Stereophiles editor Jim Austin publicly disagreeing with Kal Rubinson

[PierreV]

Jim Austin vs Kal Rubinson?
No need to read the thread.
I vote Kal

 

[preload]

It's interesting that one of the responses in the linked Stereophile discussion was this (written by none other than John Atkinson):
"Stereophile is not a scientific journal but a magazine read by regular people."

I think sometimes we forget this. Magazines are for entertainment. To me, it's entertaining to read about how XYZ Amplifier 2000 "lifted the veil" on Beethoven's-whatever. (Personally, I think Stereophile should request manufacturer samples that don't come with veils to save themselves the trouble.)

But the reality is that we need Stereophile in order for our hobby to exist the way it does. Simply put, hi-fi is a luxury (in that it's not essential for daily living). Low-fi works just fine, practically speaking. Stereophile helps spread the "idea" that hi-fi is desirable and worth chasing, which in turn drives consumer demand, which in turn drives manufacturers to invest in R&D for new and improved products. And that benefits everyone.

 

[JeffS7444]

A 12-month subscription to Stereophile in print form costs just 1.50 USD per issue: I think it's safe to assume that much of it's cost is subsidized by advertising, and the most expensive ad space is dominated by cable manufacturers! Jim Austin dare not piss them off unless he's got a plan to replace the lost revenues.

 

[amper42]

Stereophile is pure advertising from review to paid ads. Very little of value to informed audio users. I don't understand how they still exist. You can buy it cheap enough but the educational value is poor at best. If they ever publish the paid subscription total I imagine advertising will dry up as well.

 

[Vacceo]

It's interesting that one of the responses in the linked Stereophile discussion was this (written by none other than John Atkinson):
"Stereophile is not a scientific journal but a magazine read by regular people."

I think sometimes we forget this. Magazines are for entertainment. To me, it's entertaining to read about how XYZ Amplifier 2000 "lifted the veil" on Beethoven's-whatever. (Personally, I think Stereophile should request manufacturer samples that don't come with veils to save themselves the trouble.)

But the reality is that we need Stereophile in order for our hobby to exist the way it does. Simply put, hi-fi is a luxury (in that it's not essential for daily living). Low-fi works just fine, practically speaking. Stereophile helps spread the "idea" that hi-fi is desirable and worth chasing, which in turn drives consumer demand, which in turn drives manufacturers to invest in R&D for new and improved products. And that benefits everyone.

I don't see how the release of the next Gryphon amp benefits anyone but Gryphon. Same goes for any other absurdly expensive piece of gear, which seems to be the preferred kind on magazines like this.

 

[Tangband]

Stereophile is pure advertising from review to paid ads. Very little of value to informed audio users. I don't understand how they still exist. You can buy it cheap enough but the educational value is poor at best. If they ever publish the paid subscription total I imagine advertising will dry up as well.

I think their reviews are very interesting and the measuring by John Atkinsson is one of the best . Very educational. But one needs experience from measuring to fully understand JA:s measurements.

Ofcourse they are almost always optimistic in sound comments but thats because they rely on advertisement from the companys.

 

[DonH56]

Many, many years ago a physics professor (Richard Feynman) I happened to audit for a class or two made some excellent points about how there is really no need to "dumb down" definitions for lay people, or young students in this case. He provided several examples of incorrect definitions in grade/high school texts and how to reword them to be correct without needing a college degree. It was enlightening and pretty funny. I think he was trying to get a local school board to use good texts instead of the dumbed-down junk they had; not sure he managed to pull that off.

In this case I tend to disagree with Stereophile and feel they should just use the correct terms and definitions. They can always refer to a glossary or some such.

 

[Sal1950]

Stereophile is pure advertising from review to paid ads. Very little of value to informed audio users. I don't understand how they still exist.

Stereophile's readership is geared to the wealthy and it's a fairly big market. There is an ole group of us lowbrows that still
have enough interest in the general direction of the market to stay on board even though it contains little of value to us.
It was sad when the blue collar Hi Fi market shrunk to the point that Audio, Stereo Review, and the rest could no longer continue
in business. There was a time when I looked forward to receiving 7 or 8 hi fi journals each month.
Thankfully much of that slack has been picked up by the internet but it mostly contains the believer loonies talking about their
cables and such. I've been very pleased that we have maybe half a dozen objectively based sites to learn from and contribute to.
I do belive we're gaining ground and some common sense is beginning to sink in..

 

[preload]

Interesting. All supporters seem to be from the northeastern US. Can you show us what the citations [22] through [26] go to?

I knew the story about Consumer Reports, and I had heard/read they got the idea from Bose, but I was unaware that several others were proponents of flat sound power.

