Strategy & Tactics: How to Sell DSP

How to Sell DSP

WORDS BY ROSA SOPHIA

When it comes to selling stereo, it’s a much different client than someone who’s looking for a basic audio system—and a digital sound processor is a complex tool that can be intimidating to those who aren’t used to working with it, according to Ken Ward of Educar Training.

A lot of times, Ward said, the client is older and has a higher income. “They often have nice home systems and they would like something like this in their car,” he added.

One of the first steps for a shop that is new to DSP is to figure out “how you’re going to sell your systems. Some of you have been selling sound systems that don’t do stereo. And you’ve been making money. A lot of people just say, ‘We sell audio.’ That’s great! Because we have made millions of dollars as an industry just selling audio.”

There’s nothing wrong with this, Ward explained. “Plenty of your customers just want to rock out and don’t care where it comes from. So, don’t impose them with stuff they don’t need, and God knows, don’t spend your time tuning a system they didn’t pay to have tuned.”

So, how can shops successfully sell DSP? “Some people say, ‘Hey, we never really thought about the difference,’” Ward noted. “Well, that’s what we are talking about [today].”

In order to sell stereo, Ward said, technicians must solve the three problems of car stereo—all of which are caused by where the listeners are seated in the vehicle.

Which Customers Want DSP?

Ward likened the DSP to a Swiss Army knife, which offers many different functions. “I need something that does more than one thing,” he said. “I can’t just have one [tool] for time alignment, one for crossover and one for EQ. I need something where they’re all together. That’s what we sell 98 percent of the time.”

One of the sources of conflict in a shop, Ward said, involves which aspects of the DSP are actually necessary. “The salesperson sells a DSP and includes it in the kit and ships it, and doesn’t completely communicate to the bay what the expectations are,” he said. “The technician doesn’t have a crystal ball to see what was intended. Most of the time, this is what we’re dealing with—a product that can do 90 things, but we need four of them.”

Communication between the sales floor and the bay is important, Ward said. “Has any technician here spent time setting time delays to try to get the stereo image perfect in the car, and then find out the customer didn’t even expect that?”

Though the industry has changed and evolved, he added, the core customer base is still there. “That’s where stereo can make a difference because a lot of people who want stereo are guys like me who make more money than we did when we were 20,” he said. “How far you go into it depends on the client.”

Ward explained that a shop might say “all our systems get a digital sound processor at this level of performance.” Different shops may define that level in different ways, he added.

“Figure it out for your customers,” Ward said. “My level one, two and three have really moved up and down depending on my assessment of the customer who walked in, and what they were driving.”

If a customer is driving a 10-year-old Accord, Ward noted, the first level would be a little easier to get into. “If someone was driving a new 911, level one might be higher. I was profiling. It’s by the car,” he said. “I also tell them, [the DSP] lets us control the results and give you the performance you want. Nobody argues with you about that.”

How the sale is approached comes down to finding out what a particular customer will need in order to make their decision, he explained. “Some customers have never heard of stereo. At that point, you’d better figure out what they’re going to listen to. I’m going to give you a tip: Never ask what kind of music someone listens to. What’s the answer? Everything.”

Instead of asking what kind of music a customer listens to, Ward said, ask, “What are the first two songs you’re going to play to decide how you like [the system]? If those first two songs are really bass-heavy songs, you know you’ve got to cover the subwoofer side.”

With something quieter, he added, “you probably will want to talk to him about stereo presentation. And you may want to turn up the gain. If he’s listening to the Eagles, if he’s listening to rock or jazz or blues, those genres typically have engineers recording them that care about stereo probably more than the performer [does].”

The Three Problems of Car Stereo In order to sell stereo—rather than simply audio—technicians must work to fix the three problems of car stereo, Ward said. “The three problems are: One side is louder, one side sounds different and one side gets there first,” he said. “That is what we are fixing to create stereo. If you don’t need to create stereo, you should not [mess with that].”

The problems are all caused by where the listeners are seated, he explained.

“One side is louder because we’re sitting closer to it. One side sounds different because when we sit over at one side of the sofa, the relative angles of the speakers change. If you’re sitting in the center line, they’re symmetrical. Then you move, and the speakers are not pointed the same direction.”

The third problem is the more complicated one. These problems do not impact home stereo, Ward said. “Solving the first problem is really easy because we can use the balance control, but with more complicated systems, we’re going to use the output level controls in our DSP,” he continued. “We can’t really do that in amplifiers on their own, because most amplifiers today have the left and the right level control tied together with one knob.”

To solve the second problem, he explained, means that one side has to be equalized differently from the other side in order to get the same response. “That means when you start your DSP software, you have to unlink the left and the right to be able to do that. If someone is singing, and they sound like they’re here, and then they go down in register, and when they move to a different set of notes, this speaker is louder than that speaker, they’re going to slide across the stage.”

