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Audiophile Fakery

I recently became aware of a trend in the auto world and I'm wondering if there is an audiophile analogy.

The sound of a revving engine says something primal to those who know and appreciate such sounds. The rumble of a V-8, the whine of an in-line four, that 12 cylinder growl and of course, the Harley heavy metal thunder. The newer, smaller and more efficient engines simply don't make these sounds and the auto makers have found a way around what they perceive as a problem. They simply fake the sound and run it through the car's audio system. Sometimes the engine sound is digitally synthesized and other times it's actual engine noise run through mechanical or DSP processors and then amplified. The list of manufacturers that engage in this sort of fakery includes BMW, Ford, Lexus, Volkswagen and Lotus.

I don't know if there are any high end audio equivalents of this practice, but could there be?

How about a preamp with half a dozen tubes prominently displayed, but when you examine the signal path the tubes are all bypassed. Or maybe a loudspeaker with a ribbon supertweeter that's not connected. A 160 lb. mono power amp with 120 lbs. of lead shot concealed under the circuit board. If these products existed would they be fakes or are the manufacturers just giving the people what they want, or at least what they think they want?
onhwy61

Showing 4 responses by tom32

tom32
33 posts
 

At one company I worked at the marketing department did a study of consumer preferences to things like color, style, etc. One of the things they tested for was weight. They found by putting an iron slug at the bottom of the box, people judged it to be "higher quality".

We thought that was funny, but the company never acted on that marketing info. The thing to be careful of is that if you plan on having your company continue to exist for a long time, don't be caught doing cheap and sleazy things for short term gains.

I designed an Sony interface for one company, and after I did the higher end 8 channel product, they came out with two product versions from it. The lower end product was the same electronics, but the other four channels were not wired to the panel. It was half price. I don't think anybody got cheater by that. It was a marketing decision, and they decided they need to cover the high and low end, and it was cheaper to do it with only one production board.

I've designed a lot of stuff, and never have I been asked to do anything that I thought was shady in the electrical design. Shady stuff normally comes from the marketing department, it's their job, not mine.
tom32
33 posts
 
"How about the very simple, and I guess generally accepted, frequency contouring of speakers? "

The geometry of the speaker box is very important to the sound quality and projection. I'm no expert in this area, but I have experimented with speakers in boxes and small changes make big differences. It's pretty complex, because sound waves bouncing off the backplane combine with the fundamental wave and you get cancellation and addition of the waves. At different frequencies you get different summation patterns of the waves, so there is always phase problems/effects with the box resonance and reflected waves.

To see what I mean, go to a web site that allows you to play with a simulated "wave tank".
tom32
33 posts
 

As long as the manufacturer is honest that the tube is just for visual aesthetics and is not really functional, I don't see a problem with putting some illuminated tubes on display. Some people want their equipment to look cool. The advertising should boldly say whether the tube is part of the amp.
tom32
33 posts
 
"Tom32 I didn't mean to imply that frequency contouring was easy to do"

Yes, Tom32 wasn't real clear about his point, but to clarify... =-}

Speaker design is very tricky, and goes beyond standard engineering and science and into the world of the black arts. =-} Some weird features of speakers might have some type of real function. It is hard to say, the field of wave interactions is so complex. A speaker box is more than just a container for the speaker, it is an important part of the design for projecting the sound waves. A complex area...
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