Harry Pearson of tas has passed away

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/audio-legend-harry-pearson-passes-away

Until a friend introduced me to TAS in the late 1970's, like most of the general population I was not even aware that high end audio existed. Following that introduction, I read TAS religiously until around the time the world wide web emerged in the mid-1990's. I also read pretty much all of the other major audio-related publications of the time, and a number of the minor ones, representing pretty much all of the points on the spectrum of audiophile ideologies. I found that I could glean useful information from all of them.

As a technically oriented person I certainly had issues with a lot of what I read in TAS, especially when the writers hypothesized technical explanations for their sonic perceptions. However, based on my listening experiences during that period and those of my audiophile friends, IMO the listening impressions reported by HP and many of his writers tended to be more consistently spot on than those in any other contemporaneous publication.

Due in no small measure to its promulgation of HP's fundamental underlying philosophy, the use of the sound of acoustic instruments in a real performing space as the ultimate reference, TAS in that period was IMO more beneficial to the evolution of quality audio reproduction than the contributions of any other audio journalist or publication.

RIP, and thanks.

-- Al

Michael Fremer on his AnalogPlanet website, has a very nice tribute to Harry Pearson. Extremely well written.

Harry Pearson

Sorry to hear this. He was an "audiophile" legend I'd say if ever there was one. Condolences FWIW to all his family and friends.