- Joined
- Nov 6, 2018
- Messages
- 1,449
- Likes
- 4,817
The situation at Stereophile drives me nuts because I know many more qualified people who could write for the magazine and produce something that moves the hobby and the industry in salutary directions.
I am in complete agreement with everything you said except this because I believe "Stereophile" is essentially a dying brand that hasn't been able to evolve with its era. The circulation of similar magazines has collapsed since 2000 and what remains of their past glory rests on people like us who are, statistically, also on our way out. And that is even without addressing the issues of deep changes in listening habits for the vast majority of the people. Active web sites (such as this one, but also quite a few others on the subjective side) and "social influencers" such as darko have more impact.
Even sites such as audiophile style have a better chance to be influential for the next 10 or so years than Stereophile IMHO. What Hi-Fi, for all its fundamental problems and its dwindling circulation, is more in phase with the current market trends and much more alive on the web.
I can almost smell decaying paper every time I visit Stereophile's site, and that isn't helped by their rehash of 30 years old articles they push when they run out of content. It is as if the strategy was to milk their decaying readers until they are gone for good, even in that gloomy context, those are worth milking since disposable income usually increases with age.
That being said, they still have a couple of excellent contributors, yes.
(note: being on the wrong side of the decaying curve myself, it should be clear I am more lucid than derogatory here, I don't mean to offend anyone)