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This is the first Archived Forum which was active between 17th April 2007 and 1st March February 2012

 

Latest post 11-30-2007 1:49 PM by Flappo The Grate. 32 replies.
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  • 09-21-2007 6:20 AM

    • Bulgarien
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    The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

     

     Seth Porges writes on future technology and its role in personal electronics for his column, The Futurist. It appears every Thursday and an archive of past columns is available here. The story are taken from here http://crunchgear.com/2007/09/20/the-futurist-why-you-should-buy-middle-end-products/

    20 september 2007.

    About a year ago I was at a Bang & Olufsen store in Manhattan. Some guy with spiky hair and a Prada jacket walked in, and asked to try out the B&O A8 headphones. He put on the pair, listened to some extremely loud classical music, and, with a self-satisfied grin, said 30 seconds later say: “I’m sold. I’ll take them.”

    Now the A8s aren’t the best headphones on the market, and the B&O price premium indisputably goes more towards design than performance. If I could shrink myself down Innerspace-style and enter this guy’s head, I imagine I would have not seen him processing the music he was hearing as much as the $160 price tag on the headphones (which is very, very low for a B&O product) and the $30,000 price tags attached to the speakers in the same room. In fact, I would wager money that you could have shoved $20 Sonys in this guy’s ear and he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. What sold him was the environment, the imagery, and expensive suit on the salesperson. If you put any product in this environment and told somebody that it was premium, they would believe you. And if they are in the market for a high-end product, they might even buy it.

    A few days ago I was fortunate enough to visit the Bose HQ in Framingham, MA, where I was treated to an amazing presentation by Bose founder Dr. Amar Bose. As he put it, Bose was founded on the fact that audio products with supposedly-top-notch specifications were not very pleasurable to listen to. As Bose described it, the company was born when he “realized specifications A) weren’t correct as printed, and B) if you met them, the sound wasn’t improved.”

    Whatever one’s personal feelings on Bose are, I agree with him that, for most people, specs simply don’t matter much in terms of the actual listening (or, in the case of visual products, viewing) experience. What really matters is how good an experience you are expecting. So for companies like Bose, which is held in extraordinarily high regard by the general public, high customer satisfaction levels are at least partially the result of the simple fact that customers are EXPECTING good products, often through a mix of word-of-mouth, marketing, price tags, and product design–all areas that Bose rules in. In fact, a study that came last year showed that Bose was held in higher regard by the general public than any other consumer electronics company. Higher than Apple, Microsoft, Sony, or Dell.

    Poor products are poor products and won’t fool anybody, but the difference in sound and picture between an average product and better-than-average one is often so minute, that most people are simply incapable of noticing if they aren’t trained to do so. As Dr. Bose told me, a speaker’s ability to process ultra-high frequency ranges doesn’t matter because “we aren’t dogs.” Furthermore, I’ll give you $100 if you can tell the difference between a 10,000-to-1 contrast ratio and a 20,000-to-1 contrast ratio on a TV (hint: the spec is inherently troublesome due to it’s method of measurement, but I won’t go into that now.)

    So my message to the public is this: Unless you’re an acoustic engineer or Mike Kobrin, save your money and buy middle-end products. Look for ones with decent reviews, don’t worry about the brand name or how glitzy the storefront is, and never, ever trust the ability of your own ears and eyes to objectively tell you what a really great product is. Instead, trust them to tell you what products you really enjoy listening to and watching. You’ll be happier that way, and might even save a few bucks.

  • 09-21-2007 6:36 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Interesting ... but I would say the picture is not as black and white as this (no pun intended).
  • 09-21-2007 7:22 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Ummmmhhh! Yes and no! You see that form of the argument values the design at zero I have made this point about audiophiles on another thread). Design has a high value to some, especially if its going into a living room. Almost any other product that went into such a space would have design as an important factor why shouldn't the entertainment systems. Design doesn't come by accident and you have to pay for it.