Flat sound power was all the rage around the year 2000. And if you think about it, flat sound power "made logical sense" - engineers want flat, and they want to consider all of the perceived sound (i.e. sound power), not just a subset of it. It was commonly accepted.

For those of us that remember, Consumer Reports was considered an authoritative, de facto trusted source of unbiased product reviews back in those days. And when they ranked loudspeakers based on these objective measurements, it meant a lot.

But these CR rankings, made using objective measurements, DID NOT correlate with what people were hearing subjectively. Highly ranked speakers, using this objective methodology, sounded noticeably worse than lower ranked speakers. And while casual subjective speaker impressions (example, "the Bose sound ok, but they definitely didn't sound better than Speaker C or Speaker D, which I've also heard") may not have been blinded/controlled at the time, but they were enough to help prompt Harman to conduct their now-landmark blinded/controlled experiments of their proposed model.

Which is why I maintain that we cannot simply disregard subjective speaker impressions, even those that are not blinded. Which is also why I support Amir's inclusion of subjective listening impressions in his loudspeakers/headphone reviews.

Here are refs 22-26, as you requested:
[22] Bose, A.G.,"Sound Recording and Reproduction, Part I: Devices, Measurements, and Perception," Technol. Rev. (MIT), pp.19-25 (1973 June); Part 2: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions, "ibid. pp. 25-33 (1973 July/Aug.).
[23] McShane, C. L., "The Meaning of Quantitative Loudspeaker Measurements," presented at the 36th Convention of the Audio Eng. Soc. (Abstracts), vol. 17,
pp.344 (1969 June).
[24] Torick, E., "In the Loudspeaker Lab," High Fidelity, 27,69-73 (1977, Oct.).
[25] Allison R.F. and Berkovitz R.,"The Sound Field in Home Listening Rooms," J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 20, pp. 459-469 (1972 July-Aug.).
[26] Hirsch J., Testing Speakers," Stereo Review, vol. 47, pp. 24-25 (1982 Aug.)

 

[birdog1960]

Flat sound power was all the rage around the year 2000. And if you think about it, flat sound power "made logical sense" - engineers want flat, and they want to consider all of the perceived sound (i.e. sound power), not just a subset of it. It was commonly accepted.

For those of us that remember, Consumer Reports was considered an authoritative, de facto trusted source of unbiased product reviews back in those days. And when they ranked loudspeakers based on these objective measurements, it meant a lot.

But these CR rankings, made using objective measurements, DID NOT correlate with what people were hearing subjectively. Highly ranked speakers, using this objective methodology, sounded noticeably worse than lower ranked speakers. And while casual subjective speaker impressions (example, "the Bose sound ok, but they definitely didn't sound better than Speaker C or Speaker D, which I've also heard") may not have been blinded/controlled at the time, but they were enough to help prompt Harman to conduct the blinded/controlled experiments that Harman ended up doing. Which is why I maintain that we cannot simply disregard subjective speaker impressions, even those that are not blinded. Which is also why I support Amir's inclusion of subjective listening impressions in his loudspeakers/headphone reviews.

Here are refs 22-26, as you requested:
[22] Bose, A.G.,"Sound Recording and Reproduction, Part I: Devices, Measurements, and Perception," Technol. Rev. (MIT), pp.19-25 (1973 June); Part 2: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions, "ibid. pp. 25-33 (1973 July/Aug.).
[23] McShane, C. L., "The Meaning of Quantitative Loudspeaker Measurements," presented at the 36th Convention of the Audio Eng. Soc. (Abstracts), vol. 17,
pp.344 (1969 June).
[24] Torick, E., "In the Loudspeaker Lab," High Fidelity, 27,69-73 (1977, Oct.).
[25] Allison R.F. and Berkovitz R.,"The Sound Field in Home Listening Rooms," J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 20, pp. 459-469 (1972 July-Aug.).
[26] Hirsch J., Testing Speakers," Stereo Review, vol. 47, pp. 24-25 (1982 Aug.)

I subscribed to CR for about a year. Their testing was usually suspect even for appliances. Can imagine how bad their stereo reviews are. I did like the frequency of repair charts for different years and models of cars parsed into different systems of the car. That's about the only use I found for CR.

 

[MattHooper]

If one is not careful, there is a conundrum produced if you derive a too-extreme stance based on the blinded research. (And I'm specifically
concerned in this case with speakers - where we know the differences are audible).

By "not careful" I mean believing things like "sighted/uncontrolled impressions of speakers are wholly useless, uninformative, worthless" etc.

(Here I'll be using "sighted" impressions to mean non-blinded/not under scientific-level controls).

So here's the conundrum:

1. If sighted bias so reliably distorts our perception of the sound of speakers, then the blind tests seem to have little relevance to the real world conditions in choosing and listening to speakers, which will be done sighted. Our biases will distort the sound so who cares what it sounds like under blinded conditions?

