Stereophile doubles down on the snake oil!

[Audiofire]

"Analog is real" taken way too far.

 

[Sal1950]

Not a fan of the DAC and cable stuff myself, but I do enjoy Herbie’s speaker reviews !

It's all the output from one of "Files" most prolific snake-oil peddlers.
Don't believe a word of it.

 

[Purité Audio]

I am angry that he is employed to write this tosh and saddened that some might actually take him seriously.
Keith

 

[BeeKay]

Herb is a guy with a really interesting CV and generally a character. I can forgive him a lot and especially the YT videos with Guttenberg as a sidekick are pure entertainment. You shouldn't take them too seriously and he'd better not write for Stereophile.

 

[Alexander Gödde]

That DAC review is idiocy piled on insanities. It appears to come from a scary place where anecdotes and vibes rule since nothing is knowable anyway.

 

[teched58]

For some reason I read the whole thing and was stunned by the amount of non-stop nonsense which apparently passes for subjective reviews. Only one sentence in the entire review made any sense to me and it was the last one in the "measurements" section.

I found the measured performance of the Fezz Equinox disappointing.—John Atkinson

Uh-oh, this might be the last bout of honesty from Atkinson that makes it into print. He is being very direct here, where he is usually circumspect in a Pravda kind of way. Which means we can infer that he thinks this product is an unusually bad value proposition (it's $3,000).

I was in the trade magazine business for years. You have no idea how bad (economically) things are. That's why they've been going fuller bullspit lately. They (and I'm NOT confining this to Stereophile) have to, er, massage the manufacturers to a happy ending to survive.

 

[SIY]

Herb is a guy with a really interesting CV

So the enstupidation for profit is even less forgivable?

 

[Purité Audio]

Herb is a guy with a really interesting CV and generally a character. I can forgive him a lot and especially the YT videos with Guttenberg as a sidekick are pure entertainment. You shouldn't take them too seriously and he'd better not write for Stereophile.

Both ex- hifi salesmen weren’t they?
Keith

 

[BeeKay]

So the enstupidation for profit is even less forgivable?

Not here to defend his audiophooleness. No, sir. Just saying he is very entertaining when(!) taken with a pinch of salt. He certainly has some charisma.

 

[BeeKay]

Both ex- hifi salesmen weren’t they?
Keith

On different levels. But yes.
And other than Herb, Steve lacks some presence.

 

[Sal1950]

Uh-oh, this might be the last bout of honesty from Atkinson that makes it into print. He is being very direct here, where he is usually circumspect in a Pravda kind of way. Which means we can infer that he thinks this product is an unusually bad value proposition (it's $3,000).

Yep, John can be read writing stuff like this on occasion, specially when covering something like this.

Not here to defend his audiophooleness. No, sir. Just saying he is very entertaining when(!) taken with a pinch of salt. He certainly has some charisma.

It's long past time the objective community stops letting crap like this written by the subjective media be excused without LOUD call outs.
I care little how talented a wordsmith they may be, or how purdy and humorous they can put together a few paragraphs.
Decades of snake-oil propaganda, outright lies, and much more have made a mess of most any honesty or integrity being published about Hi-Fi.
It's been many many moons since Peter Aczel wrote,

"How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information? "Peter Aczel"

This is how the science of music reproduction became third place after measured performance and big price tags.

 

[BeeKay]

Yep, John can be read writing stuff like this on occasion, specially when covering something like this.


It's long past time the objective community stops letting crap like this written by the subjective media be excused without LOUD call outs.
I care little how talented a wordsmith they may be, or how purdy and humorous they can put together a few paragraphs.
Decades of snake-oil propaganda, outright lies, and much more have made a mess of most any honesty or integrity being published about Hi-Fi.
It's been many many moons since Peter Aczel wrote,

"How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information? "Peter Aczel"

This is how the science of music reproduction became third place after measured performance and big price tags.

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud this community to call out BS like SP produce on a daily basis.
I just enjoy Herb Reichert as a media person. I can switch between the two positions. Not asking you to do the same.

 

[MattHooper]

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud this community to call out BS like SP produce on a daily basis.
I just enjoy Herb Reichert as a media person. I can switch between the two positions. Not asking you to do the same.

Same. I find it easy to ignore when Herb is talking about something I’m not interested in or find bogus, yet I appreciate plenty of his writing on other stuff (speakers in particular) where he has really gotten the gist of gear I’m familiar with, and so I enjoy his musings on gear I haven’t heard as well. He’s a pretty good writer. But if somebody has him purely in the “ black hat” category they’re not gonna care about that.

