It’s All a Preference

[Phelonious Ponk]

Here's a larger version with an explanation so we all don't have too look back

Rob

When the Harman research is presented here to “prove” how their branded speakers are better than the competition, how do we not discuss the company? I started this thread to talk about how our audio purchases boil down to preferences and somehow this became a Harman superiority thread which I certainly didn’t start.

And my point remains, if Harman’s superior testing methods lead to superior speakers, how come only one person on this forum claims to own them?

Actually, I think the Harman research came in as strong evidence o
That measurements can predict preference. Puts it right on topic.

Tim

 

[mep]

Actually, I think the Harman research came in as strong evidence o
That measurements can predict preference. Puts it right on topic.

Tim

Yeah, but the greatness of Harman's research ended up dominating this thread along with their great speakers which win all of the shootouts against other speakers not made by Harman. Why, we have $700 Infinity speakers kicking $11K ML speakers in the butt in these listening tests. And even though you and others say that measurements can predict preference, it doesn't predict what people will actually go buy with their own money. I'm still trying to count Harman speaker owners on this forum and I haven't been able to get past 1 owner yet.

 

[KeithR]

This is a HUGE harman commercial with a dealer trying to explain it all.

Im sorry, but thats how it comes across.

 

[amirm]

When the Harman research is presented here to “prove” how their branded speakers are better than the competition, how do we not discuss the company?

You can do that by reading my repeated posts that Dr. Toole and Olive started this research while working on behalf of Canadian government/NRC. And the reports themselves did not identify the speaker but only letters. I am giving you the brands as I sat through the tests. Not sure what you would like to happen. That we ignore the research because a commercial company is behind it now? If you can't see past the bias implication, that's cool.

I started this thread to talk about how our audio purchases boil down to preferences and somehow this became a Harman superiority thread which I certainly didn’t start.

It is not about Harman. The few people keep making it about that instead of applicability of it to what you asked: "preference." This is a test of comparative preference. It shows that we all share common threads in what is good sound, and what is not, when given a few devices to compare to each other. My read of your reaction is that you prefer this to not be the case and that we can all be justified to buy whatever we like because we are all different. If you have some research instead of gut feeling, let's have it. Otherwise, we are discussing your topic and getting us into who Harman is, is the off-topic part.

And my point remains, if Harman’s superior testing methods lead to superior speakers, how come only one person on this forum claims to own them?

You complain about this thread becoming about Harman and then keep asking this question? Are you in a battle with the company or do you want to discuss what we prefer and why?

 

[amirm]

This is a HUGE harman commercial with a dealer trying to explain it all.

Im sorry, but thats how it comes across.

I am sorry it comes across that way. As I noted to Mark and repeatedly so, this work started well before Harman and its value is manifested in car audio products today, not in masses of audiophiles buying the product. It is unfortunate that the thread keeps becoming a shootout between brands. It is not about that. It is about some rare science in a confusing world of sound reproduction and acoustics. I cannot separate the bias from the data. It is there. If we are suggesting that we should throw the baby out with the bath water, let's have a show of hands on that.

For now, you should know that I drive no income from my company and have had next to no sales generated from this forum. That is not by accident. I work hard to make sure I don't mix my company and the forum. But ultimately I can't zero out the connection, lest I also zero out sharing of the information.

 

[JackD201]

Come on my friends, let's calm down and see things for what they are. My take on Harman is that they are using the research not to predict preferences but rather to determine what preferences are. That is a huge difference. I'm also certain they are using the research for cost efficiency purposes. What's wrong with any of that? Nothing.

Tastes change over time and those that can't stay on the fat part of the bell curve will be relegated to servicing the niches/fringes. That too is not a bad thing if production capacity is small and there is a limit where manufacturers can or choose not to expand.

What we should remember is that one set of tests doesn't tell the tester what is ultimately better only what is better regarding the parameters of that particular test. Other performance factors may carry more weight, enough weight to counter a deficiency elsewhere.

