Harman Science of Sound Demonstrations at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2011

October 14-16, I will be  giving Science of Sound presentations for the Harman Luxury Audio Group (room #8020)   at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF) in Denver, CO. My demonstration will be repeated every 1/2 hour on the hour and half-hour.

Drop by and find out more about the science behind Harman audio product development and testing including JBL and Revel loudspeakers. I will be demonstrating our latest release of the "How to Listen"  software used for training and selecting listeners for product research and testing. Find out how discriminating and reliable you are as a critical listener.

Attendees will be given 30% discount coupons towards a copy of Floyd Toole's book "Sound Reproduction" (Focal Press), a book that describes much of the current scientific knowledge and perception of  the sound quality of loudspeakers, listening rooms, and their acoustical interaction with each other.  I will be raffling off a few copies to the best performing listeners.

I hope to see you there!

Topics Related to Perception and Measurement of Reproduced Sound

On Tuesday, April 26th 2011, I will be giving a presentation at the meeting of the Los Angeles AES Chapter on several topics related to recent audio research at Harman International. The topics include:

• Preference in Quality of Reproduced Sound Among Generation Y
• Are There Cross-Cultural Preferences in Quality of Reproduced Sound?
• The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products
• Harman's How to Listen: A Software program for Training Listeners

I've briefly discussed these topics in Audio Musings over the past few months, and you can find summaries of them by clicking on the links above. I'll be giving an update on new findings, and briefly touch on topics not mentioned above. As a door prize, Harman will donate a free copy of Dr. Floyd Toole's book Sound Reproduction (shown on the right side bar) autographed by the author of the book.

AES members and nonmember guests are welcome to attend. The meeting will be held at the Sportmen's Lodge in Studio City. More details can be found at the Los Angeles AES website.

Version 2.04 of Harman How to Listen Now Available For Download!

Version 2.04 of Harman How to Listen is now available for download here.

This update fixes the problem with the noise and hum attribute tests. We've also updated the user's manual to help navigate around some installation issues some users have reported.

Version 2.03 of Harman How to Listen Now Available For Download!

You can download the latest update of Harman How to Listen  (version 2.03) here. This update fixes a bug in the Windows version that prompted listeners to locate program material that was not packaged with the installer. There is no significant change to the Mac version. Enjoy!

Harman's "How to Listen" Listener Training Software Now Available as Beta

Well, it's been some time coming, but the listener training software Harman How to Listen is finally available for free download here. This beta software is available in both Mac OSX and Windows versions.

We are pleased to offer the software packaged with four high quality music samples, courtesy of Bravura Records. The 24-bit music tracks are provided in both 96 kHz and 48 kHz formats in order to be compatible with older PC sound cards. We hope you try the software, and find that it improves you critical listening skills. This is a work in progress, and we expect to add more features and training tasks to this public version of the software over time. Enjoy!