Field Trip to Harman!

It's a week full of field trips for my Trends in Modern Sound Design class! We did Sony Games on Monday, and today we drove up to Northridge to check out the Harman/JBL facility. Our call time at the plant was 8.30, and because they had to drive all the way through LA, the students left plenty of time for traffic. Of course, because they did that, traffic was light, and they got to Northridge with plenty of time to spare. So, we found a diner:

Matt, Patricia, Beth, Josh, and Stephen (Jeff couldn't make it and Kyle was ill)

When we got to Harman, Dr. Sean Olive took us around. Dr. Olive designs all of the listening and testing facilities and tests that Harman uses to measure subjective response to the products. Here he is showing Matt and Josh one of the test cars that Harman uses to evaluate automotive sound systems:

How many bodies can you fit in here?

After the tour, Dr. Olive sat us down for a few tests. The first was to see how well we connected 'good' sound to 'lossless' sound. It was a double-blind test to see whether we could identify mp3 or pcm audio (we all did well, thankyouverymuch).

The second test was much more subjective, and it involved evaluating loudspeakers in a double-blind listening environment. Both experiments were interesting, and we're glad that we could provide additional information to Dr. Olive and his research.

Another great field trip! Next week: back to the classroom!

Speaker Shootout

We were very fortunate to have Scott Esterson (the Western Sales Manager for Genelec) bring down a set of Genelec 8250 and 8240 monitors for a demo. He was also very kind to let us do a critical listening shootout against our existing arsenal of near-fields.

The 8250s are tricked out! They come with self-analysis software and a measurement mic. Their system is much like like the JBL one but much better implemented and offering multiple bands of EQ.

How do they sound, you ask? Well... they have the classic Genelec sound profile - very pleasing top-end, really wide soundstage, and a clean low-mid range. Very nice monitors. The subwoofer offers some serious LF extension and couples about as well as I have ever heard (their control software phase-aligns the LF as well).

Who won the shootout? Lets just say that if I put that much DSP on the HD-1s that they would sound similar. Out of the box - and flat - well... that's not really fair for me to say! Go to your local dealer and listen for yourself ;)

Scott is a super nice guy, very generous with his time and truly believes in the product. Many thanks!