Michael Fremer Leaving Stereophile?

[restorer-john]

HiFi has always been full of characters and Mr Fremer is a great character. He adds interest, debate, stirs up passion and anger along with inspiring many people to get back into records/vinyl.

I think his dogged support of vinyl is wonderful and has no doubt helped drag many of the previously disinterested companies back to producing world class turntables. Look at Panasonic for example. They previously produced the biggest and by far the best range of turntables and cartridges through the 1980s. Eventually killed the venerable SL-1200, only to bring it back, better and with some TOTL products as well.

Vinyl and turntables are back, never again in the same mainstream level they once were, but vinyl is the cornerstone of the entire high fidelity industry as we now know it. There never would have been the impetus for digital without the flaws of vinyl. But that said, good vinyl has something digital simply doesn't have. It pulls you in and makes you want to play the whole album, and another.

I wish him all the best.

 

[Jmudrick]

HiFi has always been full of characters and Mr Fremer is a great character. He adds interest, debate, stirs up passion and anger along with inspiring many people to get back into records/vinyl.

I think his dogged support of vinyl is wonderful and has no doubt helped drag many of the previously disinterested companies back to producing world class turntables. Look at Panasonic for example. They previously produced the biggest and by far the best range of turntables and cartridges through the 1980s. Eventually killed the venerable SL-1200, only to bring it back, better and with some TOTL products as well.

Vinyl and turntables are back, never again in the same mainstream level they once were, but vinyl is the cornerstone of the entire high fidelity industry as we now know it. There never would have been the impetus for digital without the flaws of vinyl. But that said, good vinyl has something digital simply doesn't have. It pulls you in and makes you want to play the whole album, and another.

I wish him all the best.

I concur. And IMHO lambasting a vinyl advocate for being an extravagant subjectivist strikes me as silly.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

... good vinyl has something digital simply doesn't have. It pulls you in and makes you want to play the whole album, and another.

Odd. I almost always listen to whole albums. Via digital. Maybe it's a jazz thing.

 

[thegeton]

lambasting a vinyl advocate for being an extravagant subjectivist strikes me as silly.

But as a guilty pleasure, it's so FUN!

 

[Jmudrick]

But as a guilty pleasure, it's so FUN!

Watch the CAPS.

 

[thegeton]

Watch the CAPS.

That was for effect. You think I don't know the ASR guideline on CAPS?

 

[Jmudrick]

That was for effect. You think I don't know the ASR guideline on CAPS?

That fancy ones don't matter?

 

[Vacceo]

HiFi has always been full of characters and Mr Fremer is a great character. He adds interest, debate, stirs up passion and anger along with inspiring many people to get back into records/vinyl.

I think his dogged support of vinyl is wonderful and has no doubt helped drag many of the previously disinterested companies back to producing world class turntables. Look at Panasonic for example. They previously produced the biggest and by far the best range of turntables and cartridges through the 1980s. Eventually killed the venerable SL-1200, only to bring it back, better and with some TOTL products as well.

Vinyl and turntables are back, never again in the same mainstream level they once were, but vinyl is the cornerstone of the entire high fidelity industry as we now know it. There never would have been the impetus for digital without the flaws of vinyl. But that said, good vinyl has something digital simply doesn't have. It pulls you in and makes you want to play the whole album, and another.

I wish him all the best.

Yeah, Venom sounds extra crunchy on vinyl and the added distortion suits them great.

About the pull, that is due to music. Diana Krall sucks on any format.

 

[tmtomh]

Fremer has, as @restorer-john says, helped keep the hi-fi industry afloat and focused on, well, hi-fi. I don't agree with John's claim that vinyl has an emotional "special sauce" - of course it does for some folks, but it very much does not for others (myself included). But IMHO you can't dispute John's basic point here.

I also think it's silly and counterproductive to make unsubstantiated claims about people being basically bribed, paid off, or in cahoots in a conspiracy of corruption. This same silly, unnecessary kind of ad hominem attack was/is all over the AudiophileStyle mega-thread on MQA, where legitimate (and IMHO important) criticisms of MQA are mixed with all kinds of indiscriminate accusations of shilling and corruption. (I say "indiscriminate" because some of these accusations are supportable, but most aren't, and even a broken clock is right twice a day.)

