Negative show report posts... enough is enough.
- Thread starter Peter Breuninger
- Start date
Reading the posts purported to have set off this chain reaction has me in general agreement with you. That was a mild, run of the mill exchange that should cause zero controversy.
Sorry I didn't mean to quote you, was just replying to the last post then on the thread
The real elephant in the room! Or elephants in the rooms as it relates to this thread. I like Peter B's videos very much and find them informative. There's little or no commentary, just a rope; the rest is up to the elephant.
True of many businesses and careers...
david
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+1. I used to consider Peter B a leader of the industry, but there is nothing exhibiting leadership in his responses and the original post. He's off my list as well, until and unless I see a sincerely apology.
Not a well considered post, either in the one above or the OP to the thread. You are no expert reviewer. Not based upon your methodology in your videos. If you are an expert reviewer, you hide it very well. Your methodology is pitiful. I don't see any evidence of any extraordinary expertise.
I don't so much care that in your words "Someone should step up. Now someone did....." I care about who it was that stepped up and why. This may seem like a very personal attack. It is a negative critique of your methodology, and the unwarranted high opinion your have of yourself. That you have been as successful as you have is the only thing interesting about watching your videos. They are generally so laughable. Then you go and start this pogrom with the idea those not as experienced and expert as you should not get the chance to have a public opinion. It is my opinion the publicity isn't doing you any favor.
You started this over one comment by one person, and it tripped some kind of irrational switch in you. That person's comment was short and true and made out to be no more than that. The speaker manufacturer was not well advised to post as he did. Attacking potential customers as unworthy isn't a recipe for business success. I do wonder though is he personal friend of yours or what? How did you get so ticked off at the one thing. Like others have repeatedly asked, where is the rash of people bad mouthing show exhibits. Wow! So much less than meets the eye here.
The training software uses frequent "tests" to make sure you can recognize the audio characteristic to which it refers.
It's not uncommon for an official LP or CD release from an originally analog recording (and even more common for unofficial recordings in trading circles) to be off-pitch. It's disconcerting to realize how many supposedly careful listeners either fail to notice this and/or aren't bothered by it. The same occurs with respect to wow/flutter.
No is an assault on a visible lack of expertise in someone who claims the reverse. It isn't about Peter personally rather about his methods. How personal it is depends upon how much he identifies his sense of self on his inflated expertise and importance. His attitude isn't a benefit to him either in this particular instance.
I think it was blunt but necessary, and struck me as accurate in the context of the discussion. I have watched the videos that form the foundation to Peter B's claim to expert status and I concur, they tend play like infomercials as opposed to full reviews.
You reap what you sow, and the OP was explicit in its statements, which Peter B declined to backtrack on or at least qualify, choosing instead to dig in and hurl additional insults toward those who disagree with his position, and specifically citing participants in this discussion when doing so.
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Alan Sircom said:
That's a very good point because we can't drive that nice looking car @ a car show. ...There are no highways there.
And with audio gear it's similar in a way because it's in our own home that it will be performing ultimately and not in a hotel suite with less than ideal conditions.
Audio exhibitors they exhibit, like jewelers showing diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, necklaces, bracelets, watches, etc.
But it is the "Sound" that truly we are shopping for, and the prestige too, the good looks for some of us, the woodwork, the varnishes, the colors, ...all that jazz.
And Audio is first Good Sound for Music Reproduction, foremost. ...And it's a personal affair too, like the woman we married. ...Or the women.
Did you hear the one about the two guys in the woods who spotted a bear close by? One guy started to tighten his shoelaces. The other said what are you doing? You can't outrun a bear. The other guy said I only have to outrun you.
Ah life on the show circuit
Lol, that one was so different than the rest.
LOL, I found it funny when I first heard that joke too Bob
In Japan the exhibits are scheduled. Some of the rooms in the convention center have multiple systems in them and you have to check the times if you want to catch exactly what you want to hear. The shows are quite structured. Typically a presentation is made and tracks are played to illustrate particular virtues. That is very different from what we have in the US or over here which is based on the US format. The pro to all this is that the audience is attentive and most of all quiet. None of the chatter you get when people come in and out and the exhibitor is entertaining queries or just saying hello to people. The con is that all you get to hear is carefully curated music selections. Some might say that the presentation itself is a form of "preconditioning". That would not be entirely untrue. The presentor is after all guiding the audience's focus. I do not believe in inception but certainly believe in influence. So, pick your poison.
In a trade show like CES where the focus is on B2B interactions, it is not uncommon to be handed the driver's seat. It's a different dynamic from a consumer show where exhibitors are more careful because the population is unfiltered. There have been extreme cases such as stolen LPs and CDs and even vandalism. I had an unused HYDRA 2 disappear from a closed closet! I have a friend in Europe that had the top chassis of his pre scratched with a key. The next year I had a bouncer in front. He's nice but does look a bit scary. Once in a while you might get an ornery tire kicker too. That never bothers me. Bring on your Megadeath CD buddy but come back after closing time.
In Japan the exhibits are scheduled. Some of the rooms in the convention center have multiple systems in them and you have to check the times if you want to catch exactly what you want to hear. The shows are quite structured. Typically a presentation is made and tracks are played to illustrate particular virtues. That is very different from what we have in the US or over here which is based on the US format. The pro to all this is that the audience is attentive and most of all quiet. None of the chatter you get when people come in and out and the exhibitor is entertaining queries or just saying hello to people. The con is that all you get to hear is carefully curated music selections. Some might say that the presentation itself is a form of "preconditioning". That would not be entirely untrue. The presentor is after all guiding the audience's focus. I do not believe in inception but certainly believe in influence. So, pick your poison.
