stereo review magazine

Unbiased, maybe. Uninformed, definitely. I too was a big believer in CR. Until I started noticing reviews about things I happened to know a lot about. Every single time it turned out they totally missed the point of the product. After a while it got to where I wouldn’t trust them to rate a toaster. Nowadays with it being so easy to find actual end user reviews there is zero point in reading them at all.

Except maybe for entertainment value. Testing a Pontiac the same as a Porsche. Hilarious.

Hirsch had me so brainwashed I was acting just like the PITA tin-eared snake-oilers we have around here today. Only with one big difference- I have always been willing to try and see for myself. So one day someone said shot-gun is better. Well, I had extra wire so easy enough to prove this is BS and so I hooked em up - and was surprised to find it was indeed better! 

Not much. No way it was worth 2X to get 1.05X. But it was better. So I had to accept this reality and change my mind. 

Sad to say a lot who have been lied to find it very hard to change their minds. That is the crime. And yes they are complicit. But Hirsch and Stereo Review get the blame because they should have known better. 

Never said they are all out of print. Just I haven't seen them. Sheesh. Not like I have time to go looking. I have you all to entertain, practically a full time job all by itself.

Yeah, definitely a mixed bag. Looking back, one of the few things I still like is the way their music reviews would rate the performance and recording. It got you thinking yes indeed these are two distinctly different things. Not talking about their taste in music or any of that, just the fact they were getting you thinking about the difference.   

This kind of makes up for the misinformation about wire and measurements. Oh and another problem, what middlemass mentioned, you could read Stereo Review and never have any idea there was anything out there but the big names. Then go into a shop and find all this strange stuff you never heard of before. Well they have a magazine to sell and ad copy space to sell but you would think they might do a better job informing the readers. Then again maybe not. Stereophile is hardly any different in this regard.  

Well, maybe. Then again maybe not. Haven't seen a copy of any print audiophile mag in so many years I can't even remember!

I grew up reading Stereo Review all through the 1970's and 80's. Learned a lot reading Stereo Review. Learned a lot about amps, speakers, all the different components. Thought the world of them. Really looked up to some of them like Julian Hirsch. 

It wasn't until well into the 1990's building my first real high end system in my dream room, now reading Stereophile, that I began to understand what a disservice Stereo Review had been. They taught us all that wire was wire, and if it measured good it was good. Looking around today I see just how much harm these ideas are doing even now. 

So sad to say in the long run it was a very mixed bag.