Stereophile/S&V/Analog Planet/Shutterbug Acquisition

[mps]

Beautiful send off: The End of an Era:John Atkinson Retires

You will be missed

 

[Frank Dernie]

Beautiful send off: The End of an Era:John Atkinson Retires

You will be missed

Yes JA, I have been a reader of yours back from HiFi News days, I assembled my first kit as an Imperial College engineering student in the late 1960s too. I bought magazines at first and later subscribed.
I married a musician (the Royal College of music is next door to Imperial) have always been a music lover but my ambition was to work in Formula 1, which I did from 1976 until I retired at 60 16 years ago.

Enjoy your retirement @John Atkinson it should be fun.

 

[HalSF]

Beautiful send off: The End of an Era:John Atkinson Retires

You will be missed

I deeply respected and valued John Atkinson’s measurements in Stereophile along with the talent of many of the writers he cultivated and edited.

But I’ve always found his leadership in advocating a hybrid of scientific measurement and subjective aesthetic impressionism to be so nuanced and full of complex provisos that I’m always left somewhat befuddled.

In the exit interview linked above, he says that “traditional measurements, where one parameter is plotted against another, fail to provide a complete picture of a component's sound quality. What we hear is a multidimensional array of information in which the whole is greater than the sum of the routinely measured parts.”

One skeptical way to respond to this formulation is that it provides a giant loophole to elevate “trained listening” and excessive tolerance of the risk of sighted testing placebo effects. There was the occasional comedy in Stereophile reviews where the reviewer praised various ineffable wonders of the component and Atkinson had to smooth over conflict and temporize about how the presence of dire flaws in the measurements didn’t necessarily undermine the authority of the reviewer’s trustworthiness and judgment.

He leaves a distinguished body of work but also an inconclusive and unstable institutional working method full of contradictions regarding how to reliably rate hi-fi components without hype or mystification (cf. MQA). Objective and subjective remain in an uneasy state of unresolved tension in his wake.

 

[Fidji]

So now we know @John Atkinson “Best of” list. Hard to disagree on most of them, I coul pick one or two, but all are excellent choices in terms of performance IMO.
What makes it even more interesting are “highest end” brands that are missing ;-).

Footnote 3: I'd like to personally call out, for amplifiers: Wayne Colburn and Nelson Pass (Pass Labs), Florian Cossy and the late Thierry Heeb (CH Precision), John Curl (Vendetta, Parasound), Dan D'Agostino, the late Charley Hansen (Ayre), Darren Myers (PS Audio, Parasound), the late Rob Robinson (Channel D), and Nina Roscoe (Linn). For digital, Chris Hales and Andy McHarg (dCS), Eelco Grimm, Ed Meitner, Jürgen Reis (until recently of MBL), and Daniel Weiss. For loudspeakers, Paul Barton (PSB), Laurence Dickie (Vivid), the late John Dunlavy, Jörn Janczak (Tidal, Vimberg), Andrew Jones (TAD, MoFi), Martijn Mensink (Dutch & Dutch), Jack Oclee-Brown (KEF), Andy Payor (Rockport), Bruno Putzeys (Kii), Yair Tammam and Alon Wolf (Magico), and Kevin Voecks and Mark Glazer (Revel). All these engineers have designed products that combined state-of-the-art measured performance in my test lab with sound quality that was beyond reproach.—John Atkinson

 

[Martijn Mensink]

So now we know @John Atkinson “Best of” list. Hard to disagree on most of them, I coul pick one or two, but all are excellent choices in terms of performance IMO.
What makes it even more interesting are “highest end” brands that are missing ;-).

Footnote 3: I'd like to personally call out, for amplifiers: Wayne Colburn and Nelson Pass (Pass Labs), Florian Cossy and the late Thierry Heeb (CH Precision), John Curl (Vendetta, Parasound), Dan D'Agostino, the late Charley Hansen (Ayre), Darren Myers (PS Audio, Parasound), the late Rob Robinson (Channel D), and Nina Roscoe (Linn). For digital, Chris Hales and Andy McHarg (dCS), Eelco Grimm, Ed Meitner, Jürgen Reis (until recently of MBL), and Daniel Weiss. For loudspeakers, Paul Barton (PSB), Laurence Dickie (Vivid), the late John Dunlavy, Jörn Janczak (Tidal, Vimberg), Andrew Jones (TAD, MoFi), Martijn Mensink (Dutch & Dutch), Jack Oclee-Brown (KEF), Andy Payor (Rockport), Bruno Putzeys (Kii), Yair Tammam and Alon Wolf (Magico), and Kevin Voecks and Mark Glazer (Revel). All these engineers have designed products that combined state-of-the-art measured performance in my test lab with sound quality that was beyond reproach.—John Atkinson

I’m genuinely honored to be mentioned among these people. John Atkinson's work has meant a lot to this industry, and certainly to me. John, thank you.

 

[Fidji]

I’m genuinely honored to be mentioned among these people. John Atkinson's work has meant a lot to this industry, and certainly to me. John, thank you.