Yes he got himself banned. He was a grade A A** in all of his posts.

But with all of the above said, Blumlein's comment sums it up - in fact, in my opinion you can remove the "in all of his posts" part and it's still basically true. In my perception and personal opinion, Fremer (or his public persona, at any rate) often acts like an obnoxious jackass who feeds off the reactions he generates and doesn't really care whether those reactions are positive or negative. It seems to me that his brand is being an a***ole.

Finally, I'd really like to echo part of @phoenixdogfan 's comment earlier in the thread: I'm always struck by the cramped, acoustically appalling listening spaces Fremer and some other of these guys seem to have (I've seen similar kinds of spaces in videos from folks like Herb Reichert and other audiophile reviewers if memory serves). I'm not a snob about listening rooms, but for nearly 20 years I had a quite small, somewhat irregularly shaped listening space with built-in bookcases - not nearly as cluttered as these guys' spaces, but overall a similar type of deal. Then three years ago I was fortunate enough to move into a new home where I have a significantly larger listening room with double drywall, some acoustic panels on the ceilings and at the first-reflection points on the walls, a more uniform overall shape, and other rooms in the house where I can keep some of the non-audio stuff I was previously forced to have in my old listening room.

It has been an eye-opening - or I should say ear-opening - experience to re-listen to all my music, hearing things I never heard before, and - perhaps most importantly for the point I'm trying to make here - hearing major differences between different pressings and masterings that I simply couldn't detect in my old space. In particular, my ability to discern differences in perceived soundstage width and depth between different masterings was very limited in my smaller space compared to now, and I would hypothesize that that's just a limitation baked in to most small, untreated listening spaces, regardless of how expensive or how "resolving" the gear is.

So my view is that these guys bang on incessantly about emotion and involvement in the music not because they're shilling for the manufacturers, but rather because when you don't have a proper listening space in which to evaluate sonics, all you're left with is how you felt while you were listening. The Emperor has no clothes - it doesn't really matter to me if that's because he's corrupt, or because he's an arrogant dilettante.

 

[BDWoody]

Yes he got himself banned. He was a grade A A** in all of his posts.

He actually wasn't banned, none of his posts were deleted, and he is still a member. When I say member, I mean of the forum, of course.

 

[Chrispy]

Fremer the fraud. Hopefully Stereophile will do something better. Can't believe he got to testify as an audio expert in a court.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

He actually wasn't banned, none of his posts were deleted, and he is still (officially) a member. When I say member, I mean of the forum, of course.

I think he's a "member" in more ways than one.

 

[amirm]

Vinyl and turntables are back, never again in the same mainstream level they once were, but vinyl is the cornerstone of the entire high fidelity industry as we now know it. There never would have been the impetus for digital without the flaws of vinyl. But that said, good vinyl has something digital simply doesn't have. It pulls you in and makes you want to play the whole album, and another.

Has the opposite effect on me. As soon as there is a pop or tick, it completely takes me out of the experience. Ditto for grove noise and distortions that it has. I also can't possibly tolerate the physical media with its storage requirement, care, putting it in, taking it out, etc.

The only real advantage of LP is when its mastering is better than digital. And for that, I prefer tape. For the rest, I have access to 20 million albums in digital where 99% of it will never come on Vinyl. So if you love broad set of music as I do, vinyl would so limiting to me.

 

[amirm]

Just to be clear, Fremer also jumped in the last high-end forum I co-founded which was full of subjectivists. He cursed the same way and disappeared the same way.

 

[Alexanderc]

I agree. One of the most memorable times I had listening to music was when Michael was spinning vinyl and playing needle drops in the Von Schweikert room at the 2019 Florida Audio Expo. He spins a good yarn.

Martin

I think I was there too. The one where he was sharing some rare presssings?

 

[deniall83]

When I first got into vinyl, I loved his site. He did some nice record reviews and taught me a lot about what to look for when buying new records. I also appreciated that he measured speed accuracy/stability in his turntable reviews. As simple as it is to do (with a smartphone app), most reviewers don't even bother.

