AUDIO ANECDOTE of the A.K.A. Why MIT nerds are such complete idiots Today's Episode: Crank, Charlatan and Dilettante (a Famous Design Firm) First, a glossary: char-la-tan n [It., lit. inhabitant of Cerreto] 1: QUACK <~s killing their patients with empirical knowledge> 2: one making usu. noisy or showy pretenses to knowledge or ability : FRAUD, FAKER crank n [ME cranke] ... (2) c: an eccentric person; also: one that is overly enthusiastic about a particular subject or activity d: a bad tempered person: GROUCH dil-et-tante n [It. fr. prp. of dilettare to delight] ... 2: a person having superficial interest in art or a branch of knowledge During my public involvement (do I really mean to say penance?) in the consumer audio field, I came across more than m share of self appointed experts; people who knew more than anybody. They usually got that way by one of two routes: first, they knew more than anybody simply because of their own estimation of the tremendous bulk of knowledge they had acquired (actually made up themselves), or second, even if they didn't know much of anything, everybody else was simply too stupid to keep up with them. Our store was located for a time between Harvard Square and MIT in Camdridge, MA. For those not familiar with the area, Bostonians consider their town to be the hub of the universe, an arguably parochial view at best. The crazies, the obnoxious and the professionally wierd consider the territory we unwittingly occupied to be the hub of their universe, unfortunately. Saturday was show and tell day. This is when all the freshman EE's from MIT came in waving their Maxwell's equations and bandying their calculators about like so many highly-polished sponge-rubber sabers. They came in droves to show us how much they knew and tell us how stupid we were. There were many other stores in the area, but, given that we had established ourselves as the most knowledgeable audio store around, we were especially vulnerable to, as it turns out, these kamikaze attacks. Let me present to you a typical conversation that might have happened. Let me further embellish the tale by showing you how we would respond and how a salesman at another, less expert store might respond. Note that I see a valid case for both approaches: Our approach: "May I help you?" Other approach: "May I help you?" MIT student: "Those speakers can't possibly work the way you claim them they do!" Our approach: "Well, are you contemplating purchasing a pair, or some alternative?" Other approach: "Well, are you contemplating purchasing a pair, or some alternative?" MIT student: "Look, I go to MIT, and I know so much more than you do, it's ridiculous" Our approach: "Well, if you have some information you would like to share with us, and someone has a moment, OK." Other approach: "Get out of here before I call the police!" MIT Student: "Yeah, that's just typical for some stupid salesman to say something like that." It is important to note that at this point, no matter what was said to the guy, there seemed to always be a fixed set of responses. We could even sometimes say the guy's lines right along with him. I have always wondered if one of the EE fraternities brainwashed freshmen and sent them out on these hi-fi suicide missions. But, back to our movie: Our Approach: "Well, I don't recall making any claims to you about how those did or did not work. And, by the way, those aren't speakers, they're a pair of broken dehumidifiers, so maybe you might want to direct your attention to our showroom, where you might find something more interesting." Other Approach: "Where's the damn phone? I'm tired of these nuts!" MIT Student: "AHA! See, you've already proved my point!" Now, there are some mumblings while, in our store, the MIT student looks over our line of speakers like someone casually and indifferently chosing some lamb chops, while we flip a coin to see who is going to have to deal with this nerd. In the other store, the MIT student looks over their line of speakers like someone casually and indifferently chosing some lamb chops, while someone is trying to get 911 to answer and the others are flipping coins trying to decide who is going to have to throw this nerd out. Our Approach: "Is there something that you might like to listen to?" Other Approach: "Is there something that you might like to say before we finally boot your tail out?" MIT Student: "I want to listen to the frazemblat gegaugger 3's." Our Approach: "We don't carry those, try something else." Other Approach: "We don't carry those, go play in traffic." Now, the MIT student unleashes his most powerful weapon, fully expecting us to reel back in abject fear of being smitten by the audio gods: MIT Student: "I am taking an acoustics class with Dr. Amar Bose." Our Approach: "So what?" Other Approach: "So what?" MIT Student: "Well, he said ... blah blah ... and then when it comes to the low end ... blah blah ... and of course, anyone who is not a complete fool would realize that Maxwells equations for charges moving in a constant frobenser states that the conditions of zero source resistance at absolute zero then, but always ... blah blah ..." This goes on for some ten minutes, complete with seemingly uncontrolled hand-waving and scribbling of very cryptic equations on scrap sheets of papers that might have once been a set of class notes or behaviour rules for the halls or the cardboard