About Us

Austin Sound Quality Services LLC was founded by John Harrington in 2004 and is located in Round Rock, Texas USA with a primary concentration of providing Sound Quality design, engineering and consulting services for the Information Technology and Consumer Electronics industries.

John is best known for introducing binaural technology and Sound Quality engineering to Dell, Inc. and to the IT and CE industries in S.E. Asia. He has extensive knowledge in binaural technology and expertise in Sound Quality engineering, measurement techniques and digital signal analysis coupled with a known ability to provide results and develop real world solutions for product Sound Quality. He has an excellent understanding of critical time to market delivery schedules as well as cost reduction concentration for IT products.

As the Lead Acoustical Engineer for 7 years at Dell, John’s primary responsibility was to develop Sound Quality engineering solutions for notebooks and associated peripheral products. His extended responsibilities included developing and implementing Sound Quality training/education, laboratory development/qualification for Dell’s OEM/ODM partners, Government Agencies, 3rd party labs and suppliers located in S.E. Asia.

John was the co-developer of an extensive Jury (Listening) based subjective development program at Dell that included the development of specific proprietary analysis metrics for PC Sound Quality. He was the author of the industry’s first known Sound Quality specification and corresponding test procedures for notebook products. This specification contained the necessary human perception elements in order to accurately measure the sounds from Dell products and predict the way users would perceive them. This enabled him to develop design solutions for products based on these predictions. John’s Sound Quality engineering solutions were extremely successful in reducing world wide noise complaints for Dell notebooks. These reductions, in noise complaints, provided a rapid return of phenomenal cost savings for Dell as well as higher brand satisfaction from the users of the products based on Sound Quality. He has written and co-written Sound Quality testing procedures and specifications, derived from jury testing data, for PDAs, desktops, workstations, hard drives, fans, AC adapters, Graphic cards and other peripheral devices for PCs and consumer products. John submitted 2 patent designs specifically for notebook Sound Quality during his time at Dell.

John’s additional responsibilities included serving as the Laboratory Technical Director for Dell’s NVLAP accredited acoustical laboratory that performs accredited testing in accordance with ISO 7779/ECMA 74 and reporting in accordance with ISO 9296. These test and report standards are required by multiple nations in different market sectors for notebook, desktop and server products.

Prior to Dell, John spent 4 years at Acoustic Systems, Inc., located in Austin, Texas, developing and qualifying noise control enclosures including hemi-anechoic chambers as well as providing testing services for outside clients in the IT and CE industries. During his tenure at Acoustic Systems John was promoted to Laboratory Technical Director of the NVLAP accredited laboratory. He served and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1993 along with serving honorably in the U.S. Naval Reserve until 2003.

John has traveled extensively throughout S.E. Asia and has an excellent understanding of Taiwanese culture and business practices. He possesses an elementary understanding of the spoken Mandarin language and is continuing to learn more.