A few weeks ago a person visited me. We had a long listening and interesting conversation. He was extremely surprised that audio is not something that I make money on for living. I less care about his surprise but the argument that he brought up was reasonable:  will it hurt if you do what you do and at the same time someone would pay for your time and for your results?

Of cause it is not so simple and we all know that as soon the subject of our passion get mixed with financial interests then all hell breaks loose. Still I would like to talk a little about the subject of how make money in Audio, of course from my own perspective.

I see again and again in audio that most of the people as soon they get some visibility and some results that they feel might be tradable then they instantly convert themselves into some kind of sales and join the army of multiple audio whores. In reality the conversion takes place much sooner. I consider that EACH SINGLE PERSON who patronages a company or a product not for sake of own use and own benefit but for “good sake of others” is in fact crosses the boundary between the expressing own opinion and participation in ugly marketing efforts. This is why I see difference between army professional dirt that write pre-paid “reviews” and the huge army of “amateurs” who do very much the same, even if they do not have the realized intention to do it.

Still, no one argues that it is nice to get pay for the time we spend in audio. How good if I have some cash flow for the time I write this article, think about some new audio concept, align tweeters or you have some fanatical gratification for the time you read this article. In my work I do get pay sometimes for writing a position a paper and I get paid for reading position papers and technical reviews. So, I wonder if it possible to have some fanatical benefits in audio and to keep the hands and head not dirty ?

Do not be alerted. I ask this question not because I need money. You WILL NOT see tomorrow at my site any hidden promotions of any products, pop up advertisement or any donation buttons (even those I do not mind to solicit money from readers to benefit felines). Just with the things that are going on in my life I am getting bored with my day job and I do look some other opportunity. Naturally some aspects of audio are with me and there are pop ups in my mind that I do have some experience in some aspects of audio, why do not cash it? The problem is that whatever I might do in audio I have absolutely no interest of doing.

So, let see what cash flow opportunity exist in audio.

You can manufacture things in audio. For new people the glory to be an audio maker looks very attractive. Unfortunately  knows among those who was involved with any production the  manufacturing routine has absolutely nothing to do with what we value in audio.

You can sell in audio. Many people do it and it looks like audio community nowadays is nothing more than an army of deaf flea market hoodlums who sell to each other musically impotent garbage. There are different scales of selling, from successful distributors making 1mil per year to silent “amateur” trading online. I know one guy who for years associated with a big name audio reviewer and who sells as “used” the equipment that that reviewer does not return to the manufacturers. This guy supplements his full time job with $50K-$60K of net income trading the “fallen of the truck” gear from his reviewer-supplier. Of course I have no interest to sell anything in audio, not the last reason is that I do not like to socialize with audio people as I consider them to be a defective breed.

You can do consultancy. This market does exist, even it is very small. It however might be developed if it done properly.  I can be very good and surprisingly effective in certain fields but in audio consulting there are some elements that I do not like. I do not want to be involved in any process where the amounts of efforts I spend have direct consequence with amount of gratification.  I would like the efforts and reimbursement to be completely decoupled by nature of operation. If they are decoupled then I can administer my efforts in more and more efficient format in order to have disproportional reimbursement, I am very good with it too in my day-time job.

So, I wonder if somebody can pitch, even as a brain-storm idea, any new way to make money by means of high-end audio?  Again, I am not looking to literally cash my investment into the cable elevators but I rather would like to develop some inspiration how audio can bring some even minor income and do not be revolting mercantile as we see around us. I very much no looking for any grand operation but rather very minor cash flow that would create a multitude of tax advantages  which is my primary interest. I can wait to write off my 439 versions of Bruckner 8 as business expanse, to do so however somebody needs to pay me to for playing the Bruckner 8…

Romy - I've thought about this one for some time. 

Let's just dismiss equipment business due to the declining industry sales trends, tight margins, and painful design/production/marketing logistics. And I don't see you selling audio equipment at a store (or to stores as a wholesaler).  That leaves consulting.

