FAQ #2

Why don't you publish specifications?

Are we hiding something? No. Our steady-state specs are excellent. It is just that standard IHF specifications don't matter much. It is like evaluating meat only with a butcher scale in which 40 pounds of White Castles would be identical to 40 pounds of prime ribs.

Unfortunately there is no predictability between good IHF static specifications and good music. It takes a much more serious in depth mathematical and bench analysis to find links between good design and good sound, and there are no standards for providing this information to you. The best we can do is incorporate good design principals into our equipment and be confident that outstanding and thorough design will yield obviously musical audio reproduction.

We are suspicious too that simple IHF specifications are a means to make bad equipment look good. For example, in testing CD players, the standard calls for first attaching a 22 kHz low pass filter to the output - removing all out of band garbage before testing. Then the tests can report that the CD player has no out of band garbage! This is much like taking a sample of water from the river Ganges, filtering it, boiling it, and adding chlorine, and then sending it to the chemist to see if it is fit to drink. Sure, have some.

Read our Audio Basics editorial "Tire Testing Without A Pressure Gauge" for an in depth evaluation of our thinking about this process.

Remember, any $79 off-shore receiver you buy will have good specs, as will that injected molded 7 speaker surround sound system.

If however, there is some specification you really need to know for equipment compatibility reasons, simply ask us, we can provide the numbers if you need them.