I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that large corporations hire high priced PR and advertising agencies to craft their messages. The folks at those companies may employ great writers. They may be able to compose clever prose and trigger appropriate responses in the target audience but do they really know anything about the subject or product that they’re pitching? My recent experience suggests that they don’t…and they don’t appreciate being corrected. They don’t appreciate constructive criticism. Here’s the deal.<\/p>\n
One of the major consumer electronics companies is launching a new round of websites about high-resolution audio\/music. They’ve had a sizable presence already but it’s time to update the graphics and the messaging. I was asked to revise my little corner of the website about my high-resolution download site iTrax. The new limit was 300-400 characters…not words…characters. An audiophile did not write the introductory paragraph. In fact, the entire revision cycle never passed through any technically competent individual. The people responsible for the company’s brand and the PR agency were the ones tasked with crafting a compelling introduction to high-resolution audio\/music downloading.<\/p>\n
I don’t want to compromise the mutual trust that exists between the company and myself, so I won’t quote the original text…but I feel I can share my comments.<\/p>\n
The opening sentence holds no interest for individuals looking for the best possible versions of their favorite music. Comparing \u201chigh-res music\u201d to lo-fi streaming services like Pandora is pointless. As a mastering engineer and music producer for 35 years, I can tell you that the final audio that is released on CDs or vinyl LPs is NOT usually \u201chow the artist\u201d intended…it\u2019s how the mastering engineer and record label want it to sound. They want louder and punchier so that it will sell more copies. Avoid talking about live music comparisons as well…commercial \u201chits\u201d are carefully assembled and crafted in the studio. They are not the same as live concerts.<\/p>\n Saying Hi-Res Audio blows away MP3 and AAC files is pure hyperbole! Research has been done that compared three of my real HD-Audio files in hi-res, CD spec and MP3. Average listeners were brought in and asked to listen to the versions and decide which they liked best and why. The results were mixed and did not indicate that the hi-res versions were favored over even the MP3s! The marketing effort should avoid exaggeration because it just feeds into the mainstream press and their doubts about the advantages of hi-res.<\/p>\n The writer of the paragraphs you forwarded is writing the same old clich\u00e9s and misinformation. It all sounds great but it contains too much marketing spin and not enough honesty and transparency.<\/em><\/p>\n If the “messaging” about high-resolution audio\/music is left to PR agencies and advertising agencies instead of knowledgeable people with some technical background, how can consumers trust what they’re being told. Sadly, they can’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that large corporations hire high priced PR and advertising agencies to craft their<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[97,657,50,40,172,57,1032,70,640,26,639,980,42,298,251,645,638,637,227,643,169,954,150,41,347,27,1022,116,659,660,661],"class_list":["post-5010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dr_aixs_posts","tag-5-1-surround","tag-advanced-resolution","tag-aix-records","tag-analog-vs-digital","tag-audio-resolution","tag-audio-specifications","tag-dvd_audio","tag-hd-downloads","tag-hd-music","tag-hd-audio","tag-hi-res-audio","tag-hi-res-music","tag-high-resolution-audio","tag-high-res-music","tag-high-resolution","tag-high-resolution-audio-experience","tag-hires-audio","tag-hires-music","tag-hra","tag-hra-listening-experience","tag-mark-waldrep","tag-music-server","tag-pcm","tag-provenance","tag-spectragram","tag-spectragraphs","tag-studio-acoustics","tag-surround-music","tag-uhd-audio","tag-ultra-high-definition-audio","tag-ultra-high-resolution-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5013,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions\/5013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realhd-audio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}