This ruins the illusion, Ward said. “That’s why you need an independent left and right equalizer. I believe almost every standalone DSP that’s shipping right now has independent left and right equalizers as long as we unclick the button,” he added.

When it comes to the third problem, Ward said, “That is time delay. You’re trying to get the right frequency response in the center. I recommend a tape measure. If you can’t get it with a tape measure, there’s something in the OEM integration side that hasn’t been fixed yet. By and large, if you can’t get the tape measure to work, there’s something going on upstream from your DSP that you didn’t figure out.”

“I recommend you EQ both sides together on a tune that you’re charging less for,” he added. “When you charge more, split them apart. You double up the cost and you’re literally doubling up the time.”

Ward touched on what a shop might tell the customer. “I would say there are three problems with trying to make stereo sound good in your car,” he said, “and they’re all caused by where you sit, and we have to address all three problems. If the customer didn’t care about the stereo image, are they going to tell me at that point? Maybe. Sometimes I tell them, ‘It’s okay. I care enough for both of us.’”

Controlling the Outcome

Digital sound processors are tools to control the outcome of a stereo system, Ward said. “I’m a big believer in putting together predesigned systems.”

He noted, “If you look at almost any DSP supplier who makes multiple models, the way most of us have differentiated between the cheapest and the most expensive is by how many inputs and outputs they have,” he explained. “And that’s the least important difference.”

Ward advised finding other differences between DSPs. “Sometimes the cheap one has a graphic EQ, and when you go through the line you start to pick up parametric equalization, which is a lot more powerful. It takes a little more to tune and you get better results.”

The two most important functions, he said, are OEM correction and acoustic optimization. “We know that correction is EQ and adding things together is summing. The four big functions of optimization are EQ, crossovers, output and time. That is really the core function of a DSP.”

Ward added that, very often, technicians don’t touch the factory signal. “If you’re using a factory radio, you have to fix the signal,” he said. “A lot of shops take the output of a factory radio and run it right into an amp.”

Controlling the outcome means paying attention to two factors, he said: “Correcting the factory signal. If you’re using an aftermarket head unit, you don’t have to do this part. The second part is optimizing the sound in the cabin, and that’s usually what we call tuning. Everything else is gravy. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. I’m saying that these are the core functions you have to get comfortable with.”

“Good sound, to me, consists of the tone, and consists of the stereo performance. The tone is system design, the speakers you select, and the tone is also the equalization you apply to it and the tune, and the stereo performance is largely the tune.”

Building Confidence in Selling DSP

When shops sell DSP, Ward said, they get a higher per-ticket average. “I think it’s a very powerful differentiator. [Say] you have a customer who goes to three shops, and two shops say, ‘Yeah, it’s going to rock, listen to this,’ and one shop says, ‘We could give you stereo,’ and they’ve identified the customer properly as someone who might be interested in stereo, [they’ve set themselves] apart from the competition. Especially when [the shop has] the experience of delivering it.”

Ward advised shops consider pricing carefully, again stating, “Don’t spend time setting left and right EQ separately and time delay and [everything else] if you didn’t charge for it. I decided there’re three paths to selling DSP,” Ward added, noting that in the nine years he worked at Musicar Northwest with Tom Miller, he almost always installed DSP.

“The first [path] is the demo,” he said. “[The second] is the assumption, ‘This is what we do.’ A lot of shops that do mainstream work aren’t going to take the position of, ‘We only put DSP in.’ I’m not going to tell you to do that. Assuming that at a certain level of performance, we use DSP, it’s a legitimate approach.”

The third method, he said, is the explanation. “Only a small number of customers want any explanation for this sort of thing,” he added. “If you go too far that way, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. I will just say this: Customers don’t want to know how it works. They want to be confident that you know how it works.” Ward advised taking care when attempting to make the left and right sides match during a demo. “That leads to one of the complaints about DSP, which is, ‘It doesn’t get as loud as I want it to once I put the DSP in.’ Don’t let that trip up your demo.”

Explain it to a customer in a way that feels right to you, Ward said. “Tell people, ‘We make the left and right side speakers sound the same.’ Once you say that, I think it makes more sense.”

Another explanation is, “We make the subwoofer blend with the front stage,” he said. “I’m not going to explain how time delay can avoid cancellation at the crossover points. I’m just going to say, ‘We make the subwoofer sound like it’s up front.’”

Or, Ward said, “‘We put the center in the center, and the sides on the sides.’ If you sell DSPs, think about which [phrase] you want to use.”

When a salesperson isn’t proficient at selling DSP, “People can tell you’re not confident. You don’t want to make promises if you’re not sure you can keep them. Once you get past that,” and gain confidence, Ward said, “you will be able to make it a business. And you will be able to make money at it.”