Meeting Topic: Jonathan Novick's "Lies, Damned Lies & Specifications"
Moderator Name: Jim Naron
Speaker Name: Jon Novick
Meeting Location: Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 1205 N. Fiesta Blvd Gilbert Az 85233
Jonathan Novick was the guest speaker at our meeting. Novick is a Director of
Sales at Audio Precision, Inc. He is the AES Vice President for Western US and Canada
and a past chairman of the LA section.
Jonathan explained his experiences and presented his project on specifications
for products."If it measures well but sounds bad your measuring the wrong thing!" was
an inspiration for Jonathan when deciding to pursue this research. He explained how
specs are important and the differences in power test standards. Many things come into
play when specs are being measured, you can send it to different places and get
different results with the same product. By definition, speculation is the art of fooling
people into believing what is presented is true. There are many ways manufactures get
away with presenting false specs. In the process of testing is where a great deal of false
specs are created. Environment, duration of the test, and what is being used to test the
equipment are just a few examples of things that can have a huge factor in the results of
testing.
During his presentation Jonathan did a listening test that everyone participated
in, where he presented distortion between a song and sine wave for everyone to hear
the differences. "Not all distortion sounds the same, graphs tell you more then specs,
measure where you listen, set spec limits below the audibility of the most annoying
distortion, test over entire operational bandwidth, and be mindful of analyzer
configuration" were some of the main points in his presentation.
He taught us the difference between 'clipping' distortion and 'crossover' distortion. The main problem is
"there are lots of people who have great ideas, but not many people will take the next
step." In conclusion he suggested to take a look at the graphs, get more education, and
ALWAYS question the relevancy of specs. He set out to make us all skeptics and he
succeed!
After his presentation he offered a Q&A and some of the other visitors took a tour
of CRAS. We had a very informative and successful turn out overall.
Written By: Jim Naron
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