 

[Steve williams]

This is a HUGE harman commercial with a dealer trying to explain it all.

Im sorry, but thats how it comes across.

Keith

you're way out of line on that one

 

[mep]

You can do that by reading my repeated posts that Dr. Toole and Olive started this research while working on behalf of Canadian government/NRC. And the reports themselves did not identify the speaker but only letters. I am giving you the brands as I sat through the tests. Not sure what you would like to happen. That we ignore the research because a commercial company is behind it now? If you can't see past the bias implication, that's cool.

I’m trying to relate the research to what people actually buy with their own money Amir. If Harman speakers are indeed superior sounding over their competition, why don’t more people own them? Surely it’s not because Harman lacks the financial resources to market their products better than their competition.

It is not about Harman. The few people keep making it about that instead of applicability of it to what you asked: "preference." This is a test of comparative preference. It shows that we all share common threads in what is good sound, and what is not, when given a few devices to compare to each other. My read of your reaction is that you prefer this to not be the case and that we can all be justified to buy whatever we like because we are all different. If you have some research instead of gut feeling, let's have it. Otherwise, we are discussing your topic and getting us into who Harman is, is the off-topic part.

Your read of my reaction is wrong. If everyone was running out and buying Harman speakers and lots of people on this forum owned them, then you might surmise that I wish it wasn’t the case. So, this isn’t about my “gut feeling,” but rather about the reality of the market place.

You complain about this thread becoming about Harman and then keep asking this question? Are you in a battle with the company or do you want to discuss what we prefer and why?

I have no axe to grind with Harman and yes, I do want to discuss what we prefer and why. That is why I started the thread. But, I didn’t start this thread to talk only about speakers, it just devolved into that. Apparently at least people on this forum who have voted with their wallets don’t prefer to buy Harman branded speakers in spite of what the Harman research shows.

The original intent of this thread was that we all make our audio choices based on our preferences. Somehow the thread was derailed into talking about how wonderful Harman’s research is and that it proves that if people listen to Harman speakers against their competition under Harman controlled tests that people prefer Harman speakers. I have asked numerous times how many people on this forum own Harman branded speakers and to date, we have a total count of one person. And that is why I’m bummed out that we can’t get past talking about Harman’s research into speakers. It doesn’t seem relevant based on the percentage of people that own them compared to the competition.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'm the one who guessed that the R & I were Revel and Infinity. I wish I had never brought it up, because the implications of a body of very well designed and executed research that draws a direct line from measurements to preference has been lost in the cat fight. But the truth is that the R and the I weren't really the things that derailed the thread; it was the "M." The shock of that venerable audiophile brand's poor performance by measurement and subjective listening was too much. My speculation that "I" stood for Infinity and that, specifically, it probably stood for a pair of speakers that regularly sell for under $700 sure added fuel to the fire, but I'd bet the farm there are more posts in this thread attacking the testing on behalf of ML or defending ML, or some combination of the two, than there are even containing the name of a Harman brand.

So forget the brands and the price points and let's get back on topic. These FR measurements and the listening tests seem to indicate a clear connection between measurement and listener preference. And really? It's just a bit more formal than what's self-evident in the success of Canadian companies like PSB, who have designed their speakers based on these kinds of measurements for decades. Can we bury the "measurements are no indication of sound" argument and agree that good FR readings are, actually, a pretty good indicator of not only sound, but preference?

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Mark, since when is "what lots of people buy" an indication of quality. A lot more people buy Justin Bieber than Yo Yo Ma.

Tim

 

[MylesBAstor]

Mark, since when is "what lots of people buy" an indication of quality. A lot more people buy Justin Bieber than Yo Yo Ma.

Tim

Except your logic is erroneous. We're not talking McDonalds here; we're referring to high quality products for those with discerning tastes whether you want to believe or not.

