I saw Gene’s comments about the ground plane versus 90 foot pole also. I was not going to comment on it but I really do believe that peoples’ questions here on our forum deserve a proper response. I was very disheartened to see this article from Gene but it does reinforce to me that we did make the right decision in distancing ourselves from Audioholics.

I did supply Gene with two reasons why we did not want to participate in the Audioholics sub-woofer shootout. In that e-mail I specifically said that ground plane measurements would not be a reason for us to decline participation; and were in fact a very acceptable measurement method for us. To quote directly from the e-mail I sent to Gene: “For clarity I also believe a ground plane is the best alternative to a true 4 pi environment. It is why it was selected by the CEA as the most reasonable compromise to 4pi. We were on the board at CEA that developed this subwoofer measuring standard and one of the goals in the development of the standard was to make reasonable compromises to accommodate manufactures that did not have a full compliment of proper test gear. The equipment and methods being used for the testing is in fact the least of our concerns and would not constitute a show stopper for our participation.”

The two main reasons were something I felt Gene would rather be kept private and their omission from his recent article seems to support that.

There is also of course the possibility that another manufacturer with a 90 foot measurement tower who pulled out of advertising on Audioholics in September was being referred to here. I will continue to hope that this is the case.

Ian Colquhoun
President & Chief Engineer