One of the greatest joys of my job is when I get to audition a new design that is instantly better. Boom! Two notes into the music and I know it's better. By a landslide.
But, that pleasure is a rare treat. More often than not the norm is not quite as clear cut and exciting.
Often, differences are a better and worse scenario. I hear better definition and layering but at the expense of the midrange. Or, tonally it kills but the imaging is flat and two-dimensional.
Back to the drawing board.
Sometimes it isn't a better-here, worse-there scenario.
Sometimes, two competing designs are both great. When that happens the situation turns more into a battle of flavors. Both devices under test are exceptional performers in all respects. The flavor differences? Perhaps one is mellower, warmer—more like its covered in chocolate syrup—while the other is as sonically neutral and honest—true to the music—as anything I've ever heard.
Which flavor does one choose?
These are some of the wonderfully vexing problems those of us charged with deciding what launches and what does not.
Fun, exhilarating, but frightening all at the same time.
Which flavor will we go with?
