I found this talk with a music exec who helped bring the parties together to create Beats by Dr Dre. The first 15 minutes are pretty interesting, then he gets really blow-hardy.
Here's the interesting bits: Something like 80% of people over 35 can tell the difference between $100 speakers and $1000 speakers. 20% of people under 35 can tell the difference. Wow.
They theorize that this is because the new generations have grown up listening to music on crappy ear buds. I can believe it. I only listen to talk radio on my ear buds. I'm like a poor slob in '70's when it comes to music. I turn off all the lights, toss a record on my turntable and lay on my couch. Or...I listen to a CD in my car (I am weening myself off of mp3s). The mp3 music on earbuds is just like nails on a chaulkboard to me. It sounds like crap.
One interesting thing about Beats is that, it seems, no big consumer product company could figure this out on their own. Duh, the music sounds awful. Why not build a brand around good sounding music?
The other thing is that the exec says that Dr Dre wanted to brand something like another rapper had branded some running shoes. This goes to how I've been complaining that musicians are trying to cash in their names because they realize they can't make money off the music anymore. It's sad to me:/
