The point of the article I believe that to many are automatically drawn to speakers that say or they are told have a flat response And this is not a position I have ever espoused. I mean, I know this is what I like, but why should that influence your buying choices? Also, Stereophile has promoted several brands as "reference" or "neutral" speakers when they clearly and audibly were not. Don't try to sell me "neutral" speakers as the epitome of desirability one moment, then complain about this too. Not enough just listen to the speakers and find out they enjoy them. I think that is in fact how you should buy loudspeakers. My issues with the article was not that reviewers liked non-neutral speakers, but that when speaker measurements varied egregiously from good design patterns they fail to bridge the gap between their measurements and observations. Best, E |
Erik
I agree with you. The point of the article I believe that to many are automatically drawn to speakers that say or they are told have a flat response. Not enough just listen to the speakers and find out they enjoy them. Flat response is great in an anechoic chamber our out doors on the patio....
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Regression to the mean flavor people like... = $12 Pinot
no thanks.... |
There should be hundreds of comments on this post. Where the heck is everyone lambasting this pompous magazine |
What really incensed me about this article is that they want to wear the mantle of knowing what good speaker design is by invoking Toole and others, but past articles clearly show they have no clue. A great example of this was the Crystal Minissimo diamond. I was so angry I wrote a blog post about it: https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2016/09/stereophile-slanders-crystal-cable.htmlThe speaker was deliberately designed for close to wall placement. The measurements show it lacks a baffle step compensation, EXACTLY the way you design a speaker for wall/bookshelf placement. This yields a neutral speaker with elevated sensitivity than youd' get otherwise. JA measures all this, writes a half page review, where he notes he could not place the speakers as designed, and then complains they have a deliberately "tailored" treble. Especially since JA has a penchant for a specific non-neutral treble curve. Basically everything in this article is proven false. Not only do they not know what a good speaker is, nor do they take the intentions of the speaker designer to heart while listening. It is very hard not to read this article is a disingenuous attempt to cover their lack of either knowledge or impartiality. Pick all that apply. |
Well boohoo writers should be held accountable for their statements and claims. Bias and BS vs Truth. People should be informed and challenge these writers who are slanted towards those companies and praise equipment they shouldnt be |
The moon landing WAS faked. |
It’s best to learn as much as you can about products. In the same issue they review some speakers Volti Razz. The reviewer waxes poetically while JA measures a ridiculously designed speaker whose FR looks like a drawing of the Rocky Mountains. In usual fashion JA tries to make the best of the situation talking about toe in and tube amps instead of letting the measurements speak for themselves. I agree with the OP a number of years ago I would have no idea what the graphs were showing me, get informed. |
Reviews are most useful to me when I have another review or two of the exact same product, and when all reviewers strive to both be critical of what they actually hear while disclosing their own perspective and uses of the gear. The worst situation for me is when there is a stampede among reviewers to praise new gear, all without finding one single drawback. |
Kish, lots of people don’t want the responsibility of their own decisions. If they believe they chose poorly, some will try to place all blame at everyone’s feet other than their own. I see it in my business as well. Some take issue with reviews on products they, nor most of us, could never afford to own. For some it’s because of personal biases for, or against particular products, and we see examples of this behavior here in this forum. There are many who, rather than have a proper conversation of products, feel the need to demean others who do not see their points of view. Rather than be respectful of others ideas, and choices, some feel the need to put their opinions out there as the end of the story, and anything else is fiction. Those discussions aren’t so much a conversation as much as they are preachings. |
I have been receiving stereophile magazine since the early 80s when they were the size of a Reader's Digest that was back in the day when they actually criticized expensive products that did not measure up so here I was read it an article about a $600,000 pair of magicals and at the end of the article it says you might want to buy a couple of subwoofers to go along with it ,you got to be kidding me. The article said that these were some of the greatest speakers out there and I'm thinking to myself for $600,000 it should wash my car and do the dishes for me to hear them say that I might need to buy some subwoofers I I don't know if I'm from another planet or what that kind of money that's speaker better do everything
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They want us to believe everything they say ,without questions, I guess. |
What an interesting thread. In some posts, so much ill will ascribed to Stereophile (corporate marketing shills!), without much reflection on why someone may read an article (is it for a science-based evaluation? is it mere adult entertainment? is it a mix of hobby reading and looking for casual inspiration where to consider an upgrade?) or even more fundamentally what the magazine purports to do, or even what its realistic limits may be.
