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From: rdp@teddy.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: The ear vs. instruments
Message-ID: <1400@teddy.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Oct-85 15:34:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: teddy.1400
Posted: Tue Oct  8 15:34:52 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Oct-85 13:31:42 EDT
Reply-To: rdp@teddy.UUCP (Richard D. Pierce)
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Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 66

[]

The response to my article about correlations of hearing vs. measurements
has been universally quite favorable. I have received quite a bit of mail
about it, and I thank the respondants for their letters. 

I have yet to receive the (I thought) inevitable flames from those among
us who often flame only for flaming's sake, but, rest assured, I am
hunkering down, reinforcing my bunker against the expected onslaught
of "Oh Yeah?" replies.

Two recurrent themes are apparent in many of the replies. The first is
"where do I find a journal with this sort of information?" Well, I am
not aware of any such publication devoted to either mainstream consumer
audio products or the audiophile (nutcase?) market. My departure from
the business is not totally coincidental with the rise in popularity
of such "journals" as Absolute Sound and the like. In the face of such
drivel, it is hard for a person with any reasonable sense of integrity
to stay involved in the audio business. I fear that, having reviewed the
currently available journals, nothing strikes me as being worth the postage.
I might be accused as being either too hard or too snooty, but when there
is much objective information to be had, there is little place for the
witch-doctor PHD or the "golden-ear" mentality. I especially found the
reference to joining a local audio club for "ear training" to most
pretentious.

Secondly, several people asked me questions like, "Well, if these journals
don't exist, then why don't YOU write one?" Well, my answer is simply
a correlary of Suffolk Audio's First Law of Acoustical Physics, to wit,
"Any idiot can write an audiophile magazine, and, unfortunately, many do."
Why, if there are people interested inn objective measurments and listening
data about equipment, do the magic rags flourish so well. Are there 2500
people out there who would be willing to pay $25 for such a journal? I
have seen no evidence of it, but then, I haven't been looking very hard.

There are other reasons why I don't do thism sort of work. Back when I was
involved, my equipment inventory was such that it embarrased the research
labs for the likes of companies like Phase Linear, JBL, Advent, AR, Harmon
Kardon, and so forth. I had GR graphic level recorders, 1/3 and 1/10 octave
spectrum analyzers, high precision THD and IMD analyzers, narrow band
spectrum analyzers, scopes, precision, low distortion (<.001%) signal
sources, etc., etc. For insurance purposes, I once had to come up with
replacement costs for all this stuff, and I came up with a conservative
figure of something like $600,000!. Also, it is something that cannot be
done by a single person. Inorder to ensure impartiality, it was necessary
to have one person conduct the measurements, and another to conduct the
listening tests. Where, in addition, does one find critical, non-partial
guinea pigs (by critical, I don't mean "golden ear", I mean questioning,
skeptical, etc.)?

I figure it might cost $25,000 to equip a lab with the minimal amount of
instrumentation necessary. One piece that I briefly explored was a
programmable FFT analyzer. (I actually am much closer to that now, owning,
as I do, a PDP-11/23 with 16 channels of 100KHz A/D. But I don't have Unix,
thank God!) 

Lastly, when does one do all of the work?

I am casually interested in such a venture, more as a diversion than
anything else. I refuse to be the crusader for truth and justice I once
was, it is too frustrating to deal with the AbNonsense out there.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, or might be willing to participate,
let me know. The worst that could possibly happen is I actually do it!

Dick Pierce