High-end rescue package?
In my other magazine ‘gig’ I review high-end home audio equipment for sister publications Sound+Image and Australian Hi-Fi. In high-end audio, and especially in the upper echelons, it’s not uncommon to come across speakers and amplifiers in brackets upwards of $30k- $40k. There are plenty of brands offering products well beyond that bracket too. Even stand-alone CD players can escalate to that point and above. At those ethereal levels the consumer pays for brand cachet, build quality, materials and engineering of the highest standards, and of course, everything being equal, superb sonic performance. And the demographic for these sorts of luxury products is a quirky mix of the very wealthy consumer wanting the best and the hardcore enthusiast with disposable income and/or long-term upgradeitis.
In what may seem contradictory, in light of the gloom and doom of the GFC, a number of distributors and retailers have experienced extended terms of very healthy sales figures for these luxury items. This obviously means there’s consumer demand for these sorts of products. Could there be such a consumer in the mobile electronics market? Are we providing for these consumers? Can this model be translated or adopted over to our mobile electronics environment for a financially healthier industry and a better in-car audio experience for the consumer? Well, firstly, the brand and product range depth at these levels is much shallower in the in-car industry. What’s more, the generic low quality Chinese-sourced product presence is almost non-existent in the home audio business where in the in-car area such products have a strong market share. But we do have many highly-respected brands that offer high-end products in the in-car electronics space (perhaps not to the same stratospheric level). And new brands are reaching our shores as I write. But these higher-tech, highly engineered in-car products are competing in a market where Far Eastern cost-effective products predominate. And our industry is lacking in organisations and events that educate the market. Although we here at InCar are doing our best…
However some prestigious home high-end brands are slowly infiltrating into the in-car audio sphere. At the upper-end, Lexus has been using Mark Levinson electronics, Jaguar has embraced the top-tier speaker products from Bowers & Wilkins (B&W), the Porsche Panamera features a full Burmester Audio system as does the Bugatti Veyron (sigh…). At more realistic levels the classic American McIntosh name has crept into select Subaru models, Bose love it or hate it, supplies to Honda, Nissan and others in their upper models, Volvo uses highend Dynaudio speaker systems, and there’s many more. And we need more of the Japanese giants’ better systems as standard factory provisions from all the major auto manufacturers. Economies of scale would allow this at minimal cost.
So what will all these high-end audio accoutrements – and they’re not to be mistaken with equipment elitism – achieve? Well, apart from providing a wider choice, not just for the well-heeled but also for enthusiasts and those who appreciate quality, it will also lead to an overall raising of the product quality bar and perhaps offer a financial prop-up for the whole industry in these difficult economic times. And as a natural progression consumers will be exposed to a richer and more satisfying experience in the in-car environment.
And isn’t that what we’re all about?
Ed Kramer,
Editor
INCAR Entertainment Issue #3 2010
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