Sir, really liked your booth in Vienna - good, clean, honest sound. So I assume, praise is well deserved.

You are on top of my shortlist for future "office rig" , based on Altitude CI as central brain [I can realistically think of only potential new Neumann KH320 to dethrone it]

 

[HalSF]

Jim Austin, “Big Changes at Stereophile,” July 14:

Paul Miller has agreed to remain on our masthead, taking JA's place as Technical Editor. In addition to being a skilled hi-fi editor, Miller is among the most respected technical people in the industry. In the 1990s, he established Miller Audio Research, to satisfy industry demand for the proprietary test-and-measurement hardware and software he had developed.

In the late 1990s, Miller served as Stereophile's test-and-measurement consultant. John Atkinson started using the Miller Analyzer to measure jitter in 1998, in the measurements accompanying Wes Phillips's review of the Audio Research CD2.

In his capacity as technical editor, Miller will measure some equipment for Stereophile and oversee measurements performed by others.

What others? We have engaged Listen, Inc., a Boston-based manufacturer of transducer (microphone, headphone, loudspeaker) measurement systems—equipment and software—to perform loudspeaker measurements. Listen, Inc., is run by Steve Temme, an experienced industry figure with a BSME from Tufts University. Before founding Listen, Temme worked for many years as an acoustical test-and-measurement engineer at Brüel & Kjær. He designed speakers for Apogee Acoustics. He has lectured all over the world and authored many articles on audio measurements, presented at meetings of the Audio Engineering Society and other organizations—including ALTI, Audio & Loudspeaker Technologies International. (You'll find a list of some of Temme's technical publications here.) In the coming months, we'll present a series of discussions with Temme about the measurements performed by Listen and correlations between those measurements and what listeners hear.

Speaking of ALTI: At an ALTI event at AXPONA, we met ALTI's president of business operations, electrical engineer Peter Grinalds. In his other capaacity, Grinalds is CEO of Grinalds Solutions, an audio-engineering consultancy based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Grinalds Solutions will now measure audio electronics for Stereophile. Future issues will also feature conversations about these measurements and about correlations between measurements and listener impressions.

 

[Sal1950]

Jim Austin, “Big Changes at Stereophile,” July 14:

Paul Miller has agreed to remain on our masthead, taking JA's place as Technical Editor. In addition to being a skilled hi-fi editor, Miller is among the most respected technical people in the industry. In the 1990s, he established Miller Audio Research, to satisfy industry demand for the proprietary test-and-measurement hardware and software he had developed.

Yes big changes including the ownership change to a company called Pray Media Holdings (praying the magazine can stay solvent?)
The speaker measuring is being outsourced to a company called Listen Inc!
"Listen, Inc., is run by Steve Temme, an experienced industry figure with a BSME from Tufts University. Before founding Listen, Temme worked for many years as an acoustical test-and-measurement engineer at Brüel & Kjær. etc etc".
It will be interesting to see what type of equipment, etc that the Listen system will use.

"Pray:
Readers shouldn't expect any radical departures from what has made Stereophile successful for more than 60 years.
At the same time, every great brand needs to evolve. You'll see improvements to our digital platforms, increased activity across social media, and a stronger focus on reaching younger music lovers and emerging audio enthusiasts. We have exciting initiatives in development, and I'll be sharing more details over the coming months."

Humm, Here's Hoping they will finally get their heads out of their butts when it comes to multichannel music. A few months back Mr. Austin again had stated
"Stereophile will remain true to their roots as a fundamentally 2ch magazine, it's just who we are".
Hello Mr Keith Pray, maybe time to take a good look at replacing Jim Austin with someone with a wider view of SOTA home music reproduction. J. Gordon Holt tried to point them in that direction decades ago. JMHO.
BTW, this months The Absolute Sound published a 20 page article on Spatial Audio and it's leaders in the market.

 

[xanalog]

@John Atkinson,
Near 800 published reviews and half a century in the business — you've officially retired with better specs than all hardware you've tested.
May you now start enjoying the silence... you've earned every -dB of it.

 

[amirm]

Will be fascinating to see if Steve Temme walks the line between the subjectivist review and his measurements.

As for his measurement method, it is stitched near/far-field without the use of anechoic chamber. Will be interesting to see if he will compensate for the near-field bump that has existed in all of stereophile speaker measurements.

 

[bargainguy]

I owe a debt of gratitude to Stereophile. It was one of the few audio mags I would read without fail.

I saw a recommendation for an LFD Mistral integrated amp by Sam Tellig in the July '98 issue. It's easily the most $ I've ever spent on any audio gear but well worth it. It formed the heart of my main system with Ohm Walsh 4 speakers for almost two decades and is now serving duty in a small bedroom with an A&K AK70 mk. ii DAP (Cirrus 4398 dual dac) and a pair of Canton Karat 920 DC speakers on stands.

