Those of us who grew up as both audio and car audio super enthusiasts understood the technology which was available to us as well as the various products offered. We chose product lines based on how closely their product offering mirrored our goals. Octave, third-octave, parametric, quasi-parametric, Q, boost, cut, slope, bandwidth, gain, etc . . . all terminology we were absolutely fluent in. That empowered us to know which products to select and how to employ them to achieve the desired results when designing systems. In addition, many of us knew our craft so well that we had thousands of dollars in specialized tools to leverage the power these (analog) devices offered.

For nearly 15 years now the industry has offered all of the functionality (and more) in a single box. Manufacturers have gone out of their way to make it easy for technicians to achieve the desired results. Unfortunately, this is nearly a repeat of the Clifford autofax service launched in the early ’90s – the moment that was launched, technicians put down their Fluke 87s and went off what was printed on the sheet. Some of us predicted that.

Find me a technician with a copy of the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook and that shop has some hope with DSP. Otherwise, how does one sell a product with so much voodoo?