Rupert’s Word: Sound Quality & Harmonic Distortion

How often have you eagerly opened a new software package, or even a new computer, and seen those inviting words: Getting Started? How often have you read the words of wisdom that follow? “Unwrap the floppy disks and make back-up copies. Place DISK #1 into drive A. Close the door and type A:lnstall” After a bit of experience you become an expert on this stuff and it all comes naturally. Next, you become an ‘Authority’ and tell your friends that software should be instinctive. “l never read the handbook, I don’t have time to mess about… Just hit it and go”. Your more impressionable friends think: “Wow, he really knows his stuff.” They will ask you diffidently to pop round for a coffee and “help sort out my computer.” Now the chips are down!

At an early stage I learned the golden rule of consultancy: “Never give advice you don’t know how to implement or are not prepared to carry out.” However, I have to admit that my type of ubiquitous background would probably not work today. At the start of my career, after World War II, technical training and University Degree courses in our field hardly existed. I learned how from generous older and wiser engineers, and became QBE (Qualified By Experience) and QBD (Qualified By Doing)!

Whereas it used to be okay to know a little about everything, now you have to home in on a subject, specialise and become the number one ‘Authority’. You have to learn more and more about less and less — you have to know a lot about a little.

Think for a moment about the famous inventors from the past. They were often starting from scratch. Every design depended for its success on imaginative improvisation. They had enormous vision — an overwhelming desire to give practical expression to an idea. I wonder if, today, we are shoe-horning our most brilliant brains into closed boxes with windowless walls; stifling their vision and imaginative energy. Specialisation is a ‘must’ and many inventions or development projects today are the result of co-operative effort and combined skills. But is it satisfying? Fulfilling? Well, of course it often is. But, if you could implement your own vision – what a thrill!

I shall never forget Bill, who, in the very early days of Neve, came to us initially as a ‘wireman’ to help cable up patch fields and consoles. He showed a lot of initiative so we asked him to organise the production of a complete small console (a PSM6). This entailed getting all the parts together, processing metalwork and woodwork, getting the modules made and wired and, of course, the console shell itself. He performed brilliantly, but when the console was finished we could not get it out of his hands — he was too busy stroking it and loving it. He said, “You see, Mr Neve, I’ve only worked on a production line before, stuffing part of a printed circuit – I didn’t even know what it was for. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything through from start to finish.” I might say that gave us a lot of pleasure too!

Bill’s satisfaction came from seeing a project through from beginning to end, understanding the steps along the way and knowing why things were done in a particular manner. No matter what area of audio you specialise in – recording, mixing, post-production, concert sound or whatever — a wider understanding of the foundations of sound quality and the measurements of sound equipment is worthwhile in helping us to fulfil our individual vision.

And so to getting started in this business of sound quality, I often think of the old-timers. In 1877 Lord Rayleigh said: “Directly or indirectly, all questions connected with this subject must come for decision to the ear, as the organ of hearing; and from it there can be no appeal. But we are not, therefore, to infer that all acoustical investigations are conducted with the unassisted ear. When once we have discovered the physical phenomena which constitute the foundation of sound, our explorations are in great measure transferred to another field lying within the dominion of the principles of Mechanics. Important laws are in this way arrived at, to which the sensations of the ear cannot but conform.” [1]

How did he know? What was his standard? What speakers or amplifiers did he use for his ‘acoustical investigations’ and ‘explorations’? Lord Rayleigh was clearly a man of vision, able to look forward to – and beyond – the sort of quality sound reproduction we enjoy today.

Sound quality — how do you ultimately define or assess it? With the ear? Yes, because regardless of facts and figures and enthusiastic salesmen, if you don’t like it then it’s not good enough. Facts and figures don’t tell the full story about the performance of high grade equipment. Humans are able to perceive minutely small quantities of distortion noise and ambience and reference it to a stored memory bank of experiential sound. There is no specification which can define all the parameters that go towards making a pleasurable musical experience – but that, surely, is what we aim for.