I have the same feelings about Art Dudley: I didn’t see eye to eye on everything he believed audio-wise, but I could read him writing about practically anything.

 

[BeeKay]

I have the same feelings about Art Dudley: I didn’t see eye to eye on everything he believed audio-wise, but I could read him writing about practically anything

Too sad he passed away so early. Quite a humble and very interesting person. Always a pleasure to read. When you look at who runs that place now it’s even more of a loss.

 

[MattHooper]

Too sad he passed away so early. Quite a humble and very interesting person. Always a pleasure to read. When you look at who runs that place now it’s even more of a loss.

As I’ve said about Art Dudley before, anyone who can start an audio column with the phrase “ “Consider the Coelacanth..”
and make it work is my hero

I’ve been reading Stereophile since the early 90s and have always enjoyed subjective reviews. Unfortunately, I find the quality of the reviewing and writing in stereophile has gone down considerably. It doesn’t seem to be just my imagination because when I revisit older issues I find the writing much more compelling. And I hate to say that because in general I’m happy for the existence of the magazine and I have a huge amount of respect for ASR member John Atkinson (even though I know he’s no longer editor).

 

[Sal1950]

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

I just enjoy Herb Reichert as a media person. I can switch between the two positions. Not asking you to do the same.

Riding the fence and celebrating the negative deeds of these writers only serves to promote their agendas.
I've been a subscriber to SF and the rest since the earliest days of the "underground" Hi-Fi mags.
Speaking of SF, I've only hung in there since the departure of Gordon Holt in support of the old adage,
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"
It's been the radicalization of subjective audio that pushes me to fight back.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing,”
Gordon freely admits that he got fed up with the direction these men took his brainchild and walked away.

"Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. As Art Dudley so succinctly said [in his January 2004 "Listening," see "Letters," p.9], fidelity is irrelevant to music."

Do you see any signs of future vitality in high-end audio? JA

"Vitality? Don't make me laugh. Audio as a hobby is dying, largely by its own hand. As far as the real world is concerned, high-end audio lost its credibility during the 1980s, when it flatly refused to submit to the kind of basic honesty controls (double-blind testing, for example) that had legitimized every other serious scientific endeavor since Pascal. [This refusal] is a source of endless derisive amusement among rational people and of perpetual embarrassment for me, because I am associated by so many people with the mess my disciples made of spreading my gospel."

45 Years of Stereophile | Stereophile.com

It was 45 years ago this month that the first issue of Stereophile, just 20 pages in length, went in the mail. It had been founded by one J. Gordon Holt. Gordon had been technical editor of High Fidelity magazine in the 1950s, and was tired of being asked to pander to the demands of advertisers.

www.stereophile.com

 

[Daverz]

As I’ve said about Art Dudley before, anyone who can start an audio column with the phrase “ “Consider the Coelacanth..”
and make it work is my hero

I’ve been reading Stereophile since the early 90s and have always enjoyed subjective reviews. Unfortunately, I find the quality of the reviewing and writing in stereophile has gone down considerably. It doesn’t seem to be just my imagination because when I revisit older issues I find the writing much more compelling. And I hate to say that because in general I’m happy for the existence of the magazine and I have a huge amount of respect for ASR member John Atkinson (even though I know he’s no longer editor).

Dudley was a lot more interesting when he wrote for Listener magazine. He seemed a bit constrained writing for Stereophile.

 

[BeeKay]

Hold the horses. Let’s not turn this hobby into a religion.
It is, at least to me, a hobby. Then a business by its very nature. And as such shady and nicer (better?) actors are around. As in every other sector where money is earned.
And as in almost every other aspect of life the attempt to paint things black and white only will fall short.
Again, we are both in the same camp, but I would not want to revive a Spanish Inquisition again.
Also, I try not to make you like any SP writer, all I did was expressing some sympathy for Herb Reichert. Which is ok in my book. But YMMV.

ps. Glad to have found ASR and learned so much. Corrected almost everything I thought to have known about HiFi. But reading a HR piece or watch his musings about audio and life on YT will make me smile. As said, taking it with a good pinch of salt when it’s on subjective audio tests.

 

[ivayvr]

Herb is a guy with a really interesting CV and generally a character. I can forgive him a lot and especially the YT videos with Guttenberg as a sidekick are pure entertainment. You shouldn't take them too seriously and he'd better not write for Stereophile.

As long if there was a warning like 18+ and in their case "We are full of shoyten" (if you speak Dutch), I would agree.
Since they are acting as experts on the matter, spreading "alternative facts", I disagree 100%!

 

[SIY]

And as such shady and nicer (better?) actors are around.

Indeed. And people who knowingly promote bullshit are shady by any definition.