iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

And some nights he stops more pucks than their best goal keeper.

Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

There is a free Listen Inc seminar on automotive audio measurements on. November 19 in Cupertino. I will be giving a presentation on the Evolution of Automotive Audio Sound Quality Evaluation as well. You can register using the link below. www.eventbrite.com/e/practical-...

eventbrite.com

Practical Automotive Audio Measurements Seminar

An engaging and informative day of practical automotive measurements and training with special guest Dr. Sean Olive

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

A birthday present I received last evening. The first open-back gaming headphone by HyperX. All the benefits of an open-back headphone but this one has bass

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

That’s what I see too. This guy plays hard and we could use him in the playoffs and in front of the net. He’s like a scoring version of Josh Anderson

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Our CanJam SoCal listening tests led me to write this article on LinkedIn where I explore how to select a good listener for listening panels. Self-reported expertise is useful but actually measuring it is even better, www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-m...

linkedin.com

What Makes a Good Listening Panelist?

An article about how to train and select listeners for listening panels based on eGauge that measures reliability, discrimination in rating sound quality.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Our listening test app automatically calculates the discrimination and reliability of listeners in rating stimuli according to e-gauge (ITU spec). It tells us that 6 of our listeners (shown red) fall below acceptable thresholds. tech.ebu.ch/docs/techrep...

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

We ran 14 listeners through our listening test at CanJam and expect 10 more today. This subject I grabbed at the Starbucks shop downstairs at 7:30 am.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

We just ran our first subject for the Hear3D spatial rendering test at CanJam SocCal. There are still 3 opening left today if you want to participate. signup.com/go/LUDsfFQ

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

The listening test runs on a web browser so we could open it up to people all over the world via invitation. We are virtualizing the headphones so you would need the same model of replicator headphone

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Completed the listening test app to conduct our blind listening tests at the @canjamsky.bsky.social next weekend. You can participate in these tests by signing up here: signup.com/go/LUDsfFQ

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

If you want to be part of our next research study join us at CanJam Socal by signing up here: signup.com/go/LUDsfFQ

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

We just launched the website today for our new startup venture in spatial audio called Hear3D. 6 of 7 the Founders are former Harman audio research scientists and engineers with decades of experience in scientific research and audio product development. You can learn more @ www.hear3D.com

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The @JBL Endurance Run has always been a decent wired in-ear headphone for $19. I just ordered 3 pairs Endurance Run 3 and measured one sample and compared to Run 2. Both measured on the GRAS45-CA10 with the IE target curve plotted for comparison.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Todd Welti and I will be at CanJam Socal next weekend and are looking for volunteers who can provide valuable feedback on different spatial renderings for headphones. If you can help there is a signup sheet below.Thank you. Hope to see you there. signup.com/go/LUDsfFQ

signup.com

Listening Test On Spatial Rendering

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Or rather adaptive filter. It gives strange results when you use a 2 second log sweep.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

No Huawei Freebuds 7i. It was the active filter doing this. I remeasured using noise in FFT mode and got a different results.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Five reseats of a TWS in a GRAS-45-CA10 measured with an AP x517. I don't think I've seen such poor repeatability in a TWS in some time. Something isn't quite right.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Resolving head is a headphone measurement made on @resolvereviews.bsky.social ‘s head

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

She was apparently very sincere and believed in what she heard.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

There was an audio reviewer in the 1980s from TAS named Enid Lumley who advocated evaluating audio equipment naked as she believed clothing caused electrostatic forces and absorption that colored the sound. We can be thankful that this was before YouTube was invented.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Of course, whether these measured deviations from a personal target matter based on in-ear measurements remains an open question. It needs further research based on controlled studies. So I urge caution in coming to conclusions until we have such evidence.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

1-5% is not a huge differences in preference rating within the margin of error in measuring preference. These peaks and dips are very high Q and we know are difficult to detect with music. This example is from Toole and Olive Resonance Detection study (1988).

