Specifications vs. Emotional Appeal?

Although I’ve never met Dr. Sean Olive of Harmon Kardon, I’m very aware of his important work in the area of audio product design and quality sound advocacy. And we’ve corresponded a number of times over the years. I found the following blog post recently by Dr. Olive and thought it was well worth a little blurb and a link. Take a read of the piece and see what you think. Dr. Olive is one of the few audio experts that I read regularly and respect quite highly.

The Science and Marketing of Sound Quality

The basic idea is that the audio industry has long established a list of specifications that tell potential customers that indeed a particular component or set of speakers will produce sound but these same specifications don’t really deal with the subjective evaluation of the quality of the listening experience. This is an often-debated concept in the pages of audiophile magazine and online forums.

Is the subjective quality of a listening experience the single most important metric or only consideration that should be used in judging that experience? Or do technical specifications, blind A | B | X test and scientific explanations play an equally important role or a role at all? I read these comments on other websites all the time. If a rationale left brain discussion of a technical nature fails to convince someone or runs counter to one’s established opinions then the person routinely says, “All I’m interested in is the sound that I hear coming from the speakers. I don’t care about the techno babble one whit…if I’m moved by the music I hear then I’m satisfied.”

What can you say after someone goes there? Nothing. The listener is happy and enjoying his or her music and that’s that! At least that’s enough for a large majority of audiophiles and music fans.

But it’s not enough for me. It wasn’t enough when I started my little label back in 2000 and it is still not enough 13 years later.

It seems to me that audio specifications and scientific explanations should play a role in the quality discussion. It can’t be ALL about the subjective musings of professional writers or ardent audiophiles. There would be no articles in audio magazine and the number of posts on audio forums would eventually dry up. I would probably run out of things to say on this site if the issue of emotion vs. specifications did exist. Those of use who are passionate about music would have seen no improvement in equipment and fidelity over the past 70 years. There were plenty of people in the 40s that were completely content with the sound of recordings.

Maybe I’m the one that doesn’t get it. So let me ask you, the readers of this site. Should specifications be considered when shopping for hardware or a new recording? If so, what type of technical information is more important? Do we need to develop specifications that can guide quality judgment as Dr. Olive suggests?

I received an email from a reader this morning about some tracks that he had downloaded from one of the main HD digital music stores. He noticed that they contained an audible amount of “hiss” or high frequency noise. He could hear it in his system. So he took the files and did the same thing that I routinely do…analyze them by looking at the spectragraphs. The results confirmed what he heard. The tracks showed the normal attenuation of audio energy as the frequencies increased until they were virtually nil at around 22 kHz. But then they turned around and headed right back up. Trust me on this…it’s not normal acoustics if the higher partials get louder after the “audio band”.

The spectragraphs, a technical tool, illustrated that the files were probably standard definition audio at CD-Audio quality that had been “upconverted” and placed into an HD bit bucket. The reader did enjoy the music but somehow knowing that there’s been a little engineering and marketing “shuck and jive” in the mix made them lose a little of their luster for him…and for me too.

Audio enthusiasts can benefit from knowing the technical side of the discussion just as those of use that are burdened by the specs need to do more listening. I admit that.

But it’s hard to let go when I receive a comment like this from someone that downloaded the files available through this site:

“Well, I have to say those files are the cleanest, most articulate audio I’ve heard in a long time and I was able to turn up the volume a bit as I spose it has no compression or EQ at all so everything has a greater swing of range from low to high.” Terry