Stereophile doubles down on the snake oil!

[Alexander Gödde]

"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."

The linked piece was so painful to read that I could not make it to the end. It is highly unpleasant in tone and its content (as far as I was able to read) is a lose riff on some truths known to audiophiles, which is means it is all wrong.

 

[JiiPee]

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.

BeeKay, as You appear to be from Germany, You of all people should be aware that unethical behavior should not be tolerated just because somebody is a talented orator.

I'm absolutely not trying to say that there is a moral equivalence between audio scamming and Holocaust, but scamming should not be tolerated.

 

[BeeKay]

BeeKay, as You appear to be from Germany, You of all people should be aware that unethical behavior should not be tolerated just because somebody is a talented orator.

I'm absolutely not trying to say that there is a moral equivalence between audio scamming and Holocaust, but scamming should not be tolerated.

Seriously? Putting the „3. Reich“ and Stereophile in one box? I mean you state not to, but at the same time you do exactly this. And it’s beyond nuts …

You guys need to dial it down by a lot.

 

[MattHooper]

Again, we are both in the same camp, but I would not want to revive a Spanish Inquisition again.

Well, I didn’t expect that!

 

[Palladium]

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

I had a hunch about expensive plumbing fittings being a gigantic ripoff. I asked my close friend whose family is in the commercial plumbling business for 50 years and he confirms I was right.

 

[JiiPee]

Seriously? Putting the „3. Reich“ and Stereophile in one box? I mean you state not to, but at the same time you do exactly this. And it’s beyond nuts …

You guys need to dial it down by a lot.

Says the guy, who referenced to Spanish inquisition...

We all know there are shades of gray, but still, somewhere there is a line between what is acceptable, and what is not. To me, scamming is not acceptable, whatever other qualities the scammer may have.

 

[cochlea]

So the enstupidation for profit is even less forgivable?

“Instupidization” This gets my overwhelming support for word of the year!

 

[cochlea]

Just as I replaced all the cabling, more harsh news:

Fezz Equinox D/A processor | Stereophile.com

It wasn't long ago that bottom-shelf DACs had this dry, gray, punchy, grainy sound, emerging from a weird mechanical clarity. Their sound reminded me of cheap whisky. The ones that didn't sound like $1 shots replaced the dry grain with some blurry gel. No vitality. No subtle contrasts. No...

www.stereophile.com

“Digital's rapidly evolving technology made the next wave of DACs sound strikingly clear and quiet, with some touchy-feely hints of wetness to suggest a more natural transparency. Unfortunately, most of these newfangled wet DACs sounded like distilled water tastes.

For me, digital transparency didn't become truly wet, colorful, or naturalistic until I discovered NOS R-2R converters, which made midlevel four-figure DACs, like my Denafrips and HoloAudio, sound like bits bathed in luminosity.”

This guy definitely has a “wet” issue. Maybe in his dreams?

 

[Leporello]

Well, I didn’t expect that!

No one does.

 

[Leporello]

Hold the horses. Let’s not turn this hobby into a religion.
It is, at least to me, a hobby.

This is an often made claim, as if in a hobby truth and falsehood did not matter at all. What is Stereophile then, a literary fiction magazine?

 

[lddo133]

It is already known that the difference in sound quality due to the difference in cables is difficult to detect, so there is no need to buy a good cable. However, thicker cables are always better. Thickness is more advantageous for reducing resistance than purity, so you can use thick cables unconditionally. Higher purity is more expensive, and when evaluating resistance, thickness is a stronger key factor.
When making speakers, the thickness of the inductor related to the woofer reduces the resistance in particular, making the sound thicker and affecting the sound quality.
Of course, this is my personal experience and just my opinion. Please refer to it.

 

[Audiofire]

This guy definitely has a “wet” issue. Maybe in his dreams?

He needs to clean his ears, there is obviously a problem with his hearing!

 

[ahofer]

Radicalized? I don’t know. Stereophile serves the same interest as fashion magazines - rationalizing the purchase of silly expensive stuff on behalf of its advertisers. A version of the world’s oldest profession. I’d say it’s almost reactionary.

 

[ivayvr]

Radicalized? I don’t know. Stereophile serves the same interest as fashion magazines - rationalizing the purchase of silly expensive stuff on behalf of its advertisers. A version of the world’s oldest profession. I’d say it’s almost reactionary.