back from a package of twinkies. After his little speech, our invader stands there exhausted, dripping in sweat, barely able to shape his face into the smug grin that is the hallmark of self-appointed audio experts everywhere. Now, it is our turn. Our Approach: "Well, what you've said is most interesting and entertaining however, I would like to point out a few small technical flaws in your assertions. Take for example the point where you were talking about the interaction of a second-order mechanical resonance and the reduction in radiation resistance below the point where the wavelength being produced is comparable to the diaphragm size. If your assertion there is true, then ...." At this point, it is so trivially easy to find some gross error in his little equations. Going through his same derivation, only making sure that you carry and borrow correctly: "... it seems that, by your own equations, that 1 equals 5. Now that seems to be just a might impossible to me. Does it seem a might impossible to you, too?" MIT Student: "Uh..." The Other Approach is structurally similar, differing only in details: Other Approach: "Well, what you've said is most interesting and entertaining, however I would like to point out that you have shit for brains. Did I just see a Cambridge Police cruiser?" MIT Student: "Uh..." This would happen every Saturday, rain or shine (it would seem, though, that the worse the weather, the more of these kind would show up). The other kind of self-appointed expert was often a professional of some sort or another, often in his 50's, and usually dripping in affluence. These encounters went something like: Our Approach: "May I help you?" Other Approach: "May I help you?" Lawyer-type: "I'm here to buy a system and let me tell you that I've been dabbling in hi-fi, even with two speakers, mind you, for well over (10, 25, 50, 12,000) years now!" Other Approach: "Well, I guess it takes some people a lot longer than others!" Our Approach: "Well, I guess it takes some people a lot longer than others!" The guy wants to buy something like a huge pile of Macintosh equipment or a BeoCenter, but invariably ends up buying the cheapest receiver, turntable and speakers possible, claiming, "It's really for my son who's studying engineering at MIT, you know." Damn, that MIT nerd has a family! I had several occasions to give talks before audio organizations such as the Boston Audio Society. In one lecture, way back in '74 or thereabouts, I and one of my partners gave a talk on the incompatability of otherwise high-quality components. This one one of the first times that this issue was addressed in the detail that we talked about. The talk had two basic areas: first, the interaction of phono cartridges, turntables and tone arms and second, the sometimes surprising interactions between electronic components. We were able to demonstrate that an otherwise fine high-compliance cartridge, when placed in an otherwise fine high-mass tone arm, led to absolutely dismal results. On the second topic, I was able to show that to otherwise reasonable components, a preamp and a power amp, together made for a very unstable combination. The preamp showed an otherwise normal 2nd order Butterworth rolloff at about 85 Khz, while the power amp showed similar characteristics, only at about 40 Khz. The combination showed all sorts of bizarre ripples in the response, along with the associated phase and group delay problems, and the whole mess was on the verge of breaking into uncontrolled oscillations. I made the remark, "It's almost as if we had somehow managed to synthesize a poorly aligned 4th order Chebychev filter, but...". Before I could say that this might be due to instability because of incompatible grounding, one Mark Davis (later of Davis-Brinton preamp fame) literally flew out of his seat, waving his hands uncontrollably, shouting, "There is no way in the universe that cascading two 2nd order Butterworth filters can produce a Chebychev response, because ... blah blah blah blah ... and any fool knows that ... blah blah ... and if you think that ... blah blah ... then you are, of course, stupid!" My partner leans over and whispers, "Ten bucks says he goes to MIT." After Mark was all done, sitting in his chair panting and sweating, barely able to wear the smug grin that is the hallmark of self-proclaimed audio experts everywhere, I said, "But Mark, I never said that. If you had been kind enough to let me finish, I was going to say that any fool knows that without something else going on, you can't get a 4th order Chebechev from two 2nd order Butterworth filters. I was going to say that there appeared to be a strange feedback loop going through the isolated grounds of the preamp-power amp cables." Mark's response was, "Well, if you had said that, you would have been wrong." I said, "But I didn't say that." Mark replied, "Well, your damn lucky you didn't!" I felt like replying, "Get out of here before I call the police." ==================================================================== This is part of someone's list of the laws of acoustics. The 11th law has something for you: Eleventh Law: In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they are all merely transforms of one another. This combined with minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost. However, this all means jack shit when you listen to Pink Floyd.