     B&O is a complex mix of design,product build quality and sound(and/or vision). You can't buy only one of these characteristics when you buy B&O you buy all three. Bose,IMHO, is an aspirational premium brand --it would love to be in B&O's position but only has (obviously a matter of opinion) only one of these three factors (sound).

     
    There are products out there that can out perform B&O on sound quality only. On the whole (but not always) they will be cheaper than B&O but they will probably lack the design characteristic if they have the other two.

     
    You either have the B&O bug or you don't -- you can't force it!

     

     

    Barry BV6-26,BC2300,Beolab8000,4000,3500,2000,DVD1
  • 09-21-2007 7:27 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Taking Dr Bose as a commentator on this is particularly interesting as a quick trawl arounf hi-fi forums will find Bose get more accusations of selling low/average products at a premium price than all other manufacturers put together so it is odd that he is advocating looking only at the listening experience and implying that his company is at the forefront of delivering value to the consumer.

     To use headphones as an example, the QuitComfort range are good (but expensive) noise cancelling headphones, for those that don't need noise cancelling the other Bose Headphones (particularly the Triports) do not stand up to comparison with far cheaper headphones. It is why Bose do not allow stores selling their products to offer the facility to directly compare Bose products to others, hence the dedicated luistening rooms full of Bose Surround Sound Speakers.

     Dr Bose is right when he says that the listening experience is what matters in the final analysis, and Bose Products do sound good if you have never heard any high-end products, so anyone upgrading from (for example) Bundled Earbuds to Triports will be blown away by the quality.

    Where he is being disingenuous is in failing to acknowledge that Bose are arguably the worst offenders  of all when it comes to the comparison between the experience the Bose sales rep will be telling you are having and how the Bose equipment would sound when directly compared to competing products at a similar price.

     B&O have been tarred with the same brush in the past but to me the difference is that B&O products do deliver, and have a standard of design that Bose cannot match. Compare pictures of  a Beosound 1 and a Bose Wave II  and you will see what I mean.

     

    Simon

     

     

  • 09-21-2007 10:02 AM In reply to

    • Dave
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Ugh i wish i hadn't read that! Bose and B&O in the same sentence MAKES ME CRINGE. Just because he can type, does not make him instantly knowledgeable or wise.

    He seems to believe he's onto something. Indifferent Meh

    “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”

    Your health and well-being comes first and fore-most.

     

     

  • 09-21-2007 2:02 PM In reply to

    • Alex
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Shows how much he knows what he's talking about. You don't hear sounds over 19 KHz or therabouts directly, but harmonics in 'supersonic' frequencies massively affect the sound you hear above 2 KHz in ways you wouldn't expect.

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  • 09-21-2007 7:56 PM In reply to

    • Dave
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Alex:

    Shows how much he knows what he's talking about. You don't hear sounds over 19 KHz or therabouts directly, but harmonics in 'supersonic' frequencies massively affect the sound you hear above 2 KHz in ways you wouldn't expect.

    Really?! Wow thats amazing, i didn't know that, where did you learn that? I'm intruiged!

    “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”

    Your health and well-being comes first and fore-most.

     

     

  • 09-21-2007 9:56 PM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Hmmm.. I would say the for the *average* buyer, a product like Bose is the right choice. I can safely recommend a Bose table radio and know that most people will be happy with it. I have a set of Triports - they are pretty good, not great (I will say that breaking them in for 48 hours made a huge difference in sound quality).

    B&O is a different level. I consider myself an audiophile, and as a result, I have owend tons of audio equipment form many companies. B&O has been the only company that consistently impresses me. Take the Beosystem 2500. This is really a table radio/compact system, however, its sound quality beats every compact system I have had/tested regardless of price. Another example - the BL 5000 Flat Panels. Look at the spec sheets and these are nothing special. Small drivers, thin boxes, etc. However, I am still amazed at the bass these can produce.

    So, is B&O worth it? To someone that knows and cares about music and design - yes. To someone that is "average", no. (And I think B&O knows this and markets themselves in this way).


  • 09-22-2007 2:17 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Alex:

    You don't hear sounds over 19 KHz or therabouts directly, but harmonics in 'supersonic' frequencies massively affect the sound you hear above 2 KHz in ways you wouldn't expect.

