Now THAT was fascinating.<\/p>\n
My car needs a subwoofer.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to get away without one.\u00c2\u00a0 In my BMW the
trunk amplified the bass speakers in the rear deck and I got enough response.\u00c2\u00a0
But even though I’ve got the best speakers available in my new car, they’re in
the doors, and you just don’t get enough bass.\u00c2\u00a0 But, I got such a deal on the
car, I’m having a hard time rationalizing how much money I’m putting into the
stereo.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems like it costs more than the car!\u00c2\u00a0 But, sound comes first, so
after driving around with the new stereo for two months I decided to pop.\u00c2\u00a0
There goes another $500.<\/p>\n
And it’s fascinating to go to the place.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s kind of like regular stereo.\u00c2\u00a0
All that’s left is the low-end schlock houses and the super high end places.\u00c2\u00a0
Since factory car audio has gotten so much better, most people don’t upgrade,
of if they do, they want cheap shit.\u00c2\u00a0 But for those of us who need to hear
EVERYTHING, places like the one I go to exist.<\/p>\n
I bought shit I never heard of.<\/p>\n
Oh, I got an Alpine head unit.\u00c2\u00a0 I only buy Alpine.<\/p>\n
They wanted to sell me a Kenwood, because of the 24 bit CD, but I never
listen to CDs, I’m a satellite man only.<\/p>\n
But the amplifier…\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an Audison.\u00c2\u00a0 Ever hear of Audison?\u00c2\u00a0 Neither have
I.\u00c2\u00a0 Handmade in Italy.<\/p>\n
And the speakers.\u00c2\u00a0 Focal.\u00c2\u00a0 Made in France.<\/p>\n
I had ADS in my Beemer, and loved ’em, but that company is toast.<\/p>\n
I could have shopped it out, but there are few of these high end places left,
and this place is close to my house.\u00c2\u00a0 AND, in car stereo it’s all about
installation.\u00c2\u00a0 And these guys do a phenomenal job.\u00c2\u00a0 I realized that when XM paid
them to have the gear installed in my old car.<\/p>\n
It’s a veritable car showroom.\u00c2\u00a0 You see the Bentleys.\u00c2\u00a0 And just now they had
one of those Chevy SSRs.\u00c2\u00a0 And a ton of Escalades.\u00c2\u00a0 Owned by people, who as Rod
Stewart once sang, have a lot more money than sense.<\/p>\n
Now I’ve got XM AND Sirius in my car.<\/p>\n
They wanted to install the antennas inside, but I told them they couldn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 I
didn’t want any issues of reception.<\/p>\n
But, even though both antennae are on my roof, I lose Sirius signal in
strange places.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the next block.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve had XM for three plus years and I lose
signal once every couple of months.\u00c2\u00a0 And, Sirius sound isn’t quite as good.\u00c2\u00a0
So, you’d think the company is in trouble.\u00c2\u00a0 But then you show up where they
install the shit and you learn what’s really going on.<\/p>\n
Sirius is killing XM.\u00c2\u00a0 Three to one.<\/p>\n
It’s Howard.<\/p>\n
That’s how I was greeted.\u00c2\u00a0 My man wanted to know what I thought of Howard
being suspended.\u00c2\u00a0 He stated it was a joke that he gets to advertise Sirius all
the time anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 Why don’t they just air reruns?<\/p>\n
Because of the money.<\/p>\n
For years everybody got XM.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s almost all they sold.<\/p>\n
But the tide turned back in January.<\/p>\n
And now, with Howard’s departure from terrestrial imminent, his lemmings are
showing up, wanting Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 And, since Sirius has better radios than before,
they’re satisfied.\u00c2\u00a0 Until, they come back and bitch about reception.<\/p>\n
Women?\u00c2\u00a0 They buy XM.\u00c2\u00a0 He couldn’t exactly tell me why.<\/p>\n
And it’s not like this guy’s pushing Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 They pay him LESS per
activation.\u00c2\u00a0 And the percentage of the subscription, which goes for five years, ain’t
much.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s tiny.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, he told me XM pays a percentage, we didn’t
discuss Sirius.<\/p>\n
And what about those people who bought Mercedeses and BMWs?\u00c2\u00a0 Whose cars came with Sirius instead of XM?\u00c2\u00a0 Well, in January the brains of these cars will
allow you to plug either in, and the satellite service will play through the
factory head unit.<\/p>\n
XM is ahead for a number of reasons.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the main ones being Hugh
Panero’s factory install contracts.<\/p>\n
But Sirius has the mo.\u00c2\u00a0 Stern is an icon.\u00c2\u00a0 And Mel Karmazin turns out to be a
household name.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe since Howard mentioned him so much over the years.<\/p>\n
Sirius probably would have gone out of business without Stern.\u00c2\u00a0 They NEEDED
to pay him $100 million a year to survive.\u00c2\u00a0 But, by betting the farm, they may
have set themselves up to win the pot.\u00c2\u00a0 People buy brand names.<\/p>\n
In any event, it proves that old adage of record executives.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t
understand the business unless you understand retail.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, these same execs still think it’s brick and mortar retail,
whereas if they understood technology, specifically P2P, then they might get what
their business is really about.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now THAT was fascinating. My car needs a subwoofer.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to get away without one.\u00c2\u00a0 In my BMW the trunk amplified the bass speakers in the rear deck and I got enough response.\u00c2\u00a0 But even though I’ve got the best speakers available in my new car, they’re in the doors, and you just don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-xmsirius","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}