1980’s hotel curtains sound better than anything made today.
That's just because that's all you are used to hearing. If you heard 1970's curtains you'd realize what crap all other curtains are.
Stereophile and the love of hotel decor
I often appreciate the Stereophile review of industry shows but one thing that always bothers me is the choice of images. They often lead with a full-system image which is usually 80% hotel curtains and rugs. That is, there's a speaker in the left, the system in the middle and another speaker on the right. That's fine but if you look at the image as a whole, the area of the image that is covered by gear is about 20% or less. The rest is invariably 1980's hotel curtains and rugs.
Once you see it that way there’s no going back, your eyes see the curtains and rugs forever.
I really wish they’d focus on more interesting close-ups or even montages.
Showing 8 responses by erik_squires
@mahgister Oh, I never bother reading about sound quality from the text. :) I am however interested in the new gear, pricing and industry news though. |
I agree with the idea that a sense of scale is important, but I’d trade sexy for scale, and you can usually get that from a single speaker shot. Take a look at the picture I took above for instance. Nothing in the room gives any sense of scale at all except perhaps the power strip to the right of the amp. In this case I don't think we can tell much by seeing it all. I'd prefer show coverage to be sexy first, and encyclopedic second honestly. |
Here is a perfect recent example. Two speakers, gear in the middle. If we cover up the gear, 80% of this image is the hotel room. Even if you wanted to have speaker to speaker coverage, what point is there in including so much carpet and window in this shot?
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PS - Also, I am not trying to complain about how audiogoners decide to decorate their homes. If 1970's faux wall paneling goes well with your 1990's black oak speakers and your Technics stack, more power to you. I'm just saying I wish Stereophile pictures would focus on the gear and less on the hotel room. |
Yeah, I am bored. Also, I was trying to focus on the surface area that the hotel decor takes up when you try to photograph an entire system. When your picture composition is like this:
Speaker<----------->Electronics<----------->Speaker
Invariably your picture has more of the room than the gear, by a lot. Like 80% of the image is the room and 20% is the gear. That is what I meant by saying you can't unsee it. Not the hideous curtains but the total waste of image space. As Robert Cappa said, "If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough." |