In a trade show like CES where the focus is on B2B interactions, it is not uncommon to be handed the driver's seat. It's a different dynamic from a consumer show where exhibitors are more careful because the population is unfiltered. There have been extreme cases such as stolen LPs and CDs and even vandalism. I had an unused HYDRA 2 disappear from a closed closet! I have a friend in Europe that had the top chassis of his pre scratched with a key. The next year I had a bouncer in front. He's nice but does look a bit scary.
Once in a while you might get an ornery tire kicker too. That never bothers me. Bring on your Megadeath CD buddy but come back after closing time.
You've said it well Amir; that is also the way I see it, the positive aspect. ...And it's a great positive, totally accidental.
And that's the "best" direction; not the other one that is unclear and personal. Personal stuff should remain @ home, not on open forums.
But this thread has turned out to be very informative and beneficial from several well calibrated audio industry insiders and from professional audio writers and reviewers.
We're all in it for the same passion: Best Music Reproduction...Music we love deeply emotionally harmoniously with the entire world surrounding us and with all the people inside it.
LOL, I found it funny when I first heard that joke too Bob
In Japan the exhibits are scheduled. Some of the rooms in the convention center have multiple systems in them and you have to check the times if you want to catch exactly what you want to hear. The shows are quite structured. Typically a presentation is made and tracks are played to illustrate particular virtues. That is very different from what we have in the US or over here which is based on the US format. The pro to all this is that the audience is attentive and most of all quiet. None of the chatter you get when people come in and out and the exhibitor is entertaining queries or just saying hello to people. The con is that all you get to hear is carefully curated music selections. Some might say that the presentation itself is a form of "preconditioning". That would not be entirely untrue. The presentor is after all guiding the audience's focus. I do not believe in inception but certainly believe in influence. So, pick your poison.
In a trade show like CES where the focus is on B2B interactions, it is not uncommon to be handed the driver's seat. It's a different dynamic from a consumer show where exhibitors are more careful because the population is unfiltered. There have been extreme cases such as stolen LPs and CDs and even vandalism. I had an unused HYDRA 2 disappear from a closed closet! I have a friend in Europe that had the top chassis of his pre scratched with a key. The next year I had a bouncer in front. He's nice but does look a bit scary.
AT CES 2015 Technics ran its demos in the Japanese style. Definitely a different approach, I did not prefer it to a well-conducted American-style freewheeling demo. But I've seen/heard it work, for example one demo I attended... Sony ES with the 40th anniversay Pass Labs VFET amps powering SS-AR1 speakers. It was on a schedule, structured, included opera, and absolutely effective.
It is one in the same. The tool is a bit like a video game where levels keep going up and difficulty increases with it. At every stage, a change is made to the frequency response and you are asked to identify which EQ band may have created. The difficulty level is proportional to the width ("Q") of the filter.
Harman does not use this test for testing speakers. This is a training tool to get people to recognize colorations and be able to identify them accurately and objectively so that product design decisions can be made.
The actual test is with music tracks and ABCD comparison between say, four different speakers. You listen to music on each one of them and give score of 1 to 10. I created a thread for the tracks the use here: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Music-Tracks-for-Speaker-and-Room-EQ-Testing (out of separate posts in this thread).
And this is the training software: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...e-in-How-to-Critically-Evaluate-Sound-Quality
I found that until I took the training and follow on blind test, I lacked the vocabulary to quantify in my mind what was good or bad about the sound I was hearing. Can you tell with certainty if one voice is boomier than others? You might think you can when you hear sample 1 and 2 by when 3 and 4 play, you all of a sudden realize how weak your ability was to identify the correct sound in that regard.
Your method there is to catch mistakes that happen when people don't play music right. The mistakes that happen with loudspeakers and rooms are not that. The notes are perfect in each instant since all loudspeakers and rooms can be fed the identical sound.
What then goes wrong is that the room and speaker subject the frequency response of what they are told to play to variations that are as large as 30 db SPL! One would be horrified if told to stick an EQ in their system, close their eyes, randomly dial frequencies up down by factors of 10 to 1, and call it good. Yet that is precisely the performance a speaker presents in a room. I am not a musician but I don't think the test you are describing are designed to catch these errors.
We talk about colorations of electronics, analog vs digital, cables, etc. But none, none have been shown to have remotely this type of change to the frequency response that loudspeaker and room present. It is remarkable then that we walk out of a room, make a subjective remark about its sound, but not look at this variation by far dwarfing anything else in the room.
Superb sounding rooms and loudspeakers will be lucky to have 5 to 6 dB variation. The threshold of hearing can be as low as 0.5 db (for low Q resonances at frequencies around 250 Hz). And here I am saying if we get to 5 to 6 dB we are doing great, and that typical rooms and loudspeaker have response variations that are hugely more than this.
This is what the science tells us. We can throw that out of the window of course and talk about how this and that room sounded this way or that way. But unless you train yourself to know the difference, and can do so objectively without the bias of what the speaker looks like, who made it, and whether it is or isn't a speaker you own, you don't really have a solid foundation for your opinion to be correct. That we get upset due to someone saying it one way or the other, indicates to me that we have gone way, way too far in believing our own imagination here. One's opinion, if not based on some methodology, carries very little weight.
One difference is that, outside of the exotics, you can find a local place to test drive the car. If it's a local show, the car at the show was most likely supplied by the dealer. And, being that I'm 6'4", I've found that even just sitting in the car can be helpful. There are a lot of vehicles I don't comfortably fit in.
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