Even when Stereophile finishes with something like a "highly recommended" in the conclusion, I don’t believe they have ever written "buy this without doing your own listening, trust us!"... which of course would be folly.
The personal responsibility to understand your own preferences, and do the work to do your own listening, will never go away. No Stereophile article, ASR review, or forum post eliminates that. But they can certainly inspire in terms of directions where to look.
Hopefully one gets an understanding relatively early if one is one of those ’kooks’ (who may like low powered horns, tube DACs, or other non-traditional measuring things) or can more safely rely on what a measurement/ASR review say, and thus which source is a more reliable indicator of where they will find bliss.
At the end of the day, we all have our own objective function in this hobby (the best ’measured’ sound?, what was in the mastering studio?, gear that looks nice on a rack?, gear that sounds pretty good but is physically small?, what emotionally transports us to a live venue?), but let’s be humble in assuming that our objective function has to be the same as the next persons – and thus that a single magazine (or forum, or other review website) could claim to solve that. |
Cd, I bet you think the moon landing was faked also, lol |
Essentially, when opinions, statements, or beliefs are stated that seem in conflict with a limited, linear world view, anxiety, trepidation, and at times, aggressive hostility results. |
i guess i shouldn't of bought my 100 lb.Speakers |
Every audio journalist's dilemma must be whether to tell the truth, or to 'wriggle around' in the hope of being entertaining whilst not getting slapped by the advertising department. Sometimes they might even manage to do all three, but alas not every product can be the outstanding one. If Austin does decide to go further and dispense altogether with those pesky technical measurements, which can only get in the way of good fiction writing, then he could also risk sinking the ship. I've no doubt that those measurements are the main, perhaps even only reason why many still subscribe. It would no doubt be a big gamble, but then again the magazine's founder J. Gordon Holt was not averse to taking a few risks himself. However, as Austin points out, these are different times, and Holt's philosophy of subjectivism is under increasing pressure now. On the other hand, "Holt's Law," the theory that the better the recording, the worse the musical performance—and vice versa, sadly still seems relevant today. We all know Stereophile only exists for marketing purposes, pushing products to potential buyers, thus keeping dealers and manufacturers happy. But marketing demands readers. Lots of them. Austin's predecessor, John Atkinson was more like an oiled up wrestler, slippery enough to ever avoid being pinned down or forced to submit in the face of hard evidence or fact. Deception by omission and obfuscation was simply a way of life for him. It now seems as if Austin, like his predecessor, also has no intention to protect, inform, or steer customers away from bad products or manufacturers. By his own words, the opposite is more likely in fact. Good work Jim. But hey, you don't need to get too despondent, there is a way out here. It's rather simple too. Instead of all this schizophrenic contortion trying to please incompatible demands, why not just drop the act and admit to all and sundry that your magazine is very little more than a work of pure fiction? That way you won't hurt any newbs, and since most of the long timers already know, you might even sleep easier. https://www.stereophile.com/content/hoisted-your-own-petard |
I think you're safe as far as being informed, Erik. "Its" is the word you were looking for in your thread title. |
I was lucky with my speakers...
Tannoy dual gold for 40 years...(400 canadian dollars in 1975)
Now for the last 5 years, Mission cyrus 781....( 50 dollars bought used)...
They are very different but the 2 are musical, with more power to fill the house with the Tannoy and a very subtle equilibrium with the Mission... I cannot compare them because they were in vastly different rooms, and connected to very different audio system... but i loved the two dearly and loved the Cyrus, the best Mission ever create...
British rules! |
jpwarren58,
For normal people yes, but we’re audiophiles.
