Quote Originally Posted by thekid
MarkW-loved the joke

At the risk of bringing this thread back in the area of the original topic....

I think we can all agree Bose has done a great job marketing their product. IMO marketing can prop up an average product but it can not overcome the faults of a poor one.

The question I have though is; if marketing was so easy why have not at least one of Bose's competitors imulated their marketing strategy. Now I have heard some here say that some of manufacturers have made a deliberate decision to remain "boutique" dealers and focus on quality. I will buy that with some, but others have been in business a long time and are fairly large corporations or subsidaries of large corporations who are not in the business of "leaving money on the table" so to speak. Has Bose cowed them so much they don't even try anymore? Is Bose the Microsoft of the speaker world-meaning that they have established such a dominant position that it is financial suicide to try and compete with them at the marketing level?

Understand I am not defending Bose but am more curious about how the industry operates vs the Bose model. Successful business models are often copied but in the speaker world this just does not seem to be the case. There are a few of you out there who have been following the industry for a long time maybe you can shed some light on this.
There have been a few copycats. But no one who has stepped up to the plate to stand toe to toe and go punch for punch. The Yamahas, Denon's and Onkyo's of the world have shot out a few HTIB systems that sound better than Bose but don't have the same advertizing behind them. My guess is that it's because it's not all they do. Yamaha makes motorcycles & other motor sports equipment. Not to mention some very nice musical instruments. There are others who make HTIB systems that are so bad that they make Bose look like they really are the best. Altec Lancing has done a good job to make small systems that sound bigger than they are. But they have aimed their marketing at the computer world and don't compete directly with Bose. They do look and sound very similar. Both have decided that the general public wants small speakers more than they want great sound. And they have learned how to cut the right corners. Their research has shown them that it's the voices that people want to hear the most. But they also like a little thump. So they spend their money to make a speaker that reproduces the mids fairly well. The highs roll off fast but the commom person doesn't mind. Throw in a sub and you're good to go. So what if there's a gap between 100htz and 200htz? Unless you play them side by side with a better system you won't notice. You'll never know what you're missing unless you hear it from somewhere else. So the common man goes along thinking, "this is great! I get hi-fi sound without the hugh hi-fi system. What are all those guys thinking buying those big speakers? "