Do the best audio designers put their ears before the numbers.

Not since the days of Peter Walker would any designer say they don't even bother to listen to their design, but I doubt there's even a single one today that relies entirely upon their own hearing. 

Listening is usually only mentioned as a last minute check that some horrible miscalculation hasn't occurred, eg with crossover design etc. Measurement matters, it always did previously, and even more now. 

Advances in measurement techniques and our understanding of how to best apply them will eventually render listening whilst designing altogether superfluous, if it already hasn't done so.
Time is money and the days of designing exclusively by ear have long gone.

Products with serious anomalies will be ruthlessly exposed in today's market. No sane designer will risk that. Even Rega, reluctant as ever to publish data, have had to weather a few storms regarding turntable speed issues. 

Gradually there should be an increasing amount of homogeneity between different designs and products as measurements such as drive unit dispersion increasingly begin to coincide.

Hopefully one day similar loudspeakers will be used to make recordings all over world, thereby ensuring a degree of consistency as the BBC attempted with their designs. Until then some inconsistencies will unfortunately remain.

Audio design has always been a science and not an interpretive art form. The designer's primary task is to build a product which faithfully reproduces the signal fed to it all the way from the microphone to the finished audio file/pressing.

The decision to apply selective EQ/gain is usually up to the listener and not the designer.

In fact the only current exception I can think of is Russell Kaufman who also believes loudspeaker damping causes more harm than good. Apparently, although Kaufman still puts his listening impressions first he also relies upon hours and hours of measurement. 

'At Russell K, we’ve conducted thousands of hours of research into the effect that different crossover types have on the sound from 6db (gentle roll off) to 24db (very steep roll off). We’ve discovered that it’s the combination of drive units mechanical roll off and the crossover working in harmony that produces the best sound.'

http://www.russellk.co.uk/the_concept.php

there is a Nelson Pass interview on youtube, maybe with Steve Guttenberg, where he talks about the combination of measurements and listening...

Listening is usually only mentioned as a last minute check that some horrible miscalculation hasn’t occurred, eg with crossover design etc. Measurement matters, it always did previously, and even more now.

Unless I’m mis-understanding your context..:

No, no no, and no.
Measurement performed in the design and example stages, and in the pre production stages and in the production stages.

But the ear rules the roost. If it sounds bad it is re-assessed via the given electronic tools and so on.

The ear is king for the vast number of high end audio designers. I can’t even imagine the company that is an exception, but I’ll leave room for it.

It cannot be any other way. It would be unbelievably foolish and detrimental to the given audio company to try it any other way.

The ear is ’the decider’.

Ok, re reading your post, I think we are closer to being in a agreement than being apart from it. Listening is not less valuable than measurement. It’s like two identical but differently placed seals and ports on a pressure vessel. One is not more important or less important than the other. One cannot generally rule over the other. More like tasks and aspects that have to, or more should be in agreement - in order to move forward.

But it is possible to have a measurement fail, via the idea of the engineering mind, but still have a sound quality pass or exultation, and have the design move forward to the sales point.

The reason for this.. is we don’t know exactly how the ear works and thus we don’t know how to place what the ear hears across the engineering measurements as a form of comparison and weighting of each in the comparison.

Which is why a hearing positive can cause a product to go forward, even when there is still the idea of a engineering negative on the table. The reality being that we exist within... or shape we operate under or in.. where that comparative and weighting thing between measurement and hearing ----is still not a reality.

And the sensible part, is going for the listening and hearing being the final arbiter, if those considerations about what is heard, is deemed to be strong enough and the engineering 'imperfections' are not severe enough to warrant overriding that hearing based decision. 

Where each scenario is different so it requires human rumination on the entire package, done by individuals, whom are all different.

It is possible to have cable designers rely entirely upon their hearing as we still don’t know the fundamental of how measurement applies to hearing, especially with the minutia that appear to rule the comparative equation.

It’s the same problem that the electronics design end of the audio design pool has, but amplified to the extreme, as problems go.

which is why the linear measurement based mind has such problems with it. (cables and similars)

where that linear mind may additionally suffer from a lesser hearing capacity than some, and literally not even understand that the problem exists.

Like a psychological and hearing based blacked out glass ceiling that they can’t even realize existing within their own self. A problem they don’t realize exists, and they can’t relate.. and then they start screaming about unicorn pee, snake oil, and charlatans.

Where all they do at that point is advertise their inabilities to those who do not suffer said inabilities.

Ear-q, like intelligence or IQ, is a very very real thing. Eg, does anyone here, for even a second, think that all people possess the same hearing? that they hear the same way?

That all other aspects of humanity are all different and are variants, and individual, yet, somehow, hearing is an exception? So it cannot play into the situation?

How incredibly dense a thought/position that would be. Like, wow. Breathtaking in it’s ignorance. Staggering.

Those who don’t possess it and are arguing on forms, appear, to the overall talented, as a one legged one note dog. Not hated unless they persist in biting, but they are forgiven.



It’s an act of humanity to allow it to persist, along with the inability to get the message through to those who do not possess the language or the skill to understand given the existence of the problem itself.

@jl35

’there is a Nelson Pass interview on youtube, maybe with Steve Guttenberg, where he talks about the combination of measurements and listening...’


Yes, but I think everyone says that. They understand that the consumers want the assurance that the product has been listened to, at least once. What they don’t say is that they trust their ears more.



@teo_audio

’The ear is king for the vast number of high end audio designers.’

I seriously doubt that. How many of them can still hear flat up til 16kHz? I doubt whether I can.

How many of them can identify cables, amplifiers, digital sources etc whilst simply blindfolded, nevermind abx controlled?

You know the answer to that as well as I do, none. Not a single one of them.

You also know that testing equipment can. Every time. Obviously.

Would you like to test yourself against something like the Klippel analyser system?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.teufelaudio.com/the-klippel-analyser-system/amp/


It’s also worth bearing in mind when Edison conducted his live versus recorded tone tests a century ago the sighted audience could not tell the difference between a vocalist and a shellac recording!

https://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2015/05/is-it-live-or-is-it-edison/


’The reason for this.. is we don’t know exactly how the ear works and thus we don’t know how to place what the ear hears across the engineering measurements as a form of comparison and weighting of each in the comparison.’

Or if everyone hears the same. No, we don’t, but that’s just another good reason to carefully examine all the data, isn’t it?

The goal is to create accuracy of playback. How it’s later interpreted is beyond the control of the designer and isn’t the issue here.


As far as I can see the only excuse for not replying upon the technology available is if you don’t have access to it.

Thankfully the software is gradually becoming more readily available and sometimes alternatives can be found.

The sheer cost of an anechoic chamber prohibits access and means many designers will test and measure their loudspeakers suspended outdoors.

It’s an act of humanity to present the consumer with the best chance to experience whatever was on the recording. The rest (setup, room, hearing etc) is under the control of the listener.

You’d want to, at the least, give them a fair chance, wouldn’t you?