From your perspective, some obvious consulting problems and some examples come to mind right away. This list needs to be refined but it is a start:

1. PERSONAL - 

* Expanding hobby to profession risks diluting hobby's fun factor. Biggest personal hurdle

2. DEFINITION OF OBJECTIVES WITH CLIENT- re">

* Perhaps the biggest professional hurdle

3. OUTSOURCING OF CONSTRUCTION - 

* Imagine a San Francisco client wants you to design and build dedicated room + system. The logistics of sourcing design architect, construction, electrical, permitting, etc. in a new state might be painful. Might be fun depending on your personality. Think about the mid-bass horn project at home. The logistics will take a lot of time away from the core sound project

* Of course room design is incredibly subjective. I think that expensive "acoustic" room at Goodwin's looks great but sounds terrible; how do you avoid that result in a room size/shape you outside your experience?

4. PROPERLY ADDRESS CONFLICT OF INTERESTS TO MAXIMIZE PERFORMANCE - 

* As you well note, "consultants" usually have back door deals with hardware suppliers (e.g. consultant takes vig (margin) on equipment sale, construction etc.) Whilst the consultants initial intentions may be clear, there is pressure to move equipment sales move towards best "margin" vs. best "performance

* Perverse incentives of hourly billing agreements and fixed fee billing agreements (e.g. never complete project vs. complete too quickly)

5. COMPLETION DEFINITION- 

* For project completion (final billing), how does one objectively assess the success of a system implementation?

6. MARKETING - 

* Not really sure how you could start marketing this, other than posting on your site

* Actually keeping the customer's names confidential, it would be a good exercise (and interesting to others) if you posted progress-photos of consulting projects as they moved forward. That would be good marketing

==> FINAL THOUGHTS (FOR NOW) - 

In the end, I think you need to keep this close to a fun hobby as possible.

One path is highly customized, ground-up, system design/consulting/implementation. These projects likely cost (significantly) over $100,000 dollars.  Fixed fee + overruns might be the proper billing mechanism. Maybe you could aim for just a few very high end projects per year where potential clients are given the opportunity to listen to your room and sound philosophy beforehand, then agree to give you an extreme level of design freedom.

I just don´t see Romy running around trying to satisfy a customer and his wife with the color selection of the carpet!  I am sure you will be great at whatever you set your mind to, but try to stay on your comfort zone.
Lets say you decide to make installations, and you get a high paying customer in California,  you will have to leave 438 versions of Bruckner 8 at home and travel,  leaving also your system and cat back in Boston...and your actual nonaudio customers!

New things come from a combination of talents, and you got many of those.

You can make avialable some of the great music you already have,  making bootleg copies of old wonderful recordings that already lost their copyrights.  Make them available in High Res from the PM2, or better yet, Reel Tape recordings on two channels and 15 ips.  If somebody is going to transfer unobtanium vinyl to another media, it better be a trusted audiophile with a good playback system.
Anyway I am sure that the copyright holders of most of your favorite recordings wont mind coming to an agreement with you to promote and copy a dead product! 

How about going to concerts and recording the music.  Make sure no stupid engineer messes up the recording and providing only well played performaces.
Recordings with the Cat´s Seal of aprooval.  Be it high res or RTR.    One or two microphones only, analog RTR recording with no post production compression! Downloadable high res files from your site.  How about a battery of Ampex tape copying machines on your basement!
I would certainly be one of the first customers!

You can become that which you most hate:  a Reviewer!  you do it almost monthly on your site already.  Or better yet, follow the advice you once gave a reviewer and just "show case" horn gear and recordings.  something like  Cat Moon Audio...

You can make and audio site that sells specialized audio stuff, music and gear,  pick up some of the slack left by the renewed Agon.
This way you can sell without ever talking to buyer or seller and even without getting away from your living room and cat.  Just make a trading section on the site.



Just some thoughts!

Jorge wrote:

You can become that which you most hate:  a Reviewer!

To re/produce and to sale good recordings or good dubs is the idea that come to me sometimes but there is something in this dirty and therefore not stimulating. Even the copyrights are expired, still, it is juts stealing and marketing the labor of others. If I can claim some taste in the selection of the recording and some technical perfection then I need to do recording, not dubbing the well known releases. I have no knowledge and frankly no interest to do recordings. I am listener and thinker, not a technician.   I do not mean to undermine the recording artistry but I am very much out of game in that sport.

