jeffluckett wrote:
This reminds me of when Bose sued Consumer Reports when they first
introduced thier reflecting speaker technology a while back.
CR had done thier testing in an anechoic chamber, and as a result
reviewed the speakers very poorly. (Now, say what you will about
Bose, I know they're not very popular with the Audiophile crowd..)
Bose sued CR because the testing conditions weren't valid ... you
can't test a speaker that RELIES on reflections in an anechoic
chamber.
I don't remember the outcome of the suit, but this does prove one
point. If the test conditions aren't appropriate, all the fancy
measurements you can make don't mean diddly.
The Bose 901 speakers were fairly well received when they came out, 1970
or so.
They had a huge downside for the times: they used active EQ to change
the normal uneven response of their array of small speaker drivers into
something close to flat. It ate huge amounts of power, and most amps of
the time didn't have the power to spare. A lesser problem was that the
EQ made the phase be very weird. But they sounded good for the times and
good for their price.
It is not clear if the current Bose brand has any corporate connection
with the one of 1970. A fair number of the old names are owned by
totally unrelated companies.
To that same end, it's pretty easy to set up a test that makes your
mod or whatever look better by carefully crafting the testing
conditions.
That is bad science. You have to define the hypothesis first, then test,
then confirm or disclaim it.
BTW: Engineering is not research. The job of an engineer is not to make
the perfect amp/speaker/cdplayer... it is to make the best component
that can sell for price X. The definition of "best" is usually not the
engineer's job.
--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html
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