The sad demise of good head units

[geolemon]

Look at that - this thread is broken. :help:
I made a post, and it still says the last post was made "1 day ago".

[Chris from Washington]

The posts in this forum have to be approved first, and well we forget to check :)

[geolemon]

Oh - I didn't even realize what forum this thread was in... ops:

I just log in here, and hit "find new posts"

Sorry. Maybe that last bit, or really most of this thread, doesn't belong in "reviews" at all? :

[naksteve]

engineering needs to engineer not just functionality, but marketability, or the product will fail. It needs to engineer in packaging feasibility, or logistics

That is true. I used to write CFS (Customer Functionality Specifications)--what the customers expect and want subjectively; and Technical Specifications--which objectively define the performance of a product.

Of course, almost all company departments are involved in the first part.

But in terms of total budget expenditures, R&D and product engineering usually require a lot of up-front funding (w/o any tangible, immediate benefits to the company's bottom-line), and thus, are harder to procure and to justify to management. Whenever there are cuts, they often occur at these stages. There may be many great ideas or concepts, which may help produce better products, but most of the time are never adequately funded.

And it is true that many car audio companies with great products have gone bankrupt due to poor business organization/inter-departmental structure/sales strategies. Any company cannot survive without them. Yet to sell something, a company has to have products that are technologically advanced or engineered in the beginning to have features people want. To neglect this area is inevitably going to affect the profitability of the company.

[Tim]

Dude you guys just jogged my memory. I long for the dayz when the Naks and the Macs, were the head units to use. I agree totally, You can get features all day long on heads nowadays, but you just don't get the sound quality. Everything is all about convince, Gotta have Ipod built in, "sure would like to have bluetooth", "If it won't play MP3's I don't want it."

I guess all this is good cause I do burn CD's, don't got an Ipod, don't need bluetooth. But I would handily give up MP3's for some good sound quality heads, Especially now that I know the difference.

Tim