Who the fuck is Sean Olive?

I don't understand Harman. Their target is nonsense. Nothing to do with audio science. 249 random university students gave their opinion. If you do normal poll then the margin of error is considered to be around +/-10%. So the curve and target is voodoo shit.

I sure don´t. I bought the Anker Soundore Motion + (three units, two for a stereo pair and one extra for the kids) and I would not have found that, other than through your recommendation. And I have bought the Anker Soundcore Q30 ANC because of you. And your ability to find items that aren´t nessecarily gold, but good solid copper and worth their price kept me with your channel and made me become a patreon, because I very much appreciate your honest reviews. Vifa speakers are like a Tesla for me. Nice to know, those are around but I still drive a VW Touran thats quite exactly as old as your own Touran. Thats my situation. I personally am absolutely not interested in higher class audio, because I just can´t afford it. I once had the opportunity to listen to Tidal on Cabasse Baltic 5 in my local Hifi-Enthusiast Studio. They blew me away even without the sub on. But: 7500,- for a stereo couple? Naaaa. I´m just hoping you are gonna find me a fine successor of the Motion +, when I need one of those next time!!! Thanks for your channel! Be safe.

Everyone has already a Charge 3 or some other “speaker” and I think the major part is satisfied, why should they buy the Charge 5 now? There is no innovation right now, no will to create something really outstanding like VIFA did, the Helsinki 2.0 was already planned with removable battery, dynamic sound adjustment etc. But the market was not ready for such a product. 99% are fine with the performance of a Xtreme 3, all love the Boombox 2... there won’t be any company which is willing to create something really better also because these speakers are already playing at their limit anyhow. JBL will release a Boombox 3 soon and the game will be the same over and over.... I am too old for this. I was still interested when most smaller speakers were sounding like crap back then just a few really stood out but now the market is flooded with either quite decent offerings like those from JBL and Sony or all that mediocre junk from all the smaller and unknown companies. There doesn’t seem to be much room for really audiophile type of portable speakers. B&O has some new release, Harman the Onyx Studio 7, but it’s still the same over and over. And the really innovating companies like Riva some years ago and VIFA etc are dead as they were not competitive. People didn’t value those qualities obviously. Just like most people defending those WH-1000XM4 crap despite sounding shit they are still great because of ANC and comfort... I want to listen to music, I want to get chills from it, get an emotion.... no product right now really gives me that. The Stockwell II did this, although far from perfect it had this own character and managed to sound really large. Charge 5? Who needs that?

Oluv'Sone

Ich erinnere mich an deine Antwort... :-) What do you mean by "dying"? There sure is a market for BT speakers in the future, don´t you think so? What would be replacing this these speakers?

As mentioned before, the Bluetooth speaker market is dying. Hardly any interesting releases and nothing really new. If there was a speaker that could really blow me away in some way you can be sure that I will present it anyhow. But all this average junk available if you type “Bluetooth speaker” on Amazon, not even worth being talked about.

Oluv'Sone

Don´t let yourself be involved into a fight. Keep up the good work! And: please don´t concentrate on Headphones too much. I´m here for BT speakers that are worht the money, not just a big Name.... Dankeschön!

My 2 cents worth …… Wait for some time (a week or two ?) before deciding whether (or not) to respond. I have found that following the wisdom implied in the aphorism 'act in haste, repent at leisure' has always served me well. Should you decide to respond (publicly), I recommend doing so in the same way as you would if Mr Olive's post had been lucid, intelligent, well thought-out (and reasonable) - regardless of whether it was or not ...... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdCkrHa-pfY As others have suggested, thank Mr Olive for his thoughts and just respond to the points where you have a differing opinion in a cool and dispassionate manner.

Like the above... We all know how much time you spend and take effort to tune properly. Sean Olive oil is a little greasy in his response... He and his followers didn´t convince me. They never did before either. Can´t say I enjoyed the Harman curve on every headphones I listened to.