The idea of getting paid for assisting to anybody to mimic my playback I find is very not stimulating and there are two reasons behind it: humanitarian and technical – both of the reasons condemn such a project to be a failure.

I was considering to open a section of a site where I would offer short reviews, brief history and recommendations for some music and then to get some commissions from sellers. I do not need a lot of money, just some positive cash inflow for tax purposes. Still, doing it makes sense and creates any dent only if the traffic over the site more or less substantial.  I have absolutely no interest or need to raise traffic over my site. There are zillion ways to do it, and I am good with it at my full time work but my personal site has no need to be overly public. In fact I do some measure to restrict traffic and in most of the cases even I tend do not link my site from other sites I socialize on-line.

The thing is that I my interests and my expertise are in very narrow field that has not a lot of following out there. With my musical acquaintances I am a bit “too audio” and with most of my audio acquaintances I am “too musical”.  My expertise is in the very threshold of art and machines interaction. If you are an art-painter and you have prostatic arms and you would like your hand to be sensual enough for you to do fine sketching  than I know what to do with gears, valves and motor of your prostatic arms in order you to have ability to express yourself. I do it in audio and there is practically none existing pool of the audio people who need a help in this field.  Just as an audio-specialist I would be hardly understood, and the idiots out there do not even understand what I would be talking of doing and where I would be coming from. This is one of the major reasons why I prefer do not deal with audio people and consider most of them to be worthless.

So, I do not see a lot of business applications for myself in audio. There are some areas that I would like to deal with. For instance if some digital company  would like to make digital  to be a full 100% replica to analog, if they will provide full technical backup of my experiments and pay for my time, then I would be very happy to do some research. The same would go for other makers – if somebody would like to make special tubes or special speaker drivers with predictable and targeted musical characteristics. For sue it is naïve to think about it but this thread not about concrete plans but about thoughts browsing… 

Wojtek wrote:

You already have quite  profound effect on the market place , why not find a way to cash on it? You don't even have to prostitute yourself into revieving whore just make a  separate " commercial " part of your web site like your exotic leftowers with short recommedations of worthy equipment for which you could charge accordingly interested parties. Is this not what all of the emailing morons ask for ? , well give it to them for free and earn some money. You can even satisfy your dark side recommending total crap and watch the prices go up

The idea that I WAS contemplated is to discover not the existing “thing” but made my own “things”, recognizing and slightly developing a need/demand and providing the supply. I do have some engendering and production recourses that I might bring into the game if I need to. I have an audio- friend who “invented” the need/demand, provide a very smart and very chip to make solution and very nicely is making ~$22k a year by doing absolutely nothing. If to have a few products like this and to create a framework that would protect the “thing” from imitation and competition then it might be something that I would contemplate. Again, it would be absolutely not associated with current my own site and I would like to be absolutely incognito in that new audio-commerce operation. I do have a few idea what the “things” might be and to a degree I do have more or less elegant solution the might be former as very interesting products. However, all these “things” are very narrow demands products and not type of the products that I feel worth to undertake for wide operation.  I do not keep thinking about it but I do keep my eyes open for such ideas. Frankly I do not think that I will come up with something as my dally audio practice is too far from the dally experiences of most of prospective audio customers, and my feelings of their need might be very much screwed by my pleasure to mock them by selling to them sublimational crap and to see them to erect the crap to their pathetic pedestal…

JJ Triode wrote:

2.  Offer to build and sell the full-range Melquiades by custom order.  I know you have various reasons to put the Melq in the public domain and not build it for money, but you could leave the "plans" here on GSC and still sell maybe 2-3 pairs a year to people who want it and are not prepared to build it.  There are reasons not to do it, but there are reasons not to do anything in audio for money.  I think you did sell that one mirror-imaged pair, and it was not the end of the world.

scooter wrote:

Is that something that you actually want to do with your time?

Romy the Cat wrote:

BTW, I do sincerely hope that the readers of my site, if they detect that I am turning toward to the ugly direction of whoring for anything, will point it out.   The Cat