In Defense of Audiophiles, Bose, Pass, Toole and Science
This may look like a weird list, but here is what all these have in common: They strive to link together human perception and enjoyment of a product to measurements. Each have taken a decidedly different, but very successful approach. They’ve each asked the question differently. I don’t always agree with the resulting products, but I can’t deny that their approach is market based and scientific.
Floyd Toole’s writing on room tuning, frequency response and EQ combines exact measurements with human perception, and as big a scientist as he is he remains skeptical of measurements, and with good reasons.
The process Nelson Pass uses is exactly right. His hypothesis is that a certain type of distortion, along with other important qualities, are what make for a great sounding amp, and lets face it, the process, and his effectiveness cannot be denied as not being scientific or financially successful. Far more scientific than designing or buying an amp based on THD% at 1 watt alone.
Bose is also very very scientific, but they come at the problem differently. Their question is: What is the least expensive to manufacture product we can make given what most consumers actually want to hear?" Does it work? They have 8,000 employees and approximately $4B in sales per Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/companies/bose/#1926b3a81c46
Honestly, I don’t know how your average Bose product would measure, but you don’t get to these numbers without science. Assuming they measure poorly, doesn’t that mean measurements are all wrong?
The work Harman has done in getting listening panels together, and trying out different prototypes while adhering to previous science is also noteworthy. Most notably and recently with their testing of speaker dispersion which has resulted in the tweeter wave guides in the latest Revel speakers. They move science forward with each experiment, and then put that out into their products.
Regardless of the camp you fall into, crusty old measurements, perception measurements or individual iconoclast, we also must account for person to person variability. It’s been shown for instance that most people have poor sensitivity to phase shifts in speakers (like me), but if you are THAT person who has severe sensitivity to it, then all those studies don’t mean a thing.
My point is, let’s not define science as being purely in the domain of an oscilloscope. Science is defined by those who push the boundaries forward, and add to our understanding of human perception as well as electron behavior through a semi-conductor and air pressure in a room. If it’s frozen in 40 year old measurements, it’s not science, it's the worship of a dead icon.
Best,
E
I really like the sound i get from my system. It allows me to forget about my components and focus on music. Do the individual pieces or collective components measure well? Don't know and don't care. Just like with cars, there are many cars with better specs than a Porsche, but if you've ever taken one out on a spirited drive, you'd realize there's more that makes for a pure driving experience than technical specifications. J.Chip |
Another pair of mistakes quasi-scientists make are the following two, related points:
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I think of Harman as being in the 'we sell speakers' business. As such, they would like their research to guide them in the direction of what what do consumers prefer based on Harman's correlations of preferences with the linearity of the frequency response, the slope of the frequency response and the Sound Power DI. Knowing how the measurements correlate allows them to produce a higher percentage of product that people will buy...in other words, fewer clunkers. Sometimes I get the feeling on ASR that there is a cult like devotion to the numbers over the sound. Meaning, if it measures well, then you should prefer it...and if you don't, maybe it is you that is at fault. In addition, there seem sometimes to be a lack of appreciation for the hard to describe and measure things like imaging or soundstage. All in all though, I'm a supporter of measuring because it will ultimately drive product improvement...but, at the end of the day...you have to try it in your room, with your gear and your music to know if gives you the emotional connection you want. |
Out of the 4 different approaches towards the use of science as a tool, which it has long been for everyone but the complete charlatan, I’d say Floyd Toole’s (Harman) approach is the closest towards finding an objective truth. Anyone doubting that could do worse than to read his book Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms. Well worth the price of a few joke hi-fi magazines. Bose, on the other hand is the closest towards giving the average non-audiophile listener what sounds good to them. I’ve never heard a poor Bose product, nor an outstanding one either, but that’s not what they’re about. Amar Bose, a professor at MIT, knew enough about listener preferences and marketing to build a hugely successful company. Nuff said. Nelson Pass I don’t know much about, he’s still fairly unknown in the UK, except he seems to come across as a genial maverick. Besides, don’t we already know that most amplifiers sound virtually the same? Let’s be straight about the importance of sound, everyone from Alan Shaw, Alon Wolf, Andrew Jones, Billy Woodman, John DeVore, Laurence Dickie, Peter Comeau, Peter Thomas, Sean Casey etc use science, they always did - right from the very beginning. Let’s not kid ourselves about testing methods either, any loudspeaker, at any cost, that measures well in 2020 is virtually guaranteed to sound good. Any loudspeaker, at any cost, that doesn’t, isn’t guaranteeing anything other than wallowing forever lost in the audio’s circle of confusion. http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1 |