I started losing interest when he appeared on the Home Theatre Geeks YouTube channel and stated that he heard a difference between Audioquest Ethernet cables. From there, his articles only went downhill. He's completely ignorant to any sort of scientific method and regularly criticizes and insults people who value measurements above subjective listening tests. He also has a history of throwing tantrums in the comments sections of forums and other publications when he doesn't agree with what's been written. He's not above calling people names, swearing and acting like a 70-something man-child when he doesn't get his way.

Not much of value has been lost here.

 

[Chrispy]

Has the opposite effect on me. As soon as there is a pop or tick, it completely takes me out of the experience. Ditto for grove noise and distortions that it has. I also can't possibly tolerate the physical media with its storage requirement, care, putting it in, taking it out, etc.

The only real advantage of LP is when its mastering is better than digital. And for that, I prefer tape. For the rest, I have access to 20 million albums in digital where 99% of it will never come on Vinyl. So if you love broad set of music as I do, vinyl would so limiting to me.

It was immediately apparent to me at the time digital became available that my vinyl buying and tt were going to take a back seat. I did a lot of stuff at the time in making mix tapes and the noise was particularly annoying to me (but the ease of making your own digital stuff was a ways off still). The fussiness was already becoming a turn-off after so many years of it. I do have a nostalgia trip now and then, or some stuff haven't found digital versions of....but.

 

[restorer-john]

Don't get me wrong, I rarely listen to vinyl. I'm just not that interested in the format. But it's part of the entire high fidelity ecosystem and I love all methods and formats, especially having seen them evolve and improve.

Look at cassette. It was a horrible little dictation design that morphed into the most popular format prior to CD.

I occasionally play records, but when I do, I'm not expecting perfection, I'm looking for musical enjoyment and that transcends the delivery format. Think of how much fun we had listening to a pocket transistor radio or a ghetto blaster as young people. It was about the music. Then we got all 'audiophile' and super fussy and we now only listen to perfect digital files...

My teenage boys have decent systems, but they prefer to listen on their ear buds or a bluetooth speaker as it is personal and moves with them. I don't care- they have the option and they are listening to music- that's what counts IMO.

 

[deniall83]

For me, just about every aspect of vinyl is enjoyable. It gets me in places that streaming digital music just can't. Some turntables are gorgeous objects. Like pieces of art. Record stores are a joy to visit and flipping through records is my favourite way to discover music. The albums and artwork are beautiful. The playing ritual is enjoyable and for someone like me, who most likely has ADHD, it slows me down a bit. Whenever I'm on Roon or Spotify, I'm constantly thinking about what I'm playing next. Rarely do I sit through complete albums like I do when I play records.

Things I don't find enjoyable are obviously the cost, which just keep rising. There also seems to be a bit of a focus on quantity at the moment while pressing plants struggle to keep up with demand. This means there's some pretty mediocre quality control and I've had my fair share of off-centre or poorly pressed records. As a fluffy cat owner, cat hair just seems to get everywhere. Not ideal for playing records.

Nowadays I'm pretty particular about what I buy. When I do buy something, I make sure I know where it was pressed and I read the comments on Discogs to see if there have been any issues. This seems to help weed out the crap.

 

[Waxx]

I certainly won't miss Fremer. Even way before i knew ASR i did not like his review and skipped them to check measurements on Stereophile. I did read many other reviewsers subjective review, but his was always so arrogant written that it turned me off already on the 2nd sentence or so...

And on vinyl vs digital. I use both, and both have advantages and disadvantages you should be aware off. Vinyl may be technical inferior to high res digital, but often still sounds better to the ear. But it's expensive, complex to use (right) and a lot of work to maintain and a lot of music i love is never released on vinyl so my digital rig is as important. And no, you don't need to spend a gazzillion bucks to enjoy it, a technics SL series (old in good shape or new) does it all. Idem with cells (AT make great ones for relative cheap) and preamps (see the tests here) that don't have to cost a lot to be top quality neighter. But at the end, it's what works for you, for some it will be digital streaming, for others it will be vinyl, or cd's or files on a server/hd. I use mainly vinyl and high res digital files on a nas server.