Thinking – Official site of Andrew Maxwell

In these crazy times, I always think about the information I am seeing, and try to consider its meaning and impact from different argumentative directions.

“Is the information I’m reading on this webpage correct, or some fancy form of BS?”, “This person has made a claim, but where is the evidence?”, “A claim has been made, but what’s the qualifications of that person? or are they an armchair critic?”

This is the type of thinking that can get you out of all sorts of trouble.

In the engineering world, we often talk about “critical thinking”, that is, thinking about a problem in a way that lets us choose from a range of suitable solutions that vary but some cost minimisation variable, sort of like “what’s the cheapest?”, “what’s the fastest”, “what’s the most culturally appropriate?”, and so on.

Now engineers are taught these skills during their degrees, however I often find when I look around at the commentary of the latest issues, that sometimes this “critical thinking” is missing.

Another term I like to use is called “Triangulation”. This is roughly looking at a problem from different angles, in order to uncover more information, variables, or constraints regarding a problem.

Using both of these methods, critical thinking AND triangulation is a good skill set to acquire to ensure you are not taken for a ride with incorrect news items, blatant lies, marketing gibberish, the news, or most notably social media.

I recently looked at some junk mail that came in (normally I just don’t get any time, but found in a ponderously strange situation of having some spare, shock & horror, I know). I was checking out the price of Bluetooth headsets in a technology catalog, and ye-gads, have you seen the prices of these things lately recently?

Who in their right mind would spend that kind of money? ok these little speakers-for-your-ears had better be pretty darn good at that price, but are they? (I’m sure they work just fine, but so does a $30 copy – ouch)

In this instance, these so called “must have” devices were very loseable, easily broken, and very plasticky bluetooth headsets around $348AU. Surely there is no way that a bluetooth headset is worth more than say an iPad Mini, or a 2nd hand computer, or the phone needed to make them work !!!

Being one who regularly disassembles equipment for educational purposes I have to assume that there is very little in terms of actual physical components inside these headsets. The driver units (the bits that make the sound) and perhaps the DSP (Digital Signal Processor, which modifies the sound for either required or requested taste) are really where it is at, and a LiPo (Lithium Polymer) battery, really a commodity item now days. Ok there may also be a case, or even a fancy charging case, but again there isn’t that much inside these devices to command these sorts of prices, surely !

Could this be the market trying to create a “prestige” product, and why is this required? To me, there is an exponential equation between the quality and features you get versus the price. At the low end, most of these devices are very similar, but as you start to double and triple the price, you are starting to see diminishing gains in most circumstances. It is certainly not a linear purchase option. You don’t get double the performance for double the price, usually.

This is the same sort of pricing problem I feel (and also published elsewhere) is associated with the high cost of hearing aids. These multi thousand dollar devices are really no more sophisticated headsets with onboard DSPs (Digital Signal Processors). In the era when we can buy Apple AirPod Pros for $399 (ish – https://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MWP22ZA/A/airpods-pro) that contain multiple microphones, and onboard DSP all under the control of a nice big interface display ( your phone ) you can only expect the price of hearing aids to either come down, or their sales canabalised by modern consumer equipment running the equivalent of “apps” all from inside your ear canal.

There is of course a reason for the expense of hearing aids, particularly once you factor R&D into the equation, as well as the scaleability, retooling, and making changes to the product. However despite the global market being significant at around $9 Billion US.

So perhaps that is my answer. In order to justify the cost of these high end headphones, it’s not always about the sound, but perhaps it’s about the processing and the capabilities within the DSP that matter. After all, If I can get the same performance of a $3000 hearing aide for $350, then that sounds like a good deal.