Rules are funny. Most of us have a group we follow, another we ignore. And we're all different. I would never sit long at a red light out in the country when no traffic was evident, but many people couldn't bring themselves to drive through it.
Each industry comes with an unofficial rulebook; a set of generally accepted guidelines that defines expectations. For example, in our industry, we expect amplifiers to have low distortion and faithfully track input signals, loudspeakers to reproduce every frequency below and above its frequency limitations, cables to add as little coloration as possible.
But what happens when a manufacturer or customer chucks the rulebook out the window and acts differently? Disruption, perhaps a little chaos. Rule breakers change our world: tubes to solid state (and back again), cones to planars (and back again), vinyl to CD (and back again).
I would suggest most of the innovations in our industry come from the rule breakers, the innovators willing to challenge the status quo. Sure, not all innovations are worth our time: LED alarm clocks to improve sonics, small dots the size of dimes to enhance audio clarity. But most innovations either change our world for the better or lead to advances that do.
Rulebooks are like maps, great for general directions.
Going off grid is where life changes, often for the better.
