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Stereophile and Absolute Sound Editorials

Dustyc

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That theory of accelerated returns was applied to whole systems, in that upgrading one thing makes the whole system better. Still wrong but most of us apply the law of diminishing returns to single components. That holds in almost all areas.

In the same issue there was esoteric hi fi “guru” Valin talking about a high priced reel to reel. This is a quote:”…analog tapes recorded at 15/30 ips are virtually infinite in resolution; they are continuous copies of a live event, without any of the myriad of tiny “gaps” (the little “bits” of missing information0 of digital copies—the sound content of which must be filled in via the educated guesswork of your DAC”

Pure nonsense.
The ridiculous claptrap that Valin put out is one reason I let my subscription lapse. To me he was desperately trying to take up the baton from HP. Pearson was one of a kind. The banter in the letters section was worth the subscription price.
 

clearnfc

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All magazines are predominately advertising, both the obvious ads and the articles. You might as well be a hick walking through the carnival midway. Internet reviews are predominantly advertising. Advertising is advertising. Advertising copy is enticement. Anyone older than 15 years old ought to damn well know this.

I will replace the word magazine with media for you. Because its pretty much how the entire media industry works, even social media.

The real purpose of audience/readers are just for numbers. With higher viewer/readership, companies could charge a higher price since they are more popular. Then manufacturers will be enticed to advertise with these media companies since they could reach out to more pple.

Of course, its not exact easy to maintain viewer/readership. You need something to make pple keep coming back for more.
 

DMill

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I take no issue with an article titled “editorial”. The intent is a subjective article meant to be provocative and create conversation. My agreeing with the author is another matter altogether.
 

fpitas

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I started laughing partway into the article. I'm not at all sure he believes that stuff, either.
 

lewdish

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I've always wondered but how accurate are the speaker measurements on Stereophile & Hifinews? They've been around the block I think the longest but they're not using CEA 2034 format for measurement data so its really hard to read and im not the biggest fan of how they segment the pages and editor format. .
 
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jsrtheta

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The ridiculous claptrap that Valin put out is one reason I let my subscription lapse. To me he was desperately trying to take up the baton from HP. Pearson was one of a kind. The banter in the letters section was worth the subscription price.

I disagree with your assessment of Harry Pearson. I found him consistently arrogant, ignorant, pompous, and nasty.
 

anmpr1

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I disagree with your assessment of Harry Pearson. I found him consistently arrogant, ignorant, pompous, and nasty.

Some said that about Aczel. IMO he was never those things. In fact, he was often funny. Generally, I think people who found Peter arrogant were those who followed Harry, his associated carnival barkers, along with the rest of the TAS three-ring circus. Some claimed his prose style was exceptional, but I never found his writing impressive. Perhaps he was better than his contributors. Certainly he was not as literate, clever, or as informed as Aczel.

Personally, I can ignore a lot of arrogant pomposity as long as the person dishing it out is telling me a) something factual, b) something I didn't know before, c) something that is helpful, and d) something that allows me to dispel my own ignorance.

For his part, Gordon held the middle ground. I never thought he was anything but a gentleman, certainly opinionated, but that's why you subscribed.
 

jsrtheta

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Some said that about Aczel. IMO he was never those things. In fact, he was often funny. Generally, I think people who found Peter arrogant were those who followed Harry, his associated carnival barkers, along with the rest of the TAS three-ring circus. Some claimed his prose style was exceptional, but I never found his writing impressive. Perhaps he was better than his contributors. Certainly he was not as literate, clever, or as informed as Aczel.

Personally, I can ignore a lot of arrogant pomposity as long as the person dishing it out is telling me a) something factual, b) something I didn't know before, c) something that is helpful, and d) something that allows me to dispel my own ignorance.

For his part, Gordon held the middle ground. I never thought he was anything but a gentleman, certainly opinionated, but that's why you subscribed.
I always like Gordon. He had integrity.

Pearson's failing is that he would be needlessly cruel while simultaneously being demonstrably wrong.

Aczel could be rough, to be sure. Quite rough. But he was almost always right.
 

tuga

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Am I being hyper-critical? Should we simply expect that the reviews have to be self-serving out of financial necessity, we as the readers adding our grain of salt to the descriptions and conclusions presented?

Why do audiophiles read magazines?
 

Mart68

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Why do audiophiles read magazines?
not sure if that's a rhetorical question but I got to the point in the late 1990s where I was only ever reading the loudspeaker reviews and just skimming or flipping past the rest.

Once you could get speaker tests on line I stopped buying mags.
 

egellings

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I don't read either one but I fear that you might be supporting the "bad guys" (audiophools).

...Most of the audiophile community is nuts! There is a fair amount of nonsense in the pro world too but they aren't quite as crazy and you won't find too many recording/mixing/mastering engineers raving about high-end cables, etc.

Back in the stone age I used to read Stereo Review. They were a little more down to earth but I didn't completely trust them either and I don't think I ever read a negative review.
They were certainly not about to gore their own ox by publishing a bad review on a product advertised in their magazines.
 

anmpr1

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They were certainly not about to gore their own ox by publishing a bad review on a product advertised in their magazines.
Hirsch usually didn't make much of a reviewed item's electrical performance, other than to possibly state it "offers good (or competitive, etc.) value at it's price point."

However he frequently criticized from an ergonomic standpoint. For example, he wrote that the Garrard GT-55 record player's controls (successor to the Z-100) were too wonky to use when the deck was playing, and that it looked ugly. He didn't actually write that it was ugly (although it was). He wrote something like, "It doesn't have the fit and finish, along with the cosmetics, expected of a top of the line model." But you knew what he meant.

I also remember his review of a record player featuring a special 'acoustic mat' said to be designed to reject unwanted vibrations, thus making the record sound better. Hirsch said he couldn't hear or measure any difference with or without the mat, but the turntable was otherwise good value.

So with SR, it was like that.

On the other hand, you had the tweako mags giving 'bad' reviews to decent products, and good reviews to bad. Before his metamorphosis, Aczel recommended both the Quatre Gain Cell and Andy Rapport's amps--both of which were claimed to have had close to 100% failure rates in the field.
 
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