BUT...

2. IF the blind tests for sonic quality are to have any relevance to our normal listening situation, you'd have to make the case that THE SOUND somehow predicts some level of listening satisfaction, that it carries over to sighted listening. So, somehow the specific pleasing sonic characteristics perceived under blind conditions will also be recognized under sighted conditions!

But to make the case for the relevance of blind tests in #2, you've just accepted *some* level of accuracy for sighted listening!

In order to hue to an extreme view against the worth of sighted listening, it seems you either throw out the relevance of blind testing (for audibly different devices like speakers!) to our actual listening conditions. OR you say the blind tests allow us to discern qualities identifiable under sighted conditions too, in which case portraying sighted conditions as utterly unreliable or worthless is incoherent.

These problems don't attend a viewpoint that isn't extreme, where one isn't throwing up a false dichotomy of "Reliable" (scientific controls) or "Totally Unreliable/worthless" (no scientific controls), but rather take the more nuanced stance More Reliable (scientific controls) vs Less Reliable (uncontrolled listening).

It's totally rational for anyone to want "More Reliable" data, and if they want to look to blind testing for such info. What's not rational is to think that "less reliable" conditions equate to "useless/of no worth/completely unreliable." Don't go extreme, and no conundrums arise.

 

[ahofer]

Flat sound power was all the rage around the year 2000. And if you think about it, flat sound power "made logical sense" - engineers want flat, and they want to consider all of the perceived sound (i.e. sound power), not just a subset of it. It was commonly accepted.

For those of us that remember, Consumer Reports was considered an authoritative, de facto trusted source of unbiased product reviews back in those days. And when they ranked loudspeakers based on these objective measurements, it meant a lot.

But these CR rankings, made using objective measurements, DID NOT correlate with what people were hearing subjectively. Highly ranked speakers, using this objective methodology, sounded noticeably worse than lower ranked speakers. And while casual subjective speaker impressions (example, "the Bose sound ok, but they definitely didn't sound better than Speaker C or Speaker D, which I've also heard") may not have been blinded/controlled at the time, but they were enough to help prompt Harman to conduct their now-landmark blinded/controlled experiments of their proposed model.

Which is why I maintain that we cannot simply disregard subjective speaker impressions, even those that are not blinded. Which is also why I support Amir's inclusion of subjective listening impressions in his loudspeakers/headphone reviews.

Here are refs 22-26, as you requested:
[22] Bose, A.G.,"Sound Recording and Reproduction, Part I: Devices, Measurements, and Perception," Technol. Rev. (MIT), pp.19-25 (1973 June); Part 2: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions, "ibid. pp. 25-33 (1973 July/Aug.).
[23] McShane, C. L., "The Meaning of Quantitative Loudspeaker Measurements," presented at the 36th Convention of the Audio Eng. Soc. (Abstracts), vol. 17,
pp.344 (1969 June).
[24] Torick, E., "In the Loudspeaker Lab," High Fidelity, 27,69-73 (1977, Oct.).
[25] Allison R.F. and Berkovitz R.,"The Sound Field in Home Listening Rooms," J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 20, pp. 459-469 (1972 July-Aug.).
[26] Hirsch J., Testing Speakers," Stereo Review, vol. 47, pp. 24-25 (1982 Aug.)

I'm with you on speakers. Most folks here seem to limit the "I'd buy on measurements only" talk to electronics.

 

[fpitas]

I'm with you on speakers. Most folks here seem to limit the "I'd buy on measurements only" talk to electronics.

Most speaker designers freely admit there are a lot of ways to design a good speaker, and a lot of ways to voice it.

 

[amper42]

Stereophile's readership is geared to the wealthy and it's a fairly big market. There is an ole group of us lowbrows that still
have enough interest in the general direction of the market to stay on board even though it contains little of value to us.
It was sad when the blue collar Hi Fi market shrunk to the point that Audio, Stereo Review, and the rest could no longer continue
in business. There was a time when I looked forward to receiving 7 or 8 hi fi journals each month.
Thankfully much of that slack has been picked up by the internet but it mostly contains the believer loonies talking about their
cables and such. I've been very pleased that we have maybe half a dozen objectively based sites to learn from and contribute to.
I do belive we're gaining ground and some common sense is beginning to sink in..

Here is an example of the nonsense in Stereophile. Dec 2022 issue, page 45 "Product of the Year Award: Loudspeaker"
KEF BLADE TWO META comes in first place with GENELEC G THREE in 3rd place. The two speakers are not comparable as G Three is near field listening only at $1590 and Blade Two is an affordable $28,000 according to the article. How any reasonable person can compare near field with Blade Two with a straight face is beyond me. They don't tell you the G Three is near field on page 45 so you need to do your research to understand they are comparing bananas to apples. Later, on 49 they award Wilson $135,000 speaker - ALEXX V Overall product of the year. How does that make sense?
Next, Genelec gets Budget Product award for 2022 on p.47.

