When a design engineer tackles a new product there are a myriad of options available to her.
Take for example a preamplifier. Here the designer must choose the type of amplification topology: single ended or balanced, differential input or single gain device, direct coupled or capacitor, solid state or vacuum tube or hybrid. And once chosen there's another bushel full of choices to be made, each resulting in a very different sound.
Or take the challenges presented to a loudspeaker designer. Number and types of drivers, open baffle, closed baffle, dipole, bipole, monopole.
Once the direction is chosen, there comes a divergence of workflow depending on whether the design engineer leans towards being a technocrat or an artist.
The technocrat worships the god of technology while the artist's muse leans more toward serving their emotional side.
An analytical approach versus one more centered around the emotional side.
Mr. Spock vs. Picasso.
Our own philosophies at PS Audio have always been centered somewhere closer to middle ground.
Norman Rockwell.
As a consumer, you'll want to decide which products on offer appeal more to your analytical or emotional side.
The fruits born of the labors of technocrats and artists sound very different indeed.