I've become more objectivist in my later years and find subjective / sighted reviews not as illuminating, so Stereophile, Absolute Sound, What HiFi....I take these all with a grain of salt now. Much more interested in objective measurements, so I welcome Stereophile's continued efforts in that area.

I believe Amir is the cutting edge of a new frontier of audio review, leading with measurements instead of subjective reviews. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Amir. I wouldn't be rocking my Eversolo DMP-A6 in my main system without his recommendation.

 

[xanalog]

OT(?):
I used to prefer the pre-1994 Stereophile magazine's "digest-size" to the current one:

At the time of the change-announcement, this commentary was posted in the new format:

"With the new size comes a necessarily increased percentage of space devoted to advertising—our ad sizes are up approximately 60%...."

.. that had made me go , then go , and finally ended up making me !

But trying to read a digital copy of Stereophile just has not worked well for me; as with most other digital audio magazines I have access to:

 

[mpw]

I owe a debt of gratitude to Stereophile. It was one of the few audio mags I would read without fail.

I saw a recommendation for an LFD Mistral integrated amp by Sam Tellig in the July '98 issue. It's easily the most $ I've ever spent on any audio gear but well worth it. It formed the heart of my main system with Ohm Walsh 4 speakers for almost two decades and is now serving duty in a small bedroom with an A&K AK70 mk. ii DAP (Cirrus 4398 dual dac) and a pair of Canton Karat 920 DC speakers on stands.

I've become more objectivist in my later years and find subjective / sighted reviews not as illuminating, so Stereophile, Absolute Sound, What HiFi....I take these all with a grain of salt now. Much more interested in objective measurements, so I welcome Stereophile's continued efforts in that area.

I believe Amir is the cutting edge of a new frontier of audio review, leading with measurements instead of subjective reviews. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Amir. I wouldn't be rocking my Eversolo DMP-A6 in my main system without his recommendation.

Would you continue to read Stereophile if the current format stays the same with someone else taking JA's place ? For an audio magazine to sell it needs to have interesting commentary instead of just being technical magazine. I personally hope it stays more 2ch rather then expanding into multi-channel.

 

[bargainguy]

@mpw, you've got a point. Can't just be a dry technical tome, else no one will want to read it.

Where Stereophile excelled was the imagination of the writers. We know Sam Tellig didn't exist - that was the pen name of Tom Gilette. But Sam / Tom brought his reviews to life in a way that's not easy to replicate or duplicate. He made his reviews entertaining and informative. Reading him was more akin to a soap opera with occasional dalliances in audio. So by not concentrating on the "review" part, he made it seem less like a review.

Now if there is a writer who can combine objective measurements with imaginative copy like that, I'm all for it.

 

[Sal1950]

Would you continue to read Stereophile if the current format stays the same with someone else taking JA's place ? For an audio magazine to sell it needs to have interesting commentary instead of just being technical magazine. I personally hope it stays more 2ch rather then expanding into multi-channel.

You don't have to sell a bunch of BS snake-oil to have good writers with interesting commentary.
What's being done is to please the advertisers pushing poor performing, very expensive gear to the gullible.
There's something called integrity which pretty much went down the drain when Gordon left, it was a large part of why he left along with the refusal to cover multich.
2ch is SO 1965, LOL

 

[HalSF]

I owe a debt of gratitude to Stereophile. It was one of the few audio mags I would read without fail.

I saw a recommendation for an LFD Mistral integrated amp by Sam Tellig in the July '98 issue. It's easily the most $ I've ever spent on any audio gear but well worth it. It formed the heart of my main system with Ohm Walsh 4 speakers for almost two decades and is now serving duty in a small bedroom with an A&K AK70 mk. ii DAP (Cirrus 4398 dual dac) and a pair of Canton Karat 920 DC speakers on stands.

I've become more objectivist in my later years and find subjective / sighted reviews not as illuminating, so Stereophile, Absolute Sound, What HiFi....I take these all with a grain of salt now. Much more interested in objective measurements, so I welcome Stereophile's continued efforts in that area.

I believe Amir is the cutting edge of a new frontier of audio review, leading with measurements instead of subjective reviews. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Amir. I wouldn't be rocking my Eversolo DMP-A6 in my main system without his recommendation.

I too have evolved toward embracing the ASR and Floyd Toole foundation of measurement and objective research, but still retain a fondness for many fine Stereophile writers. When I was putting together my first real hi-fi system more than 25 years ago, I too was led to an integrated amp that served me well for years by a Sam Tellig review of a Musical Fidelity amp I was able to buy used.

I could never join the people here who vehemently despise and denounce Stereophile wholesale for its high-end bias and subjective voodoo tendencies. One thing I always loved about reading the magazine back in the day while puzzling over John Atkinson’s measurements was the constant and numerous recommendations and references to great (and great-sounding) recordings. Many, many beloved records in my collection are there because of record reviews and passing references to recordings in gear reviews in Stereophile.

 

[xanalog]

...2ch is SO 1965, LOL

Reports of two-channel's demise -- like that of Twain's-- has been greatly exaggerated — it just outlived the trends that tried to bury it!