We don’t mind paying exorbitant prices for those loudspeakers that will be guaranteed to induce headaches.
There is a belief that beyond a certain price loudspeakers can start to sound very odd.
In my experience, large expensive loudspeakers tend to impress with huge dynamics and scale (Avantgarde Trio XDs!), but sometimes at the expense of a homogeneous sound.
Even worse, some of them can have what appears to be serious treble/sibilance issues.
You only have to look at the numbers of bad reports regarding some of the Magico and Wilson models.
Everything suggests that they must be excellent transducers, (years of R&D and cost no object materials) yet they seem do something that some folks cannot stand.
Assuming that those people are voicing genuine concerns, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t, either those speakers are doing something seriously wrong, or it may be they are simply too revealing in laying 'poor' recordings to waste (by poor recordings we mean 95% of released output between 1950 and the present).
More to the point perhaps, recordings that were made using entirely different loudspeakers to the ones being played back on.
Some people believe that you need similar speakers for playback as to the ones that were used in the original recording.
Not an option for most of us when we look at all the different loudspeakers used for monitoring in different studios around the world.
You only have to think how different vintage Tannoy studio monitors sound to vintage JBL studio monitors to realise the problem of audio's notorious circle of confusion.
Hence the need to find an acceptable compromise between the hardware and the software.
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If only there was a Consumer Reports for high end audio equipment. Would at least insure countless flame wars. My bet would be the differences would be negligible. |
It's not least, indeed predominantly due to Art Dudley's fondness of the "incalculable number of iconoclasts, heretics, mavericks, nonconformists, lone wolves, enfants terrible, and hidebound kooks" that Stereophile has seen some degree of real diversity spread these latest years - one so keenly advocated by now editor-in-chief Jim Austin - that would include a limited selection of high sensitivity speakers (by all accounts mostly favored by the "passionate outliers"), without which Mr. Austin's claim would've seemed quite hollow. I still find it is, though, because former editor-in-chief John Atkinson saw to it with his, to my mind, rigid adherence to the low to moderate sensitivity direct radiating speaker dogma - no doubt fueled and aided by his measurements - that horn(/-hybrid) speakers were mostly expelled from any serious consideration in their review slate. With Mr. Dudley now sadly having departed our earthly realm it remains to be seen whether the "hidebound kooks" will have a new ambassador to voice their cause over at the 'Phile. I doubt it.
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:)
Here we enter philosophy....
brain on one side and brain on the other side : one consciousness....
« Indeed you have a brain my dear, but you need consciousness... » -Groucho Marx |
speakers+ room + ears/ brain = one Multiplying both side by variable “brain”: speakers + room + ears = brain A brain is a room with speakers and ears? ;) |
Measurements of speakers is for the design increase effectiveness and optimal quality of the design...
The measurements cannot reveal how ultimately the speakers will sound, wrongly, partially, or correctly embedded...Or throw in a corner without any treatment of any kind in the 3 embeddings nor any controls?
I will not even speak of different hearings and tastes and experiences....
Is it too difficult to figure it out?
:)
speakers+ room + ears/ brain = one
Measurements divide the speakers from the room.... Other sets of measurements will divide the speakers+room from the ears/ brain....
No measurement can explain or replace the lived experience , too much non-mearurable parameters.... |
There's an example in the same issue provided in the link. This months speaker review of the Volti Razz which JA measurements show it kind of sucks but the subjective review says it's a fairly nice sounding speaker with tube amps. The speaker builder gets in on the comments moaning how measurements don't matter he makes them to sound good not measure good and that's what he's sticking with. |
kinds of speakers out there and theres no single design that is favored overwhelmingly.
I could never come around to speakers with high efficency, designed for SET amplification.
I am a devotee of low efficiency speakers which a nice push pull can deliver to respond.
also i could never come around to any speaker witha weight more than 100 lbs,,would not even make it a consideration.
Also I am favored towrads a midtweeter. vs a super tweeter.
