This reminds me of a funny experience I had with a demonstration that Bose was doing in their stores for a while. This was to promote their system of very small speakers coupled with a sub-woofer, which seems to be their main home-theater product now. I just happened to be in a mall with a Bose store, and despite not being any kind of Bose fan, I decided to wander in and see what they had.
"You're just in time! We're about to start a demo!" They took me to a room with three full-size speakers in the front and two medium-size speakers in the back. Then they play some demo recordings on them, and probably a movie clip. Then they ask you how it sounded. You're supposed to say it sounded great, and then they reveal that the speakers are just big covers made of thin cloth that are concealing tiny Bose speakers, and the audience is amazed. Well, that's not how it worked for me. I heard right away that the mid-range was lacking severely, and when they asked my opinion, I said so. This is before I knew about the trick they were playing, and I told them these speakers sounded thin like what I would expect from small computer speakers. That took all of the wind right out of the poor guy's sails, but he made a best effort to revive the show, because this was his big moment to reveal their "revolutionary system". I felt a little bad when they pulled the covers off and I realized I'd ruined his demo, but they're the ones who asked for my opinion! The point here is, I agree that the general public has very low standards for audio quality and has not had the experience or guidance to know HOW to listen to music. They also generally haven't been exposed to quality audio equipment under proper listening circumstances. For most of the public, it seems that lots of high frequency and lots of low frequency is all it takes to impress them. Michael On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Spike & Mary Maiden Mueller <[email protected]> wrote: > This suddenly reminds me of how Thomas Edison used to do live concert hall > demonstrations of his Diamond Disc phonograph. A soprano would stand on the > stage singing with piano with the phonograph next to the performers. The > lights would go out. The audience would continue to hear the performance. > The lights would come back on and the performers had left the stage, leaving > the phonograph to 'perform' by itself. The wrappers of the Diamond Disc > records (the later electrically-recorded ones, interestingly enough) carried > the caption, "Comparison with the living artist reveals no difference." And > probably in those days most of the general public, to whom the phonograph was > still utterly novel, may have not developed the discrimination to hear the > difference. (This is, of course, assuming no chicanery was involved in > Edision's demonstrations; he was not above distorting facts and > sensationalizing things to try to get his way.) I am perfectly willing to > believe that the maj > ority of the public today can hear no difference between vinyl and CD, but > it also reminds me of a high school friend many years ago asking me, "What is > the instrument on this record?" I replied that it was probably a Steinway, > because that was what the majority of recording studios seemed to be using. > I received a look of utter incomprehension. He had simply wondered whether > it was a piano! > > Spike > > "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." > - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 > > "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." > - Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 > > "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered > as a means of communication." > - Western Union internal memo, 1876 > > "Nobody can hear a difference between a CD, vinyl, or live performance." > - William, 2010 > > > > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/mhrivnak%40hrivnak.org > _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
