Congrats to Dr. Sean Olive

[USER]

Well, it seems officially official now: https://news.harman.com/blog/celebr...r-sean-olive-retires-after-32-years-at-harman

I just wanted to make space here for us to thank Dr. @Sean Olive, think about his accomplishments, and offer him well wishes in his retirement. He has been most generous with the community here and his influence is immeasurable. I think Harman did a nice job summarizing his impact in the sphere of home audio, if too succinctly. Feel free to add to it here. We always tend to show appreciation once luminaries are gone but maybe we should take advantage of these milestones instead.

Sean, may your audio adventures continue and we will always look forward to reading your thoughts and commentary here.

 

[digitalfrost]

This means now he will have more time for us. Right?!

 

[andyc56]

So that's two heavy hitters from Harman retiring this year. The other is Todd Welti, who retired on March 14.

 

[Thomas Savage]

This means now he will have more time for us. Right?!

I hope for his sake that's a no ...

 

[Thomas Savage]

Sean is the ' Castelvetrano ' of Olives ..

May retirement bless him with all his earthly desires and beyond.

 

[amirm]

This means now he will have more time for us. Right?!

There is a guy who retired and is now doing equipment reviews. Wonder if we can make him do that!

 

[eddantes]

There is a guy who retired and is now doing equipment reviews. Wonder if we can make him do that!

But only sighted subjective reviews... :-D

 

[Somafunk]

I figure Sean will now direct his attention to the study of wine, the eternal search for that perfect bottle

 

[kemmler3D]

Congratulations to @Sean Olive and thanks for your contributions over the years. Today we can buy <$50 earphones that can be called "high fidelity" with a straight face, and I think that would have long remained a fantasy without your work.

You can also see the impact in the fact that there is a fairly large and active community around the world creating headphone EQ curves, and debating the merits of the Harman curve, and even trying to improve it. In SoundSource (Mac EQ app) they aggregate separate 23+ sources of EQ settings for headphones! Of course Audiophiles will complain about anything, but it's actually sort of remarkable that almost none of them seem to advocate for going back to no target and no measurements. Science that even capital-A Audiophiles can't ignore is rare indeed.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

It was Sean Olive who recruited a young grad named Charles Sprinkle -- who years later went on to co-found Kali Audio -- for Harman.

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Adams

Like his own mentor, Dr. Floyd Toole, Dr. Olive has indeed affected that small segment of "eternity" that is the "Audio Science" that we "Review" here -- IMO much for the better.

 

[JohnnyNG]

his influence is immeasurable.

Just a little ironic.

 

[RogerSmith]

All the best to him, headphone listening wouldn't be nearly as good without him as it is today .

 

[danadam]

his influence is immeasurable.

Just a little ironic.

Over 100 pages long thread and the answer was so simple

"Things that cannot be measured"

Something the subjectivist crowd often brings up. "There are things we cannot measure but the human ear/brain can hear it." We retort, an analyzer can hear much better than any human can. Which is the truth. But thinking about the question I did being to wonder... Could it be possible for there...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Travis]

He put up a profile on Linkedin and mentioned that he is now a Self-employed Audio Consultant. He posted on his Facebook page that he has already received offers and retirement looks short lived.

 

[Travis]

So that's two heavy hitters from Harman retiring this year. The other is Todd Welti, who retired on March 14.

I suspect, sort of reading between the lines on his Facebook posts, Harman was directing where they wanted research, and pulling dollars.

Their research team is gone with Todd’s retirement.

 

[JSmith]

Thank you @Sean Olive, all the best for whatever is next on your life journey.


JSmith

 

[Sean Olive]

Well, it seems officially official now: https://news.harman.com/blog/celebr...r-sean-olive-retires-after-32-years-at-harman

I just wanted to make space here for us to thank Dr. @Sean Olive, think about his accomplishments, and offer him well wishes in his retirement. He has been most generous with the community here and his influence is immeasurable. I think Harman did a nice job summarizing his impact in the sphere of home audio, if too succinctly. Feel free to add to it here. We always tend to show appreciation once luminaries are gone but maybe we should take advantage of these milestones instead.

Sean, may your audio adventures continue and we will always look forward to reading your thoughts and commentary here.

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[Sean Olive]

This means now he will have more time for us. Right?!

I always have time for ASR..

 

[Sean Olive]

Sean is the ' Gordal ' of Olives ..

May retirement bless him with all his earthly desires and beyond. Gordal olives are known for their large size, earning them the nickname "the fat one".

Not sure this is a compliment as intended.

• Gordal olives are known for their large size, earning them the nickname "the fat one".
  

 

[Sean Olive]

It was Sean Olive who recruited a young grad named Charles Sprinkle -- who years later went on to co-found Kali Audio -- for Harman.

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Adams

Like his own mentor, Dr. Floyd Toole, Dr. Olive has indeed affected that small segment of "eternity" that is the "Audio Science" that we "Review" here -- IMO much for the better.

Charles was quite a find. I met him at a Los Angeles AES meeting and his enthusiasm for audio and loudspeakers was apparent even though he had no formal engineering education = as his background and education were in business. I hired him as an intern and he earned a Mechanical Eng. degree while working at Harman and eventually went on to design great loudspeakers for Harman Consumer and Professional.

Over the years we hired many engineering students as interns and most of them found careers at Harman or went on to work at Apple, Google and other competitors. We became known in the industry as HARMAN University because we trained interns and young engineers. taught them the fundamentals of good audio science and engineering and they eventually graduated to careers at HARMAN or elsewhere.