    I should hope so, since we have many musical instruments with foundation tones above 2kHz -- but I'm guessing you meant 20kHz?

    Armand Bose's comments go to the fact that humans do not hear ultrasound as defined by "beyond the human hearing range" (there's a circular definition for you). If we did, walking in a park frequented by dog owners with whistles would be an unpleasant experience.

    In recent years, much has been made of the claim that a full appreciation of music depends upon reproducing harmonics that exist far beyond the human hearing range, with people claiming that we are sensitive to frequencies up to 100khz. This is the "theory" behind the supertweeters that operate at frequencies beyond 20kHz. JBL, for instance, in their Everest speaker, have a supertweeter that begins at a point that my hearing has never even been close to. Its Ultra-High Frequency Driver starts at 20kHz and tops at 50kHz.

    Some studies seem to show that the bone structure in our heads is receptive to such high frequencies. Maybe.

    The range that most speakers reproduce, topping off at 20kHz, is more than sufficient to reproduce both the primary, secondary and tertiary harmonics of the absolute majority of musical instruments, and all vocals known to man. (The human voice doesn't extend very high).

    The highest note on a Piccolo flute and the top keys of a piano clock in around 5kHz, and the top note on a massive organ will have a third harmonic that busts through the speaker ceiling as its foundation is 7500Hz. That is an uncomfortably high-pitched tone, by the way. (The beeeeeeep you sometimes hear on test patterns is set at 1kHz).

    While open to always looking for ways to improve sound reproduction, I am personally convinced that we are looking at a nice way of getting people to swap their speakers for some equipped with supertweeters, in the never ending quest for hi-fi Nirvana. Though there is some justification in the fact that with music being made available at high sample-rates (up to 192kHz) at least you can have those supertweeters sending out something, though inaudible through the ear.

    HOWEVER - since there are no microphones in use to record music that are sensitive beyond about 15kHz, you might wonder exactly what it is that those supertweeters are reproducing, since nothing made it into the recording chain at the point of origin that corresponds to the frequency range in question.

    Of course, there are notes created synthetically, which could be pitched with harmonics that challenge even the Everest's ceiling of 50kHz. I'm in the fortunate position that this is not of concern to me, since 99,9% of my listening is to acoustic music. But if you're into Electronica you might want to scale the heights of dog whistle musical joy with abandon.

    For what it's worth, I consider the supertweeter fad to be just that.
     

  • 09-22-2007 8:01 AM In reply to

    • Puncher
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    A fair, well balanced summary (I may have been slightly more cynical)!

    If this is true why can't we hear untrasonic emiitters (~40kHz) or at least their modifying effect on the "normal" audio spectrum. As Soundproof has pointed out, this would also be a fairly recent phenomena as, until audio could be generated electronically, there would have been no way to capture it and commit it to tape/vinyl/CD (none of which were typically capable of reproducing it anyway).

    Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.

  • 09-22-2007 9:04 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    So much I wanne say, but I keep my mouth shut.
  • 09-22-2007 1:40 PM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Oh my! Why would anyone even listen to Bose? They have the worst stuff ever. Way overpriced and just plain ripping off the public. Bose boast about their technical innovations but they are nothing more than simple physics. B&O excels in terms of being fateful to the input signal in almost all of their speakers, Bose is infamous for the lower midrange suckout and roll of of high frequencies but you don't see B&O tell everyone about the technology and convincing you that they provide a better value than the competitors. Besides everyone, including the untrained, can tell the difference in sound quality and picture quality, they might not know which is better but they sure can tell the difference. 
  • 09-22-2007 2:28 PM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    As wonderfulelectric points out, Bose plays with the frequencies.


    Nothing "wrong" in that, unless you place importance in achieving a transparent playback that reveals the source as intended.

    I was in a high-end store a while back, a couple were buying a flatscreen and were considering what speakers to get with it. The sales person was demonstrating a proper set of speakers, with a processor. I was overhearing the exchange, as the husband stated that they had been thinking about Bose.

