Analytical or Musical Which way to go?

"While the small sample size of listeners does notallow us to make generalizations to larger populations, nonetheless it is reassuring to find that both the American and Japanese students, regardless of their critical listening experience, recognized good sound when they heard it, and preferred it to the lower quality options. "

Dr Sean Olive

How can you debate 'taste' preferences? It does make for a lively discussion, but as I first heard from my Dad...'There is no accounting for tastes'. But again, it does make for a fun discussion.

WHen you are dealng with marketing, you want to make products that customers will buy. No one wants to make what they think is a great speker and have it sit on the shelf.

Harman IMO has gone full circle. They not only think they make the best speaker. They attempt to replace your idea of what the best speaker is.
This may work on a focus group at the Harman factory, let's watch to see if it translates to the market place.

I drove a Mercedes with Harmon Kardon system. I was bored and certainly would not have purchased but for the fact it was OEM. That's just me.

The Harman research seems to correlate well with what audiophiles like, though. The main exceptions I can think of are planars, as John Atkinson pointed out in his article. Floyd Toole sheds some light on this in his book -- the Quads (57's?) tested much better in stereo than in mono. And Harman tests in mono. Their speaker positioner also doesn't substitute for the careful setup of an audiophile system, which is particularly crucial with dipoles.

One point that Olive and Toole make, and it's one with which I agree strongly, is that speaker preferences are not solely a matter of taste. In blind tests, subjects with normal hearing routinely pick the speaker that is most accurate. I don't find that very surprising. Of course, we also "choose our poison" to some extent, depending on our listening material and levels and what we value most in reproduced sound. But the notion that people prefer inaccuracy doesn't seem to be true.

I'd draw a distinction, though, between picture-perfect response and accuracy with real-world material. If, say, pop recordings are hyped in the highs, as many are, you're likely to want a speaker that compensates for that.

05-11-12: Gregadd
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I pose the question then how can a spekeer that sounds lifeless be acurrate?

Would that pose yhis question. Does live music sound dull and lifeless?
If not how can we ever be be satisified with such a spseker no matter how well it measures?

I believe you're shortchanging your own questions in presupposing(via questioning) one and the other being entangled, as if marketing strategies and speaker developement hurdles have found a troublesome entry into your dealing with sound, and eventually music. At least it seems to me you've somehow become problematically intertwined with these issues, being, to my mind, that they're irrelevant and not least a potentially restricting factor into your grasp of music. What are you in this regard, a listener "only"? Then try and stop worrying about how to articulate and equate in words self-constructed oppositions like "live=lifeless"(I mean, what?) or how measurements are thought to be a ruling aspect of your listening enjoyment. These are aspects the ones selling and marketing this stuff are dealing with; don't make them yours. Make listening to music your OWN deal, something marketers and developers would THEN have to deal with. If live music is something you cherish then I would recommend that you attend more live concerts, give into them fully, and gradually "build up" a resoir of experience that more firmly grounds you in a reference point to go by when choosing the equipment to reproduce your (growing) collection of music. I'd say, whipe the board clean and forget about measurements and what can and can't be sold.