As you will read in the July issue of Stereophile, which will hit mailboxes in a week or so, I retired on May 1, the 40th anniversary of my joining Stereophile. And in September it will be a half century since I joined Hi-Fi News & Record Review. As I reach the age of 78 I felt it was time to take things easy.
I will still be listed as Stereophile's Technical Editor until the August issue is published.
John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile
John,
Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement! You will be very missed by readers like me and many others.
I believe you brought a niche skill to the job that will be very hard to replace.
As I’ve argued before, when it comes to educating audiophiles about the technical aspects of audio gear as well as sound quality there’s a sort of conundrum or paradox:
Many (if not most) audiophiles care about what equipment sounds like, but they are not technically educated and so just talking in measurements can be baffling and alienating.
This is why so many audiophiles end up discussing with each other “how this piece of gear sounds subjectively” in order to convey information. (with all its liabilities.)
In order to educate audiophiles about how gear works and the relevance of measurements, obviously your educator should be somebody who has a firm grasp of engineering and the measurements.
The problem is: The type of person attracted to the technical details - generally somebody with an engineering bent - tends to be less interested in subjective descriptions of the sound. The more they know about the measurements the less need they have for subjective descriptions! The attitude tends to be: “
The measurements tell me what I need to know. They are much more reliable and precise than any subjective description. So I’m not really interested in subjective descriptions of sound. Most of it is just unreliable, flowery poetic bullshit anyway.”
On the other side… you have audiophiles (including many subjective reviewers) who may be quite good with language, eager and even talented at portraying sound qualities in subjective language…. but they lack the technical knowledge to convey the proper information about the relevant measurements. (And of course can also end up endorsing pseudoscience along the way).
So the paradox is that the people who possess the objective data required to explain why a speaker sounds a certain way often lack the subjective vocabulary (or desire) to communicate it, while the people who have the subjective vocabulary lack the technical grasp of the data.
It’s like the divide between the STEM students in university versus the artsy fartsies and the humanities.
And for me, that’s exactly where you have filled the gap all these years!
You have the technical knowledge to do the measurements and explain the relevance of the measurements, but also the interest and skill in the “how it sounds” part - putting the results into subjective descriptions the non-technical audiophile can relate to and understand. It’s a big reason why I have kept coming back to Stereophile (even while there are ever more highly technical examinations of gear available online).
I hope whoever replaces you at Stereophile has the same rare combination of skills!
Cheers.