    The sales person stiffened - "Bose is rubbish."

    "No it's not, how can you say that? Bose is a great brand." They left with their flatscreen, and will be enjoying the manipulated mid-range of Bose for the rest of that screen's days, I guess. 

    That said, kudos to Bose for building a strong brand. It's OK for regular listening, but not something you'd use if you really want to savour what's in your music, in my opinion. Others may differ. 

  • 09-22-2007 10:06 PM In reply to

    • Dave
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Bose if just fine if you don't mind the sound of foam, paper and thin plastic. Bose is OK if your not aware of the massive mark up in the systems and the components in order for Bose to afford all of that advertising and bribery. Bose is fantastic for impressing your friends. It's a name most people respect, and most people are unaware that these products are manufactured with materials of very poor quality.

    I give credit to them however for designing good looking stuff. Their head units are really stylish imho and their other stuff including those clock radios, have compact and refined aesthetics.

    No i don't think Alex made a typo... i read that the frequencies above 20000hz affect the frequencies we CAN hear (between 2000hz and 20000hz)

    “Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.”

    Your health and well-being comes first and fore-most.

     

     

  • 09-22-2007 10:31 PM In reply to

    • beoaus
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Some comments on Bose......I have owned a number of Bose system and still have the Wave radio.

    B&O is not for everyone.

    I still recommend listening to Bose systems to friends. Bose have multi room, good options for digital music, they are now better with surround sound, easy to use, they can generate great sound in a minimilist fashion at a good price point. In some ways they have also offered a refreshing alternative to large boxy systems...

    Just my thoughts...

    beoaus.

     

     

  • 09-23-2007 1:51 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    David:

    No i don't think Alex made a typo... i read that the frequencies above 20000hz affect the frequencies we CAN hear (between 2000hz and 20000hz)

    Yes, though the jury's out on how the harmonics in the ultrasound frequencies can affect our listening band, and I'm with Armand Bose here - "we're not dogs."

    Quite a few interesting claims are made about hi-fi innovations that bear closer examination. For instance, Kimber cable is now attempting to convince customers that there's a difference in the sound experienced through cables depending upon the COLOUR of the cable, and they recommend using a clear cable for the negative and a white cable for the positive connector.

    The claim that these ultrasound harmonics "massively affect" the sound we hear begs an explanation to exactly what they are the harmonics of, since no such ultrasound harmonics are being recorded.

    I was just as skeptical when first encountering the acoustic lens from B&O. But the thinking behind it was solid, and the sound was excellent -- so there's an innovation I'm more than comfortable with.

  • 09-23-2007 5:15 AM In reply to

    • Puncher
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    to be fair I'm not sure Bose claim an accurate reproduction - just that it sounds "nice" which, on first listen, it does. It's only when you listen critically or for extended periods you notice somethins amiss.

    Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.

  • 09-23-2007 5:24 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Puncher:
    to be fair I'm not sure Bose claim an accurate reproduction - just that it sounds "nice" which, on first listen, it does. It's only when you listen critically or for extended periods you notice somethins amiss.

    Puncher is right. Bose actually states they are skeptical of the high-end hi-fi claim that the frequency response should be as flat as possible, and that one must manipulate the "curve" in order to achieve the best sounding result.

  • 09-23-2007 7:30 AM In reply to

    • Alex
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Soundproof, you're forgetting the harmonics formed when two separate sounds from two microphones are combined, which reach way beyond 20 KHz if the audio in the individual channels reaches above 2 KHz. Otherwise both will not be reproduced faithfully...

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  • 09-23-2007 10:19 AM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    I’m guessing that the essence of this debate is actually defining the standard you set yourself as to what you can call ‘faithful’ reproduction. To explain, I remember back to my first set of loudspeakers – a pair of Ross amplified desk-top speakers. With my Discman, I thought they were great. My next set of loudspeakers were a pair of Beolab 6000’s and they just blew anything away I had heard before. Crisp, clean decent bass etc….

     

    These in-turn were blown away by the Beolab5’s and that is where the bar is now set.

