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In Defense of Audiophiles, Bose, Pass, Toole and Science

I don’t know why I look at Audio Science Reviews equipment reviews, they usually make me bang my head against my desk. The claims they make of being scientific is pretty half-baked. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate measurements, and the time it takes to conduct them, along with insights into the causes, but judging all electronics based on 40+ year old measurements which have not really become closer to explaining human perception and enjoyment, they claim to be objective scientists. They are not. Let me tell you some of the people who are:

  1. Bose
  2. Harman
  3. Nelson Pass
  4. Floyd Toole


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

erik_squires
larryrs
132 posts
 
"jacksky wrote -
in basketball, one thing I can tell you is that stats are very deceiving.
just listen to announcers give credit to players that do things that never show up on stat sheet. however, measuring human players performance is vastly different than measuring equipment that humans then react to the output."

Not quite sure why those are vastly different. As you state, in both cases you have the readily measurable factor (e.g., points per game for a player/frequency response for a speaker) plus those those factors that aren’t readily measurable (if you are a sports fan, you will frequently hear a commentator or writer refer to the "intangibles" when describing a players value or contribution). You can easily count points per game but not the intangibles. I believe that at least some of the speaker qualities that make one speaker better than another for any individual are the equivalent of a player’s "intangibles".  As CD318 said the readily measurable factors -" are not the final word, but they are a starting point." Exactly the point.
dutchydog
56 posts
 
I own a pass labs int 250,I love it. The rest of your article I don't know, except bose which is the biggest rip off in all of audio. 
erik_squires OP
16,130 posts
 
I am still surprised by how many judge science by whether it is used for their own preferences or not.

You cannot judge science by whether it is used to further an end you particularly want to have happen or not. You judge it by whether the following occur:

  • investment in research
  • discovery
  • hypothesis testing.

Having goals that suit you does not make it science, or lack of science.
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