pvision said:
emrr said:
He does seem to have a strong combination of real test equipment skills/usage and critical ears/opinions combined with decades of observation. Hard to fault.
In the last decade we've swung from a place where his clean approach was still king to a world where that is fully out of fashion. Fad du jour does not make him wrong.
I was thinking a similar thing but you've articulated it better than I could
How many people out there combine electronic skills with critical audio analysis on a professional basis? It's not a long list, I expect
Probably more than you think... I do not know any working audio product design engineers that did it as their full time job who didn't listen to their work product as part of their design process while some had less skills than others. Years ago my mixer design group used to be upstairs from the guitar amp design group and I recall one bass amp designer who was truly painful to listen to (even through the floor), for his ability to make even a decent bass amp sound bad. :
Luckily for all of us his tenure was cut short and his replacement, a good bass player, is still a friend today. Most of the senior amp design engineers were working musicians who routinely gigged in local bar bands. It was common to see prototype and pre-production gear in local clubs, and even at my occasional house party. 8) Peavey's industrial designer won best guitar player in Mississippi one or two years, back when he worked there and was a house party regular.
In my judgement good players can exercise and hear things in guitars and amps that us mere mortals can't.
When I was testing out my Stinger cap protected GFCI power drop, to make sure it didn't step on guitar/ amp tone, I had my old friend who designed the EVH 5150 while at Peavey, and now owns his own company making guitar effects pedals (AMPTWEAKER) to test it out. It passed his critical listening muster.
At Peavey we had one self-described golden ear, who worked in transducer engineering designing speakers and drivers. He was a pleasure to work with for me because he was a real engineer who could articulate what he thought he heard and pursue his goals using physics. We had many spirited discussions where we differed mainly by degree. He is a real engineer and has published one or more AES papers (on multi-tone IMD testing etc). I did several projects with him and all were well regarded for their sound quality.
Rupert Neve and George Massenburg spring to mind, though I don't know if Rupert was ever a recording engineer. Add Paul Buff, Bob Orban and Ray Dolby?
Nick Froome
Paul Buff (RIP) is the only one on your list I knew personally. Yes he had roots in and around studios, and when he moved to Nashville I suspect the strong studio business there was part of his motivation. Paul was one of the smartest guys I knew in the audio business, mainly because he left audio to make and sell strobe lights for photography. ;D ;D ;D
I didn't know Dolby or Orban personally, but their primary products involved dynamics processing involving psychoacoustics, and a great deal of subjective trade-off decisions. To enjoy significant success in such markets mean's their subjective judgements were embraced by the larger market.
Back in the 70/80's when I was actually designing subjective studio effects products, I spent my share of time in local studio control rooms listening and tweaking. Later as my products became more linear I found objective metrics useful and adequate, while you always listen to confirm that you measured the right stuff.
Designing a reference audio path by ear, is like driving you car with your eyes closed. 8)
JR
PS: I do not appreciate the audio as voodoo, or magic meme that many embrace. The physics is well understood at least by those skilled in the art. Unfortunately you don't have to be skilled in the art to sell audio products, just a good salesman. The thing I liked most about large scale sound reinforcement is that you can't BS a large audience into believing a crappy sound system sounds good, when it doesn't.