     

    For those in the industry, i.e. those who can regularly listen to and audit high-end gear, and for those of us who are fortunate to own instruments like the BL5’s, we know that high-end gear really does sound a whole lot better than lesser products. Of course, this high-end gear is subjective like everything else and one could argue that a GBP10,000 loudspeaker set could sound better than a GBP20,000 set. However, either are likely to sound very good indeed as the threshold of what does sound good generally passed by several thousand pounds before.

     

    Where some of this hi-end gear does get questionable is when manufactures manufacturer their own unique selling point for the sake of selling rather than true innovation in the product. i.e. 50khz super-tweeters argument below.

     

    For the majority of us, we make a number of basic rises in the world of hi-fi. We usually buy the best we can afford whenever we upgrade. We buy on the basis of sound, hearsay, style/looks, value for money or a combination of all and usually our next pair of loudspeakers sounds better than the previous. In my case, I bypassed the Bose product stage after the Ross and when straight to the Beolab 6000 stage. Simple as that.

     

    10%

  • 09-23-2007 2:40 PM In reply to

    • Jandyt
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    soundproof:
    David:
     

     For instance, Kimber cable is now attempting to convince customers that there's a difference in the sound experienced through cables depending upon the COLOUR of the cable, and they recommend using a clear cable for the negative and a white cable for the positive connector.

    Surprise Gosh! I've heard it all now!

    Andy T.

    Poor me, never win owt!

  • 09-23-2007 3:08 PM In reply to

    • Alex
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Almost as stupid as that guy who was selling special rocks which when placed in the right shape around your amplifier, reduced the resistance on all internal components. Unsure

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  • 09-23-2007 4:21 PM In reply to

    • Puncher
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Alex:

    Soundproof, you're forgetting the harmonics formed when two separate sounds from two microphones are combined, which reach way beyond 20 KHz if the audio in the individual channels reaches above 2 KHz. Otherwise both will not be reproduced faithfully...

    ExplainHuh?

    Generally speaking, you aren't learning much if your lips are moving.

  • 09-23-2007 5:17 PM In reply to

    • Alex
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    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Okay, imagine you have two sawtooth waves (for those of you who don't know, a waveform which looks like a saw), and you combine them together, and move one very slightly out of line with the other. What you end up with is two very sudden peaks INCREDIBLY close to each other, and as a result, a short burst of incredibly high frequency. Now, if a speaker cannot reproduce that frequency correctly, the harmonic formed by those two close-by waves will be destroyed and the waveforms will lose their definition as two seperate waveforms, and begin to form into a single, poorly defined waveform. You aren't losing any direct information above 20 KHz, because you can't hear that high. However, you are losing information which affects lower frequencies as well.

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  • 09-23-2007 6:05 PM In reply to

    Re: The Futurist: Why You Should Buy Middle-End Products

    Does not compute.

    Here's one expression of the sawtooth harmonics. In digital synthesis, they are summed over k with respect to the Nyquist frequency, which means that for CD reproduction you would have to obey the limitation of half the sampling frequency of 44.1kHz, thus not allowing for anything above 22050Hz. Which means that even with electronica as source, as long as your medium of distribution is a CD, you wouldn't be able to produce any sensible "ultraharmonics" such as the ones you are claiming.

    I seriously doubt whether it matters how many discrete sources you are "juxtaposing" in the manner you describe, there's a ceiling you can't burst through which is dictated by the medium of dissemination.
    When we  get  music  at  significantly higher sampling rates as standard, then we may be able to create ultrasound content -- though I'm still wondering why we would desire to do so. (Yes, I know I'm flying in the face of a lot of hi-fi supertweeter theory here, but I really do think a sampling of skepticism is justified. If I ever see someone telling me that a new video format is preferable because it contains ultraviolet information that is essential to true colour perception, then I know that I'm going to have to put on sunscreen and sunglasses when watching TV, but my eyes aren't able to "see" the added info. Same with ultrasound and our hearing barrier).

    But I'm more than willing to be informed otherwise as it's always fun to learn something new.
     

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