Greetings Everyone, This may be old news for Sursound readers and AES members, but I just learned today that Edward T. Dell, Jr. passed away in late February. I apologize if this is repetitive, but I don't recall any prior post regarding Mr. Dell's passing. For those who may not recognize his name, Ed Dell published several audio-related magazines, to include The Audio Amateur (TAA), Speaker Builder, and Glass Audio. At least one article on Ambisonics appeared in TAA. There's a nice write-up on Mr. Dell that can be viewed here:
http://audioamateur.com/from-the-editors-desk/edward-t-dell-jr-in-memoriam/ If you are unable to go to the link, I copied and posted the first paragraph: "Edward T. Dell, Jr.: In Memoriam February 12, 1923–February 25, 2013 Edward Dell, founder and former publisher of Audio Amateur Inc., died Monday, February 25, 2013, at the age of 90. Dell, a legendary audio guru, developed his taste for publishing and audio as a teenager. He became a veteran builder of audio hi-fi speakers and was a longtime full member of the Audio Engineering Society and the Boston chapter of the Acoustical Society of America. He published magazines and books on all areas of audio for more than 35 years." I had the fortunate pleasure of having a lengthy conversation with Mr. Dell. This was a number of years ago. Our conversation covered several topics: One topic that intrigued Mr. Dell was women in audio (or the lack of women in audio). According to Ed, around 99 percent of his subscribers (TAA, Speaker Builder, and Glass Audio magazine) were male. My take was that women were more sensible than men, and weren't about to spend hundreds of dollars on a power cord that will *make the difference between night and day* (unless you're an unsophisticated listener--and who wants that!!). This brings me to a second (and possibly precarious) topic on gender "bias". Studies have shown that women have, in general, better hearing than men. Occupational and recreation causes of hearing loss among men were traditionally more common for men, but this may not be the case now. Thresholds aside, I believe there's at least one study that shows women have better frequency-discrimination ability than men. Studies that I've been a part of (or helped design) almost always ensured an equal number of men and women so as to remove any gender bias. Of course, a t-test could be used if there was a reason to believe whether women had, for example, better localization ability than men. But something I have given more thought to is how we *feel* about the system that reproduces the music or a sound, and how technology effects the way we *feel* about the music itself. I have no doubt that some audiophiles are as *emotional* about their equipment as the music. Similarly, our feelings about the technology used to present sound stimuli in research studies could have an impact on a study's outcome. Men's proclivity toward equipment and technology (to include Ambisonics) might make us "poor" research subjects because we're listening for things that the system is *supposed* to do. Preconceptions and emotional *noise* affect an otherwise unbiased response (or opinion) based solely on the stimuli. But you know what? For many applications, I believe there's something to be said for research that measures how something makes us *feel* (bring in the Likert scales?). Do we feel a certain way about a musical composition because it's recorded with a SoundField mic versus a Shure SM57? Is there something about a speaker's look that makes us *feel* a certain way, and other parameters that we believe we're measuring objectively are actually skewed? Are women as *awed* (awe is definitely a feeling) by surround effects as men, or are they more in-tune with dialog? Does the success of surround sound depend on how we feel about the equipment, or how it makes us feel (probably not inseparable), or the emotions that it evokes in men and women alike? I was curious as to whether Mr. Dell ever came to a consensus as to why few women are interested in high-end audio. I looked up his name to 1) to say *hello* and 2) to thank him for the many years he devoted to audio. I was saddened to learn of his passing. But like Michael A. Gerzon, Edward T. Dell, Jr. will be remembered among the audio and hi-fi community as one of the audio gurus. Best, Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20130413/4263dc93/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
