Hugh Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Just been reading many posts and one common theme comes up time and time again, marketing departments discussing technical things. So I thought we should share our pet hates in marketing rubbish, and maybe finally track down the biggest piece of marketing department turd. If we make enough noise maybe they will realise that actually we find their bullshit patronising. So to kick off my first three (I have many more) 1. The gratuitous use of "state of the art" in the press description of every installation or re-fit, especially when someone has mail ordered the cheapest junk they could find and bodged it together without any skill or regard to electrical or structural safety. 2. The use of meaningless statistics. eg "frequency response 20hz to 20khz" and then leaving out the tolerance. Without stating the tolerances allowed in these measurement it becomes a nonsense, a tolerance of +- 3db is fantastic +- 30db is complete rubbish and will most likely sound awful. 3. The emphasis of power handling over efficiency. I have a 3kw electric fire it has a conductive coil, with an electric current flowing its lovely and quiet and very warm. its very efficient at producing and radiating heat and not efficient at radiating sound. the power handling of a speaker is quiet simply how large a current can you put through the coil before it melts, and bears very little relation to how much sound is produced. Right that is my rant over, lets try and keep brand names out of this. The idea is not to slag of equipment, but tell the marketing departments WE ARE NOT FOOLED BY MARKETING RUBBISH. We just want the facts and can then judge for ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 what? 1- it just means its got new tech in it, right? 2- granted, tolerances help. but when you're in the budget end of things, it's only really there to show you the extents. you just accept the frequency plot's going to be crap. pay a bit more money and you'll see real specs. 3- you need to know the power rating for your speakers so you know which amp to buy, right? as long as you also have an SPL figure, I don't see why this is a problem. again, in the budget end of things, just don't expect a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_Beech Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 1. Line Array 2. See 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cedd Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 The gratuitous use of "Pro" or "Professional" in the name of a piece of equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Generally the more times something's marketing mentions professional the less professional it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killyp Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Wattage ratings annoy me too. The original Woodstock was done on something like 10 of 500w McIntosh valve amps. I doubt our favourite budget brand make any systems with the same wattage rating which gets anywhere near the volume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmills Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 I take "Pro" as a warning when printed on a box (With a few exceptions). If it really was, it wouldn't need to say it, would it now. OFC copper, as in the asinine claim made by cable suppliers everywhere, pretty much all cable is! Yes, even the stuff I used to wire the shower! Silly "as used by" claims (this seems to be a particularly sound related disease), and product endorsements (which are blatantly paid) in general, I mean am I supposed to care that Mr X was told to use it on Y tour? This is particularly wonderful when the gear is obviously not something of a level that would get an outing on the level of gig that it is claiming. "No user serviceable parts inside", oh, REALLY? SPL, power rating and sensitivity figures that cannot be made to add up, if you claim say 102dB/W and 1,000W power handling, then the maximum cont. SPL had better be somewhere close to 132dB.... Yes I know about 1/2 space loading and power compression, but I have seen numbers **WAY** higher then the sums would indicate. Watts RMS - 'nuff said. You mean Watts (average), not RMS (which is not meaningful in this context). Regards, Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_Beech Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Wattage ratings annoy me too. The original Woodstock was done on something like 10 of 500w McIntosh valve amps. I doubt our favourite budget brand make any systems with the same wattage rating which gets anywhere near the volume. 2 points. These are amps, not speakers, we could hook them up to old low powered mega efficient speakers and get a loud sound. We could hook up a soundlab 500watt amp and get the same volume. If the ACTUAL output its 500watts, then you'll get the same volume. A different sound maybe, but the same volume. Secondly, how do we hear things? 10 500watt amps, 5,000 watts. Half as loud as 50,000 watts through the same boxes (not taking power handling and the fact they'll destroy themselves, heat, power compression etc into account). Not ACTUALLY half as loud, but we perceive it so. What if actually it was 10 amps per side? that's a mere 10,000watts. only half as loud as 100,000 watts. Boxes are typically less efficient nowadays, but sound better. And I'm talking about in the last 20-25 years against boxes older than that. So from the back end of the tms and the flood/flash era onwards. so say our boxes are 6dB less efficient then 100,000 watts is only theoretically 4dB louder than the 10,000watts back then. Noticeable but nothing to write home about, the increase in sound quality of course, is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killyp Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Oh certainly, but I was largely illustrating a point. People often say 'We've got a 2kw PA' which is all well and good, but I seriously doubt it'll produce as much volume as a good set of PA speakers with even a 'pathetic' 500 watt amp behind them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Those of us of a certain age remeber just how loud a pair of 4x12 columns driven by a Hiwatt 200 PA head was. 'Course, it sounded sh1t, but it could certainly be heard... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew C Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Any glowing review of any piece of kit in a trade mag; when on the next page you find a full page colour ad for the same kit. Bit of a f####### give-away there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dknoise Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 Any glowing review of any piece of kit in a trade mag; when on the next page you find a full page colour ad for the same kit. Bit of a f####### give-away there! Am with you there, you read the most appauling, subjective, foundation-less garbage in magazines, some manufacturers claims or marketing shpeel, or some sales reps that have read the marketing shpeel about the particular manufacturers fairy dust, but don't know the fundamentals of how it works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Siddons Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 In theatre and music we knowingly turn rubbish into magic everyday so why complain about marketing departments? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dknoise Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 In theatre and music we knowingly turn rubbish into magic everyday so why complain about marketing departments? :) Ha ha!!!! kudos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Posted January 22, 2009 Author Share Posted January 22, 2009 In theatre and music we knowingly turn rubbish into magic everyday so why complain about marketing departments? :P Fabulous I am laughing so much I cant think of anything else to rant about thank you for cheering me up. ;) Although we only expect them to buy it for about two hours. and they do willingly suspend there disbelief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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