The big difference being that you can't make fashion objective. It is always a matter of taste or a matter of following the trends.
With the sound, we have a way of measuring if a reproduced sound is true to its source.

 

[ahofer]

The big difference being that you can't make fashion objective. It is always a matter of taste or a matter of following the trends.
With the sound, we have a way of measuring if a reproduced sound is true to its source.

Sort of. Audiophiles often retreat to preference, even if they start with claims of realism/accuracy. Also, in fashion, the presence of the right label is worth how much exactly?

 

[rdenney]

The big difference being that you can't make fashion objective. It is always a matter of taste or a matter of following the trends.
With the sound, we have a way of measuring if a reproduced sound is true to its source.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that electronics are all probably as good as our ability to assess using only our ears. The measurements expose false claims, but only those dumb tiny little single-ended tube amps are likely to be actively bad, and that because they clip.

Speakers are less deterministic, but the acknowledged best examples are still quite expensive, and once speakers reach into the five figures, it doesn’t matter to me if they go all the way to six figures.

So there’s not much to report on any more, and fashion is about all that is left. Like a lot of hobby magazines, it’s largely become a lifestyle publication. JA is a vestige, but he and the reviewers who care about measured performance are all that’s keeping it from complete meaninglessness in any technical sense.

Rick “filling a vacuum, so to speak” Denney

 

[Sal1950]

What is Stereophile then, a literary fiction magazine?

That about nails it.

Sort of. Audiophiles often retreat to preference, even if they start with claims of realism/accuracy.

At some point I no longer refer to them as Audiophiles, they're simply Audiophools.
If your truly interested in a High Performance Sound System, a majority of those questions can be answered here.
If you want a toy to play with, or have bragging rights to it's high cost, or belong to some writers club with his claims it "sounds like", now your in the
toyland of the subjective which no longer is based in reality.

 

[Sal1950]

So there’s not much to report on any more, and fashion is about all that is left. Like a lot of hobby magazines, it’s largely become a lifestyle publication. JA is a vestige, but he and the reviewers who care about measured performance are all that’s keeping it from complete meaninglessness in any technical sense.

Sadly very true but IMHO things have begun to reverse a bit.
A decade or so back almost nothing like ASR, Archimago's, Audioholic's etc existed any more.
I do believe folks are getting fed up with being given all the BS and looking for truth in reviewing.
Here's to hoping for better days.

 

[HalSF]

Just as I replaced all the cabling, more harsh news:

Fezz Equinox D/A processor | Stereophile.com

It wasn't long ago that bottom-shelf DACs had this dry, gray, punchy, grainy sound, emerging from a weird mechanical clarity. Their sound reminded me of cheap whisky. The ones that didn't sound like $1 shots replaced the dry grain with some blurry gel. No vitality. No subtle contrasts. No...

www.stereophile.com

The evolution of DACs that has produced superb measured performance and sound quality at drastically reduced prices in recent years has broken audiophile brains.

This review reads like a wounded counterattack that attempts to reestablish the primacy of trusting that increasingly expensive DACs deliver increasingly brilliant artisanal sound-quality magic. Thus the opening salvo, an indiscriminate tirade trashing the hi-fi bona fides of all reasonably priced DACs, followed by these assertions restoring audiophile pricing to its rightful place as the unfailing key to sonic excellence:

“The main things I notice as I move up the digital-component price ladder are a more visceral, less processed feel; more precisely drawn images; more color-saturated tones; and, especially, a more captivating transparency.

“Most of the six-figure DACs I've auditioned made recordings sound incredulously vivid and hyperdimensional, like MQA on steroids. Listening to these million-dollar sound systems caused my brain to wonder, how much of what I just heard was actually in the converted file?”

Our shining golden audio credo: the “price ladder”! It causes my brain to wonder too!

The negativity of John Atkinson’s measurements of the reviewed DAC is the chef’s kiss.

 

[Sal1950]

“Most of the six-figure DACs I've auditioned made recordings sound incredulously vivid and hyperdimensional, like MQA on steroids. Listening to these million-dollar sound systems caused my brain to wonder, how much of what I just heard was actually in the converted file?”

Just more ridiculous sighted listening claims.
Blind him, level match the DAC's, and differences will all disappear.
Unless something has been purposely voiced, then look at the measurements, you'd see it there.