Above: The brands and models of six popular headphones used in this study.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Robert Archer, a writer at CEPro magazine has written a nice article called " Harman Debunks Youthful Music Myths ." The article is based ...| seanolive.blogspot.com
Choosing program material for subjective evaluation of audio components is challenging because the acoustic characteristics and qualities of the recordings themselves can bias and influence the results [1], [2]. The programs must be sensitive to and reveal artefacts present in the devices under test, otherwise an invalid null result may occur (type II error). Ideally, the programs should be well recorded and not contain artefacts that may be inadvertently attributed to the headphone or loudsp...| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
In the spring 2022 edition of Acoustics Todaypublished today was published today you can find an article I wrote called, "The Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality - What Do Listeners Prefer?" | Audio Musings by Sean Olive
This past month, I was interviewed by Bruel & Kjaer's, "Waves Magazine" in their Expert Profile feature. For those people not familiar with Bruel & Kjaer located in Denmark they are one of the oldest (in operation since 1942) best known manufacturers of acoustic and vibration measurement equipment.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
The predicted sound quality of 61 different models of in-ear headphones (blue curve) versus their retail price (green bars).| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
"The problem is that the current standard audio specifications for headphones and loudspeakers are almost useless in terms of indicating how good or bad they sound." —Sean Olive| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Fig. 1 The Harman Headphone Virtualizer App allows listeners to make double-blind comparisons of different headphones through a high-quality replicator headphone. The app has two listening modes: a sighted mode (shown) and a blind mode (not shown) where listeners are not biased by non-auditory factors (brand, price, celebrity endorsement,etc). Clicking on the picture will show a larger version.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Recently Mark Glazer, Principal Engineer at Harman Luxury Audio and Revel Loudspeakers gave an invited lecture to University of Rochester Audio/Acoustic Engineering Students. The students are part of the graduate acoustic and music engineering program that is overseen by Professor Mark Bocko, Distinguished Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering. By exposing the students to the fascinating engineering and science of loudspeakers, it is hoped the students will consider a future caree...| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Most people would agree that headphone purchase decisions are heavily influenced by the brand and styling (size, weight, color, quality of materials). But what is considered stylish and fashionable by me is not shared by my 15-year old daughter (this week donning purple hair), and vice versa. In other words, the perceived visual aesthetic of the headphone is really in the the eyes and mind of the beholder, and this can vary with age, gender, culture, and other demographic catego...| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
At the recent 137th convention of the Audio Engineering Society we presented our latest research paper entitled, "The Influence of Listeners' Experience, Age and Culture on Headphone Sound Quality Preferences."| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
The 2014 Loudspeaker Industry Sourcebook came out this week. In it, you can find an article I wrote called "Perceiving and Measuring Headphone Sound Quality: Do Listeners Agree on What Makes a Headphone Sound Good?"| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Last October, I was in Toronto giving a presentation to the local AES section on the perception and measurement of headphones. After the talk, I sat down with Mike Raine from Professional Sound for an interview. Some of what we discussed is summarized in this article called Sound Advice.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
This past weekend, I attended the ALMA 2014 Winter Symposium in Las Vegas where I gave a talk entitled, "The Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality: Do Listeners Agree on What Makes a Headphone Sound Good?" The presentation gives a summary of some key findings of our headphone research conducted over the past 18 months. It also includes some unpublished preliminary findings from a current study on headphone preferences of trained and untrained listeners both young and old from ...| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Some of the Harman and competitor headphones that we've recently tested.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
To my surprise, this morning an audio friend tweeted a link to an article I recently wrote for our company's internal newsletter entitled, "The Science and Marketing of Sound Quality." My article can be found on a new Harman Innovation website launched today that features articles on current and future disruptive technology that will impact consumers' infotainment experiences. Check it out.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Todd Welti, Sean Olive and Elisabeth McMullin are shown above with their custom binaural mannequin, "Sidney" wearing a pair of AKG K1000's. No fit or leakage issues with these headphones.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
This past week I had an enjoyable time meeting well-known technology writer Robert Scoble who was visiting our Harman facilities in Northridge, CA along with his geek-in-command Sam Levine. As part of the tour, I showed them our Reference Listening Room and Multichannel Listening Lab where we do product research and double-blind evaluations of loudspeakers. We discussed the science and philosophy behind how we design and measure the sound quality of our products.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Geoffrey Morrison, an audio writer at CNET and Sound & Vision has posted a nice summary of my latest AES paper "Some New Evidence that Teenager and College Students May Prefer Accurate Sound Reproduction" presented at the recent 132nd AES Convention in Budapest, Hungary.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
October 14-16, I will be giving Science of Sound presentations for the Harman Luxury Audio Group (room #8020) at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) in Denver, CO. My demonstration will be repeated every 1/2 hour on the hour and half-hour.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
On Tuesday, April 26th 2011, I will be giving a presentation at the meeting of the Los Angeles AES Chapter on several topics related to recent audio research at Harman International. The topics include:| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Version 2.04 of Harman How to Listen is now available for download here.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
You can download the latest update of Harman How to Listen (version 2.03) here. This update fixes a bug in the Windows version that prompted listeners to locate program material that was not packaged with the installer. There is no significant change to the Mac version. Enjoy!| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Well, it's been some time coming, but the listener training software Harman How to Listen is finally available for free download here. This beta software is available in both Mac OSX and Windows versions.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive
Next month, I will be giving a one day course on How to Listen at the 2011 ALMA Winter Symposium in Las Vegas,held Jan. 4th and 5th, just prior to the CES show. The symposium will also feature other courses, workshops and paper sessions on loudspeaker and headphone design, testing and evaluation. You can register for my course and other events at the ALMA Symposium here. Below is a brief preface for my course How to Listen, which I encourage you to attend.| Audio Musings by Sean Olive