Karaoke brands
Advertisementjapan.internet.com recently published a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into telecommunication karaoke. That’s a bit of an ugly term, but it’s the translation my dictionary offers for 通信カラオケ, tsuushin karaoke, or karaoke machines that can connect to a server to download the latest music. Over three days in the middle of July 300 members of Cross Marketing’s monitor team who go to karaoke at least once a year replied to a closed internet questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, there was a 50:50 male-female split, and 20% in each of the five age groups; 18 to 19 years old, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.
I’ve not been to karaoke for ages and ages; when I was dating, we went quite a few times, but love is deaf as well as blind, so since we got married my wife’s told me that my singing voice is horrible; yes, I knew already that I was tone-deaf (音痴, onchi, or tone-stupid in Japanese), but I lost all confidence after being told that! A fellow foreigner friend of mine also often frequents a karaoke room, partially for the inclusive all-you-can-drink deals and partially to satisfy his love of 演歌, enka, Japanese folk-songs (sort-of anyway; read the link).
First, the survey notes that these days over 99% of all commercial karaoke machines (installed or sold, which is not made clear) are these telecommunicating ones mentioned above. There is obviously some degree of local storage, but it means that the latest releases can be pushed down the line as soon as available rather than waiting for an engineer to come and install a new disk.
Next, 106 people, or 35.3% of the sample, said that they had visited a karaoke machine maker’s web page.
Q1: What was the purpose of your visits to a karaoke machine maker’s web site? (Sample size=106, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Searching to see if a song I wanted to sing was available 74 69.8% Check song rankings 40 37.7% Searching for equipment shop 32 30.2% On account of a promotional campaign 23 21.7% Request addition of a song 15 14.2% Other 1 0.9% Q2: Which karaoke machine brands are your favourites? (Sample size=300, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage DAM/cyberDAM 139 46.3% JOYSOUND/HyperJoy 113 37.7% Segakara 43 14.3% UGA 35 11.7% Songoku (孫悟空) 15 5.0% Sigma system (Pasela) 6 2.0% Other 0 0.0% None in particular 116 38.7% Q3: For those with favourite brands, why do you like these brands? (Sample size=184, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Lots of tracks 111 60.3% Fast to register new tracks 89 48.4% Sufficient tracks by my favourite artists 52 28.3% Easy-to-use remote control 50 27.2% Easy-to-use console 41 22.3% Sufficient tracks in my favourite genre 39 21.2% Good sound 31 16.8% Good videos 25 13.6% Songs I want to sing are only available on that brand 20 10.9% Lyrics are easy-to-read 16 8.7% It’s the only one in the neighbourhood 13 7.1% They added tracks I requested 8 4.3% It’s a good brand 5 2.7% Other 6 3.3%
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This is a very interesting article on what people look for in purchasing a karaoke system. I would have to agree that I look for a player that covers my favorite artists, as well as an easy to read screen.