Honestly I don't see much to get angry about. At the very core of he was trying to say he is not wrong. These methods are not perfect and they do introduce errors. And you are well aware of that too. Perfect methods just do not exist. True, he is being a bit of an asshole about it but he just knows nothing about you. He probably thinks you just plopped these headphones on a $2 mic, recorded it and called it a day. He doesn't know how much work you put into this and how meticulously you equalise and compare the actual sound of the device to your recording to make it as close as possible. He got sent a random youtube link on twitter and jumped to conclusions. It's not something to approve but also not something unexpected once you think for a sec how much garbage there is in the audio space on youtube. And that is exactly why I am here - because there is nothing else on the web (at least I haven't found it) that would be better, more useful and honestly even come close to being as valuable as your reviews, comparissons and recordings. So while in theory he might be right, in practice it just simply does not matter.

Sean Olive probably takes his work as seriously as epidemiologists take their work. In fairness, I had certainly heard of him and the Harman preference curve he pioneered. He is not just an enthusiast lobbing bombs. He lists his credentials on his FB page: Senior Research Fellow at Harman Technical Fellow at Harman International Industries Past President at Audio Engineering Society Former Director of Acoustic Research at Harman International Former President at Audio Engineering Society Former Research Scientist at National Research Council of Canada Studied Acoustics/Psychoacoustics at McGill University Studied Sound Recording, Music at McGill University Studied Music at University of Toronto Studied Masters in Sound Recording at McGill University He is someone that probably has spent millions of his employers’ dollars in research, so I would not discount him so handily.

He was attacking me in the first place not me him. Claiming I have no credibility and do harm talking about me as “this YouTube guy” It’s this total lack of respect which makes me mad, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered but it was also time for me to finally prove my recording method as many still think this is something trivial. As you obviously can comment on his posts I would really ask you to link my video as I am curious about his response.

Oluv'Sone

Just looking at some of his post...his ego could fill an auditorium.

My opinion: let it be. Naysayers, whether right or not, will always be there. People (us) will be more affected by how you respond more than the actual content that’s being argued over. I strongly recommend not making this video public. In fact, when you’ve bashed other people before, I’ve been very tempted to unfollow you forever. Don’t do it. The world needs more kindness and respect. Sean might know things you don’t. You might have experiences he hasn’t. If I’ve learned anything about audio it’s that while measurements are useful, there is so much more of the picture that we experience that we can’t measure. It’s not fair for him to immediately discount your efforts and it’s also not wise for you to retaliate. Be better than that. If there is something to learn from Sean, then you might as well and take your work to the next level. Hang in there, my friend. Don’t fuel the fire. Keep doing what you are doing. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t find validity in what you do. Audio professionals, researchers and test engineers will always find something wrong with setups and procedures that appear “non-professional”, or rather “not-paid-for-by-a-big-reputable-company-or-institution” and therefore you must be wrong. Doesn’t mean you are wrong, doesn’t mean they are wrong. In the end, it’s an argument over opinions and egos and the argument will never be won. It will only create deeper and deeper rifts. What might really catch him off guard is to thank Sean for his feedback and explain that you’ve benefitted from his research to bring you to this point. He might try to be more understanding of the way you do things. Who knows?

Lo dico in italiano Oluv. Riconosciamo il tuo grande lavoro e la tua onestà... Lascia perdere i commenti in internet a meno che tu non possa/voglia denunciarlo per un reato nei tuoi confronti. Lascia lascia perdere e vai avanti per la tua strada nella tua indipendenza.

Dont worry Oluv. I think most of us can allready see you are one of the few real honest skeptics in audio. Because of you i can listen to my music in its purest form. Still havent heard anything better then my etymotics for example in terms of realism.

Tony Wisman

Sonarworks has a different approach, they reference the sound to flat studio monitors in a treated studio environment while Harman target is in an average listening room and with average listeners adjusted to their taste and averaged.

