Dr. Sean Olive on the Harman Target and Its Myriad Alternatives

This week, host Jorden Guth is joined once again by Dr. Sean Olive, senior fellow at Harman International, to dive deeper into the development of the Harman target curve for headphones, the reason why so many alternative target headphone curves have cropped up in recent years, and what it all means for music fans. 

Sources:

“Sound Researcher Dr. Sean Olive” on the SoundStage! Audiophile Podcast: https://www.soundstage.life/e/sound-researcher-dr-sean-olive-tonmeister-nrc-harman-and-floyd-toole-target-curves/

“Dr. Sean Olive on 35 Years of ‘Fast Car’” by Dennis Burger: https://www.soundstageaccess.com/index.php/feature-articles/1259-dr-sean-olive-on-35-years-of-fast-car

Seong-Jin Cho: https://seongjin-cho.com/

Chapters:

00:00:00 Announcement

00:00:30 Introductions

00:02:09 A deeper dive into the origins of the Harman target curve

00:18:26 Music Break: “Rush Hour” by Peter John

00:19:24 Everybody and his brother has a target headphone curve

00:38:02 Outro: “Piano Concerto (Ravel)” by Ohad Ben-Ari