Paper short abstract:

What will happen when quantum technologies hit markets? This investigates changes of the high-end audio market from the analogue to the digital music downloading. It poses problems to judge value of products. We employed network analysis and interviews as an empirical study to find transitions at the margins.

Paper long abstract:

What will happen to the existing valuation practices when new quantum technologies hit the market? This paper investigates a dynamic change in the high-end audio market from the traditional, analogue mode as exemplified by record players and disks to the digital music downloading or the PC and network audio. The transition poses pressing problems how to judge the value of products. We employed both network analysis and interviews as an empirical study.

As findings, the valuation of traditional analogue tone employed repertories of reviewers as pragmatic knowledge and skills, combining objective metric tests and subjective tasting. The analogue tone has become the benchmark for the growing digital audio labelled the high-resolution or "Hi-Res" sound. The experts agreed to set a highly subjective measure that each device or equipment must carry its distinctive sound character to be certified, which can possibly be detected only by audiophiles of high caliber. Thus even in the age of digitalized audio, the tasting of symbolic nature matters a lot in the changing market.

As contributions, the pragmatic valuation of digital technology promotes inter-subjectivity of experts to experience and interpret knowledge embedded in the multi-vocal culture of analogue tradition. To get across the margins of technological domain, it involves an integrating transformation of intangible assets through the tasting processes in the cultural domain.