instead of letting the recording be the voice. And I didn't like the voice. I know I've been joking about it, but I really did find them to sound way too laid back, even compared to something like a Boston Acoustic A-150, which is not a bright/forward speaker. It was like they were forcing me back into the hall on classical music, when I think the recording should place me, not the speaker.
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All speakers are voiced, John. You just have to like the voice. Ofcourse the voice has to be heard through the comforter wrapped around the head:D in the case of the AR's.
 
Tom Brennan said:
Ah John, if you knew your history. Those cats are the original hipsters. O'Day and Krupa (both from Chicago by the way; Krupa went to Austin and O'Day to Senn) didn't pick up their drug habits hanging around in Oak Park.
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I'm just saying, when it started playing it sounded very, um, gentrified to me. Made up for it in the end, though. I'd rather hang out with those hipsters than today's, though.
 
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