GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: How to mitigate the expectation of assurances.

Post Subject: How to mitigate the expectation of assurances.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 11/25/2013

A few days ago I had an interesting conversation. An audio friend of me from Utah called and asked about one audio product that I used in past. Then he told me a story about his exposure to the product. He called to the product maker and spoke with the owner of the company that makes the product. The owner assured him that the product is way superior to all any other competitor and insisted that the product is way more capable then anything else ever was mane in the industry. Then he went over a lenthy education of my friend about the use of his and other products, education about sound his and competitors’ product and general pontification how to listen and what to listen. The friend of my asked if they offered money-back in-home trail and the owner informed that they charge 30% in case the product was returned. The friend of my asked why they charged 30% if they are so confident that the product works, the question that was not answered.

Now is the truth. The friend of mine has probably 3995943% more experience not only in audio but in the very specific field where the product under the desiccations is used. In fact he is more than in position to teach the idiot-owner about use of his products. The story however is not about the friend of mine or the fool company owner but the story is wider: how for two people who talk about audio to find an equitable denominator in order to understand the level of mutual understanding.

We know that neither elevation on the industry stair, nor years of experience, nor cost/size of own playback could not be an objective assessment of what person understand in audio. We all see people who have a lot of advancement in each of the category above and we all know that the people still might be remarkably shallow and stupid. To a degree the complexity of own playback and the involvedness of decisions might be an indicator but without hearing the actual result it is frequently very hard to say anything definitively.

If you call to let say a chess player then asking his rating you might have more or less objective expectation of what person might understand in chess. If you want to discuss with somebody the specific of using the running shoes and you know how fast s/he run let say run marathon then it is very obverse that person has or has not any expertise in running. In audio it is much more complicated.

Very frequently in audio the sale people run their mouths over the phone and put them in position of authority and they are absolutely clueless with whom they are taking. The same come with many online interactions. So, my question to you guys: what techniques you use to filter out just wana-to-sound-intelligent audio people what you are engage in random let say phone conversation? Did you develop any practice to recognize that the person on another side is fool and lower your expectation in person’s assurance?

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