Seems to me that the thrust of many of these denuciations comes from a deeper dicontent with hype and ubiquity. In a sense, you have to sympathize with manufacturers who find themselves at war with one another to become the premier brand. In turn, they produces innumerable units and models, filling every foresseable niche. Add to this the attendant "buzz" extolling the manufacturers' wares, and it gets pretty wearisome.

While for lay people, all of this is failrly innocuous, we "audiophiles" become increasingly leery. This is especially true in regard to products appealing to the mainstream: that if a manufacturers going to spend a bunch of money in developing new models and marketing them, they better damn well deliver; otherwise, they're hacks. On the other hand, brands that are sold by their reputations, there is little need to be so aggressive (or innovative?). Knowing their products of the past to be sound, there is little expectation for those standards to improve. For the mainstream, this works out fine; for audiophiles in the know, the proof will always be in the pudding.

As examples, I will point to Klipsch and Cary. Klipsch is a fairly respectable company, producing speakers that were well considered. Unfortunately, the pressures of demand and the attendant hype drove the quality of many of their products down. For the masses whose ears were not as sensitive as their discerning cousins, this did not matter much. Now the manufacturer of the well received Klipschorn, LaScala and Heresey produces many other speakers that sound much like their contemporaries.

Cary is a brand that is widely seen as a manufacturer of excellent equipment, but--and this is an intuitive hunch based on what I have seen in ads and models I've noted for sale--not very innovative. Part of this, I reckon, rests upon the medium--how many variations of the tube amp can one come up with? So, while Cary's standards of workmanship have remained pretty high, many interested customers have snapped their products up. On the other hand, Cary's products have not shown much innovation, so, among audiophiles, they don't move with as much vigor as they might if their products were au courant.

In sum, manufacturers face the dilemma of caving to mass consumer expectation and standards anticipated by the audiophile market. Both have valid and influential arguments to make, and companies who are canny enough to listen will survive. Whether or not they measure up is a different ball o' wax altogether.