 

[JackD201]

Mark, if we look at the total loudspeaker market and consider all loudspeaker brands under the Harman Umbrella I think we'll find that they have significant market share.

If we're talking about the high end segment, Revel in particular, I really don't know. Could it be a matter of trying to please too many people at the same time? A Jack of all Trades situation? It's possible.

Look at it this way. Rice-Kellog made the first electromagnetic loudspeaker in 1921. It was a single driver loudspeaker with a paper cone. Fast forward to 2012. There are still some folks who go single driver with paper cones and everything else we have today on top of them. What does that tell us? Differences in preference spawned all the different speaker types. So yeah, it is all a preference.

Target markets are just subsets of people with common preferences. When it comes to clothes, nothing beats bespoke. It's the ultimate luxury. Buying commercial brands that hew closest to preference is the next best thing.

Of course we're bound to have crusaders come out and tell us we can't hear the difference so we should in effect all wear GAP and be done with it. Never mind that wearing GAP is a preference as well.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Well certainly they have to be plugged and allowed to charge up for 24 hours before any serious listening sessions. Otherwise they suck. One wonders whether that was covered? Or did they plug them in the morn of the listening tests?

Of course the other question that begs asking is were all the speakers in the test properly broken in (and for how long) or new out of the box?

 

[microstrip]

(...) The shock of that venerable audiophile brand's poor performance by measurement and subjective listening was too much. My speculation that "I" stood for Infinity and that, specifically, it probably stood for a pair of speakers that regularly sell for under $700 sure added fuel to the fire, but I'd bet the farm there are more posts in this thread attacking the testing on behalf of ML or defending ML, or some combination of the two, than there are even containing the name of a Harman brand.

Tim

Tim,

It could be any other respected brand and the reaction would be the same. However when the referred brand is well known for providing us with excellent sound quality it is natural that we should question the methodology used for these tests. The information available is scarce, diffuse and the parameters evaluated are not universally accepted. There were references to mono listening, using a DAC driving amplifiers directly, omission of details such as cables and correct setup of speakers. IMHO all this strongly influenced the results. May be Harman people considered that this is the typical use of their speakers and wanted to use these conditions to test preferences. Perfect. But in no way this a typical audiophile setup.

 

[Robh3606]

I’m trying to relate the research to what people actually buy with their own money Amir. If Harman speakers are indeed superior sounding over their competition, why don’t more people own them? Surely it’s not because Harman lacks the financial resources to market their products better than their competition.

Hello Mep

I think part of the answer is simply this. All of their research is done blind and bias free. When we go to a show room we bring all of our bias with us. I am assuming I am the one guy your are talking about who owns JBL Arrays which are current and made using that research.

When we go into a showroom nothing is even level matched which is a basic requirement. The louder speaker almost always wins. We are making decisions based on what we have read, what our friends say, what we hear and what we see. It's not just what we hear.

I can understand your original statement when you started the thread. It is what we like. But that doesn't in anyway change the importance of the research Toole and company have done. All of that blind supremacy disappears in the show room. They are just another speaker in the room. They loose any blind advantage because you are not solely evaluating them on their sonic merits.

Rob

 

[microstrip]

(...) I think part of the answer is simply this. All of their research is done blind and bias free. (...)

Rob,

Being blind does not mean bias free. All the conditions in which the tests were carried and the methodology of evaluation create a bias. Even the recordings that were used can create a bias.

There are no simple answers to the many questions raised in this thread. I am sure that Harman people though about them and tried to choose the best decisions for their purposes.

IMHO their scientists were much more interested in extracting one parameter from the 70 measurements that could be correlated with the preferences shown in the listening tests than in comparisons with the competition. This was the real challenge. Unhappily the marketing guys spoiled it all.