It's like little league and everyone gets a trophy! Except, all the players are paid advertisers who pay to play.

 

[amirm]

Stereophile is pure advertising from review to paid ads.

I used to manage engineering for a company selling broadcast video products. It was always clear in our interactions with the major TV networks that the main programming was the ads. Stuff people watched otherwise were the filler! Without ads, there would be no business for them, or us as a supplier of equipment.

 

[fpitas]

I used to manage engineering for a company selling broadcast video products. It was always clear in our interactions with the major TV networks that the main programming was the ads. Stuff people watched otherwise were the filler! Without ads, there would be no business for them, or us as a supplier of equipment.

Of course selling to engineers is immensely frustrating for the typical salesman

 

[Vacceo]

I'm with you on speakers. Most folks here seem to limit the "I'd buy on measurements only" talk to electronics.

Because electronics will work the same in a basement or in a kitchen, but speakers will not.

However, I have bought speakers blindly thanks to this site and the results were pretty much what I expected from the reviews, so they are still a valuable tool.

 

[MattHooper]

I used to manage engineering for a company selling broadcast video products. It was always clear in our interactions with the major TV networks that the main programming was the ads. Stuff people watched otherwise were the filler! Without ads, there would be no business for them, or us as a supplier of equipment.

But what I think should be kept in mind, for balance, lest one fall in to an unreasonable and unjustified level of cynicism, is that we can't just ignore the vast majority
of people who are actually producing the content for these networks (and also for magazines).

I work in the TV/Film industry and I know very well that the creatives put one hell of a lot of sincere effort in to creating product they see as good, and that they hope to be proud of. I'm working my ass off every day doing this, no matter what show I work on. And in meeting after meeting, in all the gatherings of writers, producers, directors and much other talent, it's clear most people have earnest intentions in creating the content.
Advertising RARELY (if ever) comes up when we are nit-picking our way through the creative decisions for a show.

So, sure there can be justifiable cynicism directed at those involved in the advertising aspect, in running networks (or magazines). But that does NOT mean that the actual content comprises of people bought-and-sold, simply paying obesence to advertisers, or that advertising is the motivation for people producing the content.

Same for audio magazines. The fact that someone running a magazine has to grapple with the exigencies of advertising to keep things going doesn't automatically mean the work you are reading is produced with some cynical eye on the advertising. As I've said plenty of times, I've known many who work in the audio review business, and have yet to meet one person who is writing "just for the advertisers" and isn't earnest and passionate about their subject.

(Not saying such people don't exist, only that people's cynicism here often seems too broad-stroked and overblown).

 

[Vacceo]

But what I think should be kept in mind, for balance, lest one fall in to an unreasonable and unjustified level of cynicism, is that we can't just ignore the vast majority
of people who are actually producing the content for these networks (and also for magazines).

I work in the TV/Film industry and I know very well that the creatives put one hell of a lot of sincere effort in to creating product they see as good, and that they hope to be proud of. I'm working my ass off every day doing this, no matter what show I work on. And in meeting after meeting, in all the gatherings of writers, producers, directors and much other talent, it's clear most people have earnest intentions in creating the content.
Advertising RARELY (if ever) comes up when we are nit-picking our way through the creative decisions for a show.

So, sure there can be justifiable cynicism directed at those involved in the advertising aspect, in running networks (or magazines). But that does NOT mean that the actual content comprises of people bought-and-sold, simply paying obesence to advertisers, or that advertising is the motivation for people producing the content.

Same for audio magazines. The fact that someone running a magazine has to grapple with the exigencies of advertising to keep things going doesn't automatically mean the work you are reading is produced with some cynical eye on the advertising. As I've said plenty of times, I've known many who work in the audio review business, and have yet to meet one person who is writing "just for the advertisers" and isn't earnest and passionate about their subject.

(Not saying such people don't exist, only that people's cynicism here often seems too broad-stroked and overblown).

I'd rather trust your professionalism instead of your passion.

 

[Sal1950]

However, I have bought speakers blindly thanks to this site and the results were pretty much what I expected from the reviews, so they are still a valuable tool.

I believe if you know and understand your personal bias in sound reproduction, measurements can be extremely useful in guiding you to a speaker you will like. Also design types, (direct radiator, panel, horn, radiation pattern, etc) can help immensely.
But the bottom line depends on your personal understanding of the details presented. You do need to have a lot of education in the different areas to read them correctly, otherwise they are of no use at all.