Rory Sutherland’s voice, measured

The read

Across two minutes and forty seconds of his TED talk, Rory Sutherland is silent for a grand total of under nine seconds. Nineteen tiny stops, none lasting even a second — the man does not idle. The payoff is measurable: no voice in the library so far carries better, with the biggest share of its energy in the range that cuts through a crowded room. So is the bill: the lowest warmth reading we’ve measured yet, and the roughest sound — a voice caught live at full tilt on a stage, not settled in a studio. Projection and delight, paid for in stillness.

Pitch contour · every voiced frame

Pitch & melody

Average pitch168Hz

above the zoneoptimal 100–150 Hz

Pitch variability4.8st

in the zoneoptimal 3–6.5 st

Pitch range12.7st

above the zoneoptimal 7–12 st

Pitch dynamism (PDQ)0.3

in the zoneoptimal 0.15–0.38

Pacing & pauses

Pause ratio5.38%

below the zoneoptimal 18–35 %

Average pause length0.45s

in the zoneoptimal 0.4–1 s

Syllable rate3.75syl/s

below the zoneoptimal 4–5.5 syl/s

Dynamics

Volume dynamics23.4dB

above the zoneoptimal 8–18 dB

Loudness variability7.01dB

in the zoneoptimal 3.5–8 dB

Voice quality

Voice clarity (HNR)6.56dB

below the zoneoptimal 12–30 dB

Pitch steadiness (jitter)2.57%

above the zoneoptimal 0–2.5 %

Volume steadiness (shimmer)14.1%

above the zoneoptimal 0–9 %

Vocal fry (creak)5.0%

in the zoneoptimal 0–8 %

Spectral balance

Presence band (2-4 kHz)12.3%

in the zoneoptimal 6–20 %

Chest band (0-500 Hz)31.7%

below the zoneoptimal 35–75 %

Spectral tilt (alpha ratio)-2.9dB

above the zoneoptimal -22–-8 dB

Energy by band

Low (0–500 Hz)31.7%Mid (0.5–2 kHz)52.5%Presence (2–4 kHz)12.3%Brilliance (4 kHz+)3.5%

The presence band (2–4 kHz, red) is what carries a voice to the back of a room.

Comparisons are based on Resonate's acoustic analysis of publicly available speeches. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.

Source

TED talk, 'Life lessons from an ad man', TEDGlobal 2009 (CC BY-NC-ND, archive.org tedtalks collection, uploaded by TED). 160 s continuous segment analysed (10:05–12:45).

Watch the TED talk (10:05–12:45) · archive.org

Recording caveat

Recorded live on a TED stage with scattered audience laughter, not in a studio — a live-talk recording like this can flatten loudness dynamics and interrupt pause detection compared with a clean solo take, so read the pacing and dynamics readings here as directionally accurate rather than lab-precise.

Method

analysis-service pipeline (app/analysis.py, app/benchmarks.py, app/qualities.py) run locally over the segments documented in docs/hero-sources.md. Acoustic metrics only — no transcription, so transcript-dependent metrics (wpm, fillers) are absent and the overall score weighs the acoustic set.

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Steal this

forward placement

The stand-out reading is carry: the share of his sound in the band that cuts through rooms and microphones is squarely optimal — the strongest in the library so far. That isn’t shouting. Projection is intention plus placement; shouting is what people do instead of projecting. To move your own voice forward, hum until you feel a distinct buzz at the lips — not in the throat — then slide straight from the hum into the sentence, keeping the sound exactly where the buzz was.

From the training library: Find the buzz

Same instrument · same scale

You’ve just read Sutherland’s voice. Now read your own.

Measure my voice

Free · about twenty seconds · no signup. The same six scores on the same scale — and the recording is deleted the moment it’s analysed.