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

These are the predicted scores based on deviations from their personal targets. You can see that for Resolve and Golden Ear the deviations from their personal target would only reduce the preference score less than 1% and 5% with the biggest drop from Listener (13% drop)

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

If you apply the SD and slope to the predictive model (Olive et al, 2018) you can predict the preference scores from an ideal target. Strictly speaking this model was based on the Harman Target not a personal target but for the sake of illustration let's go with it.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I calculated deviations from the target from 50 Hz to 10kHz and plotted the error curves and the absolute slope for a regression line that best fits the error. Shown here

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

These curves have been normalized to their personal DF HRTFS. A perfect match would be a flat line for each reviewer but presumably a 1 dB/octave downward tilt for the DF HRTFS is a good approximation of what would sound good. Therefore, a regression line shown is a good approximation.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

This Youtube video argues that differences in opinion in headphones SQ can be traced in part to how the headphone interacts with their ears and changes the sound. Here is a trace of the HD 600 measured on three reviewers's ears youtu.be/xtyri3F5Yis?...

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

You have to wonder how trustworthy the reviewers are when headphones like this get glowing praise and awards. At the very least they should measure it and be cautionary that this headphone won’t please most people based on its sound profile.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This headphone had the widest distribution of preference ratings among the 32 headphones tested. It had significantly less bass and a big peak at 2 kHz and only pleases a small segment who like little bass and apparently coloration. It’s a polarizing headphone in terms of sound quality

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This is the same plot with the three curves normalized to mid-band level. I think it more clearly shows the delta in bass preference among the people who like more and less bass.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

For reference the data shown above is from these two papers:

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

What facilitated this analysis was the use of AI --and I would never attempted doing this without it. For inquiring minds AI is more of a curse than savior in terms of giving you more free time.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

In the last 2 days I have re-analyzed 6 papers we published from 2013-2025. This shows the distribution of preferred headphone curves in the 3 preference segments discussed in the 2019 paper based on the deviations from the Harman AE Target Curve (2018) -- the so-called error curve.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I would also say that the majority of people who follow me on Facebook don't dispute the 10 s memory limitation. The ones that do confuse short tern with long term memory or think musician can overcome this limitation and better suited to test amplifiers. But the evidence suggests otherwise.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

True -- not all audiophiles are the same. I should have said "some" audiophiles - instead of "many".. Some are very well-grounded and make sound decisions based on evidence. I've met both types. I'm glad you are among those and teaching them about perception

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Ideally reviewers would A/B two products using immediate comparisons - not relying on a long term memory of what one sounded like. And audiophiles should run not walk to the next demo at AXPONA before they forget how the previous product sounded :)

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The limitations of this 10 s gap is codified in ITU standards for listening tests that require switching between sounds to be within a few milliseconds and use shorter 10-30 s loops to facilitate more discrimination. Single stimulus evaluations don't meet this requirement and most reviews are such

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

This 10 s limitation applies to short term echoic memory Beyond 10 s we process a semantic feature set about the sound that can be later recalled &t explains why we can recognize a voice or car engine months later. But the detail and ability to discriminate small differences between sounds is lost

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Congratulations to Dan Clark for winning best Mid-Price Headphone at the CanJam Landon show. This headphone keeps coming up in my Google Feed because it mentions I helped with the research behind it. www.ecoustics.com/articles/bes...

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Thar said I attended a recent seminar and love the latest version.

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I’m still on version 18. The cost to update to the current version would be prohibitive. So I guess i an am outlier. :)

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Below is the title and abstract of a talk I will be giving at the upcoming SoCal CanJam show. canjamglobal.com/shows/socal2...?

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

That’s not a modern Ford Lincoln tuned by Beats but a JBL premium sound system 40 years ago. Bass has suffered from inflation like everything and that may be a good thing

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Well this data is probably a better source. Maybe I will give a talk on a new analysis of this data at CanJam SoCal? I’m curious what the range of curves and boundaries are for different demographics ( gender, age, country etc).

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The 2013 paper where method of adjustment was done with speakers and headphones with a small number of subjects?

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Sean Olive @seanolive.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

How does this compare to your preference bounds? Are they based on Q2 to Q3 ?

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