Sound and Vision Magazine

When we think about how electronics products are developed, we might imagine huge teams of faceless engineers, executives embroiled in endless discussions in elaborate conference rooms, and an almost Kafkaesque process that no one person really understands or controls.

It’s only natural, in the wake of any random act of extreme violence, to look for an explanation: What caused this to happen? What can we do to prevent it from happening again?

While it’s fair to ask these questions, the frustrating truth is that most of the time, we’ll never know.

Not knowing, sadly, is not an acceptable answer. Instead, “the other” is blamed. When it comes to politicians and lobbyists, this “other” is anything the younger generations are into, that they themselves aren’t. Thirty years ago it was rap and heavy metal. Thirty before that, it was rock and roll.

Today, the common scapegoat is video games, and blaming them is just as specious.

When testing headphones with multiple listeners—our standard practice at S+V—I've learned that perceptions of a headphone's tonal balance can differ among listeners. Of course, individual taste in sound varies, too.

One solution to this problem is a headphone that can be tuned to the user's taste, a feature we've encountered on in-ear monitors from AKG and Phonak. Both have interchangeable filters that can alter the headphone's tonal balance. But the former costs $1,299, and the latter uses extremely tiny filters that require a special tool to change.

A new company named Torque Audio has what looks like a more practical approach.