Getting a group of people to agree on anything can be difficult.
Getting a group of people to agree on anything can be difficult. Ever go to the cinema with friends and try to decide which film to watch? So you would think getting people to agree on something like sound quality, given the high degree of subjectivity involved, would be as likely as hitting the lottery this weekend so you can quit your job on Monday.
Talk to Harman's VP of acoustic engineering, Dr. Floyd Toole, and he'll tell you that's not so far-fetched - that is, finding agreement on SQ, not winning the lottery, unfortunately. People apparently have almost an innate sense for hi-fi. Over 85 percent of "test subjects" at Harman were in agreement as to what they considered good sound. This reminds me of Noam Chomsky's claim that the human brain is hard wired with a natural grammar that makes language possible. But the question is this: If we all have senses that distinguish between degrees of quality and help us determine what is good and bad, why is there so much disagreement between experienced people about the sound quality of a given system? Dr. Toole might say it has something to do with the training one receives that affects one's perception. There could be a number of factors involved, and training is one of them. Another is that people don't share the same reference anymore. Live music would be a great standard to use except that some people have never been to a concert where musicians use acoustic instruments or where sound engineering doesn't over-determine the sound. The idea of a sound stage may be a bit foreign then. If you listen to rap or electronica you listen to a lot of synthetic sounds - who knows then what anything is supposed to sound like? So let's leave live music aside.
What about speakers? Some music fans listen to high-end home speakers, while others know their tunes only through earbuds, etc. To make matters worse, you also have to deal with the different degrees of recording quality, not to mention the different formats. You can listen to a Sheffield Lab recording, get one "reading" of a system with that, then listen to the latest pop single, get a very different result, then slide in, say, a sound competition disc and get a third impression at odds with the previous auditions. It can be maddening; and yet, in the end you somehow do reach a consensus. (The older I get the more I incline toward nature in the nature vs. nurture argument.) With regard to the factory systems in the new cars featured in this issue, it's safe to say we reached a consensus. We have a majority decision! I should say though that our objective wasn't to pick the best system; after all, they're not all the same type. However, you can't help but try to place them on a hierarchy. You'll have to read the reviews of the Bang & Olufsen in the S8, the Mark Levinson in the LS460L and the ELS Surround in the MDX to figure it out. For now, let's just say that they're all formidable, high-quality sound and technology systems, some just a little more pleasing than others. But you may be wondering: How would they stand up to an aftermarket counterpart? That's something we'll take a look at in future issues.
We'll be adding other new departments, such as the one hinted at above, to complement the new how-to section that is now a regular part of the magazine. We got a great reaction from readers for the December 2006 issue. Thanks to those who wrote in. This month we cover sound dampening basics as well as radar integration. And, of course, you can pick up more tricks from Steve Brown and Zee Siddiqi in their columns. And that covers just part of the content for this issue. You'll want to check out our test reports on some remarkable gear this month as well as our car audio myth-busting article. Enjoy!
Next Month
It's that time of year again. And maybe time for a system upgrade. Check out our annual May CES issue with coverage of the show and all the newest products for '07. Another 100-plus hot products from gadgets to nav to audio. Something for everyone.