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R&D vs. Marketing: Are we paying for tech or fake online hype?

I opened up a highly-reviewed $3K streamer/DAC last week out of curiosity. The actual tech inside? An off-the-shelf ESS board and a basic switching power supply. The R&D budget clearly wasn't spent on the circuit design or component quality. But if you look at this brand online, they have massive social media accounts, thousands of likes, and constant hype. It’s pretty obvious what's happening. A lot of these newer boutique audio brands aren't growing organically. They just use panels like fameviso.com to buy thousands of followers and fake their prestige. They build a fancy aluminum chassis, buy the "clout" so reviewers take them seriously, and sell us basic, unoriginal tech at a huge markup. When did the audio industry shift from paying for massive toroidal transformers and custom capacitors to paying for a brand's fake Instagram budget? Am I the only one noticing that actual electrical engineering is taking a backseat to social media marketing?

radiantdream
ted_b
66 posts
 

One unsurprising revelation of HiFi components is price is a suggestion, but not an absolute indicator of what's inside. A recent post concerned a certain upmarket DAC that used the exact same inexpensive third-party USB receiver/clock card used in DACs with an MSRP literally at 5% of the former. 

Just as it makes good sense to have some working knowledge of engines and mechanicals when buying/selling expensive performance cars, the same general advice applies to HiFi components. 

corelli
1,167 posts
 

This has gone on for some time now.  I recall a "respected" manufacturer years ago that took the innards of an oppo cd player, put it in their fancy case and jacked the price.  Yes, take a look inside and see what your money is buying.  Sometimes, embarrassingly little!

larsman's avatar
larsman
3,122 posts
 

With all due respect, without your mentioning a brand or model, there's nothing to even take your word for. 

jl35
4,449 posts
 

+2 kr4

kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,507 posts
 

Well executed SMPS is way better that linear power supply IMHO.  They only got bad rap from very poor noisy computer implementations.
Linear power supply with huge transformer and a lot of capacitors is in reality a primitive SMPS operating at 120Hz drawing current from mains in short pulses of high amplitude, switching at maximum voltage.  It produces not only 120Hz ripple (hard to filter out), but also high frequency switching noise, not to mention that is line and load unregulated and sensitive to DC presence in supply.   In contrast, resonant mode SMPS is very quiet switching at zero voltage / zero current.  Transformer can be very small because of high switching frequency that is also easy to filter out without huge capacitors.  In addition it is line and load regulated and insensitive to DC on mains (can operate from DC).  Benchmark Media reduced noise in DAC2 by 10dB replacing linear supply with SMPS.  They use SMPS in AHB2 power amp achieving 132dB S/N.  Other companies, like Rowland, eliminated linear power supplies completely.  So, with all these benefits of well executed SMPS, why do we still produce these monstrous unregulated linear supplies?  Perhaps it is because designing resonant mode SMPS is not so easy, while Linear Supply has only 3 components?  Perhaps market demands it (People still strongly believe in them.  Big and heavy must be good)?

I'm also not sure what "Off-the-shelf" ESS board is.

In general, if somebody is taking advantage by selling gear consisting of some kind of generic modules people are free not to buy.  If these modules are so generic it would be easy to buy them and to build DAC or amp.

Are we offended by fake or inflated advertising?  Not in audio, for sure. 

 

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