Metric Halo SpectraFoo Version 1.5 - Manual (Page 39)

Epilogue
Welcome to the end of the tour. By this point, you should have a good understanding of the basic features and capa-
bilities of SpectraFoo. More Application Notes are coming soon (check the website for applications updates
http://www.mhlabs.com). It should be clear by now that SpectraFoo was designed with a strong musical bias. It has
profound implications for creative work in such diverse areas as Mastering, Recording and Mixing, Audio/Video
Post-production, Music Synthesis Research, Sound Design, Musical Instrument Design, Loudspeaker Testing, and
Ethnomusicology, among others.
Although SpectraFoo was designed for the professional engineer, it is also an excellent educational tool. By giving
students quantitative feedback that is synchronized with what they hear, SpectraFoo helps to accelerate the develop-
ment of critical listening skills. Using SpectraFoo, it is possible to make measurements of subtle sonic effects while
you are experiencing them. This quickly leads to a deep understanding of how to achieve a sound and how to fix
problems when they occur.
While we have touched on a number of possible applications, we expect that you will think of many others. In fact,
like the makers of any good tool, we expect to be amazed and astounded by some of the things that you accomplish
with SpectraFoo.
In its current implementation, SpectraFoo is not intended to be a replacement for specialized audio component test
equipment such as Audio-Precision. However, using SpectraFoo in conjunction with such equipment will increase
the scope of the analysis which can be performed on audio systems. SpectraFoo can be used to to make dynamic
electrical engineering measurements which are difficult or impossible to make with other analyzers due to their
inherent speed limitations. An example of such a measurement is: Measuring the distortion characteristics introduced
by the manipulation of dynamic analog circuit elements such as potentiometers or by the manipulation of the para-
meters of a DSP algorithm (eg. moving a fader on a digital console).
SpectraFoo’s greatest strength lies in its ability to provide quantitative measurements which can be synchronously
referenced against the subjective experience. This is the “Foo factor”. It is a widely held belief in audio circles that
good specs and performance “on the bench” do not necessarily guarantee exceptional sound quality. It is our belief
that this discrepancy is due, in large part, to the dynamical behavior of electronic systems. Until now it has been
impossible to test systems with signals that properly stimulate this dynamical behavior. The heretofore available test
equipment simply was not fast enough to analyze and display measurements that provide any meaningful informa-
tion about the dynamical behavior of audio devices in the presence of real musical signals. SpectraFoo provides the
technology that makes dynamical testing possible.
We hope that you will get as much enjoyment and insight from working with SpectraFoo as we have gotten from
developing it.
Developer’s Note: Please feel free to stress SpectraFoo as much as possible. Our primary design objectives have been
to create a system that is not only extremely fast and easy to use, but also stable and robust. We believe that software
should not surprise you, shouldn’t break, and should never, ever crash the computer it is running on. If you encounter
any stability problems with SpectraFoo, please contact us immediately.
SpectraFooTDM Operation Guide 38