One aspect to having principals is, you know, following the law
Post #49 seems to indicate he was a former employee of Harman, though. A thumb drive before hitting the exit interview is all that's needed to reproduce it.
He claimed himself a former senior acoustic engineer of JBL Professional. I know this person is good at simulation. He gave out “Lectures” about simulations as well.
Read the fine patent linked above and make your judgement. To me it looks like a fine example of much that's wrong with the patent system - it covers a broad range of possible shapes without disclosing detail as to how to pick the beneficial ones from the poor ones, pretty much exactly counter to the original intent of a patent. The claims may or may not be valid as the examiner gets very limited time and scope to reject, but you'll need >$1M to take it to court to find out. Meanwhile we don't have enough info on the details of the profile to say whether it's a direct copy of the JBL or not. Given how broad the patent claims are there's a good chance it's covered, but the same probably applies to most if not all shapes ATH4 produces.
Such topics are not review specific so please let's move on. Last thing we need is folks thinking the review is because we have some bias toward such companies.
Serious question: Do you still plan to do the tear-down? Given what we have seen from the outside re: the woofer, it might be a stone better left unturned if we want to not continue down this avenue as you say.
Thank you for bringing his comment and translation here. His defense though doesn't make sense to me. He talks about calibration, reliability, etc. yet all we have from him is an in-room measurement of some sample with zero detail, let alone calibration data. My standard answer to any challenge of my measurements is simple: bring your measurements showing different data. Words don't mean anything. Any company can complain and try to create doubt with words. Data is what we need and if the manufacturer believes in audio science, then he should have already have that. Indeed, if he had published such data, this review would not have occurred.
I don't mind discussions related to IP of the drivers, etc. after we have it. It is the broader discussion of the country and its policies that I prefer to not see.
I would say in the future since this is bound to come up again when we see overseas manufacturer's products that might bear resemblances to their contemporary counterparts we may want to add a short blurb in the preamble to the review stating that to some effect its strictly to discuss the objective performance irrespective of any other qualities. This is not to be flippant, but invariably such discussions will end up going down this road due to someone needing justification for why something was said, or personal experiences, etc. and probably better to cross that bridge sooner rather than later collectively so we all agree
What the guy (鬼斧神工119) wrote didn't make sense. He said his AP and GRAS are calibrated annually. AP and GRAS make electronics and mics. Annual calibration for them is mostly formalities to satisfy contractual (i.e. legal) requirements, such as to maintain your ISO9000 certification. High quality measurement mics don't drift much unless you drop them onto the floor.
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Since it potentially makes others to want to purchase these products, some have validly stated if we even should be reviewing these products here at ASR? I would say yes, but I at the time, and now, I think we need to state at the outset that such reviews are strictly for the purposes of objective evaluation of performance, and should not be used for anything beyond that. I too agree that steering business towards such companies is indeed very bad form, and bad for the industry as a whole due to the poor practices it encourages.
Yeah I noticed that, too. Almost like they are not actually gated or something. There should be more separation than what is seen, there.[Edit] What are these graphs anyway? Are they showing FR at different angles? Were the 0, 15, 30, 45 degs curves all align on top of each other until after 15 kHz
