Klipsch's Law and Corollaries

[Chris A]

I certainly don't subscribe to Kansei, but all you need to do is go to a big audiophile show to see how much the visual and tactile aspects dominate people's perceptions.

 

If these companies are doing stuff like Apple did with the iPhone and iPod, then they're doing Kansei, whether they call it that or not.

 

The word itself describes the activities associated with designing the affective customer needs into the product, except that now it's planned, properly funded, the time and activities explicity allocated and coordinated with market research efforts, and the results documented for engineering analysis and trades.  In the past, this activity was typically too haphazard and inadequately performed to make a real difference in the product. In those cases the total product design is at the mercy of the chief engineer's ego, and my experiences with that approach (substituting chief engineer opinions for customer opinions) have been categorically poor.

 

I think that Steve Jobs bypassed all his chief engineers' egos and substituted a more totalitarian organizational approach to customer satisfaction using Kansei techniques, i.e., his own opinions ultimately substituted for customers opinions.  That's why Apple's product lines are slowly falling apart: he's no longer here and the organizational Kansei processes were probably not well institutionalized to go on without him personally. 

 

As the Zen Master said..."we'll see..."

 

Chris

Edited March 6, 2016 by Chris A

[Chris A]

double-blind is not required by someone without bias.

Where do I find these?

 

The best way to compare speakers would be to actually record their output in an idea acoustic space - and then playback through a good in-ear system where you can compare against the original source material too.

Headphones have severe psychoacoustic limitations and artifacts that most people fail to acknowledge. 

 

I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't design loudspeakers that way.  JMTC.

 

Chris

[Chris A]

The double benefit here is we can make those recordings available for analysis in our own homes. I'm surprised Klipsch hasn't attempted something like this for their speaker lineup - they even have a great anechoic chamber with a true 1/8 space corner to do this in. 

 

You do recognize that you're proposing to degrade the original recordings by playing them back through loudspeakers in a room and re-recording them.  Capital Records has done this since the 1960s.  The results haven't been what I'd call hi-fi.  "Wall of sound" echoes using the basement caverns underneath the Capital building in LA haven't turned out to be my favorites.

 

But I think i understand what you're saying.  It's a bit of a leap, however: you're assuming that the customers have good headphones and are willing to use them to buy loudspeakers...without actually hearing them in their own rooms (which is what they're doing right now).  Some customers might, some won't.  It's an interesting idea.

 

Chris

[DrWho]

If these companies are doing stuff like Apple did with the iPhone and iPod, then they're doing Kansei, whether they call it that or not.

Speaking in categorical terms does not bring about further understanding of what is being discussed here (or with any subject for that matter), nor does using buzz words indicate an intricate understanding of the subject.

 

People go about analyzing all sorts of stuff - like applying mathematics to Bach, or defining "best practices", etc... The people actually engaging in the creation process aren't following guidelines derived from others analyzing what they do. Talking about these things in these categorical ways totally misses what the creative people are actually doing. And if that is to be the extent of the conversation, then there is very little to be gained by having it.

 

Kansei is not the reason that technical driven approaches are bad design philosophy. It's because nobody wants technical performance only. Nobody wants to commute to work in a Formula 1 car - no matter how hardcore of an automotive purist they are. It's also a bad business strategy too. I think it very rare that a good design isn't marketable - almost by definition actually. Kansei is just a red herring concept that I've no interest in discussing.

Edited March 7, 2016 by DrWho

[DrWho]

You do recognize that you're proposing to degrade the original recordings by playing them back through loudspeakers in a room and re-recording them. 

 

 

Why would I care about that when conducting comparative analysis?

 

Btw, the stuff form Capital Records is not what I'm proposing here.

[Chris A]

The Bose Wave radio was designed using Kansei and other closely related techniques.  I'd call that creative and successful, especially at the selling price that they've commanded over an extended product period that it's enjoyed.  We have one of these in our master bedroom--it's worked flawlessly and is one of the most intuitive and useful devices of its type that I've ever encountered.  Even the sound quality for such a small and low powered unit is fairly spectacular.

 

If you need more information on how these and other closely related processes work, PM me.  I think we're drifting from the OP's main focus presently.

 

Chris

Edited March 7, 2016 by Chris A

[DrWho]

The folks who complain that horns are "too harsh" are talking about the source materials.  I prefer to speak of them as "mercilessly transparent."  In short, they ensure that shite sounds like shite and Shinola shines.

 

Most horns are harsh Dave....audiophiles in denial like to blame the source material. The Khorn uses harsh/honky horns.

 

Yes, there is source material that is not as affected by the harshness/honkiness, and you happen to enjoy a lot of that source material. However, to make a blanket claim that all source material needs the negative (as in opposite) of the horn coloration encoded onto it is just narrow-minded at best.

 

The K402 is a huge step into a less colored direction. And you know what? A lot more source material that was once unlistenable on the Khorn is suddenly quite enjoyable.

 

 

My biggest critique of worshiping PWK and his religious "corollaries" is that audiophiles use it for purposes of justification rather than understanding.

[Chris A]

No worship going on, just credit where it's due.  The guy in retrospect turns out to be a giant...it seems to me.  He helped a LOT of people find really good sound.  I also can understand his views, it seems.  Much of what he said is still applicable--basically unchanged (like Beranek, Olson, Beers & Belar, Snow, etc.  There seems to be many others in the business and related business areas that I have a lot more trouble understanding their views and their designs/inventions.  PWK put his designs out there for people to see, and they're still around.  I can respect that. Most of his contemporaries didn't measure up to that standard. 

 

PWK had a really good understanding of how to run a company from an engineering perspective and to design reliability into his customer loudspeakers that have withstood the test of time. 

 

I find that most music that sounds bad on K-400s/K-55s also doesn't sound very good on a K-402 with a good 2" compression driver.  I don't wish to justify blaming the source music when it's not to blame.  However, I've found that the percentage of the time that it's the music source that's at fault is in the high 90% range.  Many times simply remastering the tracks will solve many issues, although the are also many times when the fidelity of the source tracks had been compromised too much to restore to a listenable state.

 

Chris

Edited March 9, 2016 by Chris A