Oluv'Sone

I actually use headphones Sean Olive designed, as he was the leader of the Harmon target group research project. These are the AKG K371, and what I've found is that they're the most accurate overall headphones I've ever used. Keep in mind I have not use Sennheiser HD600s, but i have used some headphones you like, including Beyerdynamic DT770Pro 250s, which have been replaced by these 371s. You should probably be aware that what Sonarworks actually does in its calibration...is follow the Harmon target curve, they've stated this before. So, inadvertently, you're actually praising Sean Olive's own work, and following his work, by your use of Sonarworks. That's not to say your videos aren't valid. They are. They're one man's opinion and attempts to capture what he hears in real life, which I find great and useful, and they're recommendation's I tend to follow. But my own ears do disagree with you at times. The impression I've gotten, which may not be valid so please correct me, is that you like a more fun sound than I do, particularly with a few gentle treble rises, for your own listening. But that's not my problem here. My problem is the seeming lack of research that you did as to who Sean Olive is, what he's done, and what you do in relation to his work. I don't think this is a battle you should've gotten into, simply because you benefit from his work every day. The Harmon target curve attempts to create headphones that sound accurate in a way a good pair of speakers sound, based on many different ears, not just his. In fact, I suspect he'd tell you that his own hearing didn't play an overly large part in the design. I wish he hadn't made the post htat started this, but I also wish you hadn't made this followup, which, while it does make a good point, does it in such a way that seems needlessly insulting to an industry expert whose work we all, including you, benefit from. Keep in mind, this is the first time in 5 and a half years that I've had a real problem with something you've done or said. That's a damn good track record, and I really do enjoy your work and want it to continue. I just felt like I had to say something, long though it be. Thank you for reading.

The fact is he has 330 'friends" on face book which I log into once every 10 years. Like today for example. Facebook is free. You have over 500 followers who are willing to pay for your recommendations. He is a glorified Samsung employee and Harmon car systems are mediocre at best. The system in my BMW M6 sucked, hi fi my ass. One more thing, you have chillin midnight cool "jimmy". Enough said.

There's definitely a lot of subjectivity when it comes to audio. As someone who works with signal conditioning, DSP, RF processing for satellites, I think the bottom line is it doesn't matter what theory you come up with if it is suboptimal in real life (because unlike simple problems, there's usually missed variables in complex problems) , the results speaks for themselves. I appreciate Oluv's critiques on the different products and I find your tuning to be just fine to my ears (I do have some musical background, stereotype Asian piano and violin training).

I'm with both Crispin Herrod-Taylor and james harrison. I've read his post and some of his comments and I think he just glossed over the video. He doesn't think you are worth really looking into. I think sean isn't worth talking about. We are audiophiles or at least people who care about sound. We are not target of his/harman research. His target are people who prefer jbl iem sound over etymotic. I know what sound I like and dont need his research. I hope his post wasn't the reason we didn't get anything new for the past few days from you. I need/want more of your videos with quality binaural sound!

Roman

I agree with Crispin. From a high vantage point it will be „YouTuber vs Industry Expert“, which is an tough battle to get into. But it will also be „talented artist vs theorist“, you can read about music all day long, but you never will acquire talent you don’t have. We know how much talent goes into your samples, because we all own some of your recommendations and they never misled us. So let the theorists try to do with papers and equipment what you simply can do with your ears, talent and many hours of perfectionism.

Fantastic facts with fun twist at the end. This is a very how i feel and its a joy to read this come correct statement. 👏

Simon Hibbert

Sean Olive unfortunately is a researcher at Harman/JBL and has authored quite a lot of papers at the AES (Audio Engineering Society, the pro audio guiding body) on audio quality, perception and measurement techniques. He is industry recognised as an expert. That's not to say that he is right, but challenging him directly is difficult when he has access to $1,000,000 plus worth of test gear and many years of verifiable experience. Sorry. I'd back off and leave him alone, learn what you have to and carry on with your own beliefs and followers.

Kritik muss man sich nun mal stellen auf solchen Kanälen ob man will oder nicht. But who cares.... Um es mal mit den Worten eines großen Schauspielers zu sagen der sagte: Ich sitze hier grad auf dem Klo und lese ihre letzte Kritik über mich, noch habe ich sie vor mir und bald habe ich sie hinter mir 😉😁

Fuck Sean Olive and his 330 Facebook followers. Fuckbook is for people who think Kanye West is a genius. This clown is a Canadian Harman fanboy. Seems to have studied at a lot of universities and I for one don't give a shit. I know what I like. I have so far made 4 purchases based on your recommendations and could not be happier. Not to mention excellent playlists. Using fancy words to explain you are employed by Harmon International doesn't impress me at all. Hey Sean next time, If we need your opinion, I will bitch slap you and give it to you on a plate.

This is amazingly interesting. Thanks for your work. This looks extremely time consuming.