 

[Soundminded]

I've owned two Lincolns with JBL sound systems and IMO they are awful. The only way to hear much bass and treble is to boost the controls which makes the bass boomy. The CD player is a Sony with a 10 disc changer mounted in the trunk. If you hit a bump the laser loses lock and the only way to get it to play again is to stop the car, eject the disc holder and re-insert it. Radio reception is not very good and there's no way to defeat the stereo multiplexer when the signal is weak. A poor product IMO.

Harman Kardon's claim to fame were its Tube Citation units I, II, III, IV, and V still very collectable and its Citation 15 and 16 preamp and power amp. I think those were the ones designed by Mati Otalla after he discovered slewing rate related distortion (Transient Intermodulation Distortion.) I've got an old A500 amp and F500X tuner, my first components. Later on I was sorry I didn't buy Dynaco PAS 3X, Stereo 70, and FM 3 instead. I had a lot of problems with the F500X originally because it kept drifting out of alignment. My main system has a Citation 11 as its main preamp because of the 5 band equalizer. About a year ago its 1000 mfd 100V power supply cap gave up the ghost. I replaced it with what I had around, two 4800 mfd 75 V Mallory caps I wired in series. It never sounded better, the original cap was undersized.

Infinity's claim to fame was the original ServoStatic I ($1800) and 1A ($4000.) These were triamplified hybrid large panel electrostatic systems. A single large servo driven subwoofer was suplied with a 250watt amplifier, very big in its day. Most are probably no longer operational due to failures. The other speaker of note was the massive IRS and IRS beta (orignally $50,000.) These were designed by Arnie Nudell. Four ceiling high towers, two containing vertical arrrays of EMIM midranges and EMIT tweeters, the other two towers containing six 12" woofers each. Arnie went on to Genesis where he manufactures a similar design that's much more expensive, I think around a quarter million. Also noteworthy were Kappa series, 7 and 9 were popular. They also used EMIM and EMIT drivers. This was all before Harman acquired them.

JBL's fame was and still is in professional sound reinforcement systems. Two noteworthy models were the Hartsfield, JBL's answer to Klipsch and the Paragon which is the most unusual speaker I've ever seen. JBL came strictly from the west coast movie industry driven school of theater speakers from which Altec Lansing also sprang. K2 looks to be some kind of redux of the Hartsfield although I don't think it's intended for corner placement. I don't know the current price but I think it was introduced at $50,000.

http://www.audioheritage.org/

http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/jbl/paragon.htm

When it came to high fidelity for the home though, I'll never figure out how JBL managed to combine the best made drivers in the industry into one awful sounding speaker system after another.

 

[Soundminded]

"AR went on to introduce many other notable designs, and by 1966 the company had grown to hold 32.2% of the U.S. domestic loudspeaker market, based on the IHFM and High Fidelity surveys statistics for that year. This was the largest product market share ever held by a loudspeaker manufacturer since statistics have been kept in the industry."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Research

 

[Robh3606]

IMHO their scientists were much more interested in extracting one parameter from the 70 measurements that could be correlated with the preferences shown in the listening tests than in comparisons with the competition. This was the real challenge. Unhappily the marketing guys spoiled it all.

You are missing the point on this. This premise of the FR dominating the preference in blind testing was there before Toole was employed by Harmon. You asked if anyone has both read his book and his prior papers I have. Have you??

Being blind does not mean bias free. All the conditions in which the tests were carried and the methodology of evaluation create a bias. Even the recordings that were used can create a bias.

You know maybe you are right maybe it does. But for sure it certainly removes any sighted bias and bias attained through reading what's in Stereophile simply because it's a blind test. Surely you can see how what you read by a respected reviewer could influence you??

Rob

 

[Robh3606]

K2 looks to be some kind of redux of the Hartsfield although I don't think it's intended for corner placement. I don't know the current price but I think it was introduced at $50,000.

Hello Soundminded

It's not for corner placement. One is a folded corner horn the other a bass reflex cabinet. They are apples and oranges and the K2 is leaps and bounds the better loudspeaker of the 2.

Rob