Lastly I am a devotee of the MTM design,,although I do seea SEAS 2 way thats seems very convincing,, but next to my MTM Thors,,might be a let down.
So although there are many designs, ,, it is up to us to research and figure outa plan as to whaich works best for our individual preferences. |
@ cdamiller
The only convincing factor is what you hear..
Yes very true,, But the old stereo shops offering speakers X,Y,Z are now a thing of the past,
We are left to hopev for honest opinions from Audiogonners and Sterophile to leda us in the right direction,,and not lead us astray,,,((tongeincheeck)))
I make uploads on YT, this way folks at least get a inkiling of how each of my components sound.
Sure the micing is shabby (can 't afford a high tech mic right now,,all my money has been blown in modifications)), YT sound compressed,,but you at least geta hint of how my speakers sound. via my components.
There is no other YT vid showing the Seaws Thor.. So if someone has a interest in the Thors,,he can at least get a hint of what to expect..
I have uploaded about 5 audiophile vids,,and plan to make another 20+ more over the commming 12 months,,, as i document all my new upgrades, tweeks, mods.
While others disclaim that a YT vid has any ligeit value as to determing how a component/mod sounds,,I havea ability to translate what i hear,,and get a inkling of yea/nay vote on the component/mod.
Thing is one needs experience, long term and a instinct at determing what one is hearing viaYT upload format...
. |
Oh, sorry, my mistake. Dr Floyd Toole, after years of experiments in anechoic chambers is clearly wrong, kenjit bicycle-enthusiast and perhaps of Bromley is clearly right. |
@twoleftears bad example. Dr Tooles theory is wrong. The truth is that there are all kinds of speakers out there and theres no single design that is favored overwhelmingly.
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If Toole were to test a group of fruit-eaters, durian would probably score very low--i.e. it would be rated as far away from the "standard" of good or acceptable flavor. Yet a few people really enjoy it. I get what Stereophile appears to be saying, but it does sound a bit desperate. If a given speaker deviates significantly from a "classical standard", I want to know a bit more than just that the designer is an industry maverick. |
By the way embedding the speakers is the more complex task ,even more complex than adressing the noise floor of the electrcal grid of the house, or the mechanical resonance of the audio parts...
why?
Because the speakers dont exist apart from the room, and apart from the ears....
Speakers+ room + ears = one not 3 elements...
It is also the more rewarding part in S.Q. results at the end....
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Thanks hilde45....
I am astonished after my 2 years own journey to make Hi-Fi my own experience, to learn that most people have no idea how....
Reviewers sells, consumers buy.....
But how to create a Hi-Fi experience is never adress even here, only by small pieces, never facing the real fundamental problem: How to embed an audio system?
The audio community is divided in subjectivist, objectivist, sellers, consumers, engineers, regular folks and all in between these categories...
No consensus at all...
But i will repat myself, it is simple: the fundamental audio problem, after creating a new electronic design, is how to embed it....
Is it not clear like day?
:)
This was the problem i has to solve for myself in the last 2 years without which i will be till my death in the without end upgrade race to create my hi-fi experience...
It is way less costly to rightfully embed an already good system, than buying other so called better pieces to solve the puzzle....
is it not true? |
teo_audio1,518 posts07-17-2020 9:53amSome people, due to a lack of imagination, which is tied to a lack of cognitive speed or range, tend to drift into diktats, papal bulls and rule books.
As they can’t do the range, flavors, nor the risk ---of the intelligence shuffle.
That thing which comes to the forefront, when some are out of their range. The animal thing of knowing how safe they are.
The body, the emotions, the hindbrain... comes to the forefront, it forces the mind to retreat, when it can’t intellectually reach a thing. Danger!
So they get ’factual’, and ’linear’ and ’law-book’ oriented. They consult the biblical texts and lawbooks of their area of trade or ’expertise’, as they don’t have the range to be in the field, inventing or perusing the living moving always changing -edge of it all.
Oh yes. they, generally speaking -absolutely HATE the people who can.
They hate them for minimal sin (of all the sins of the intelligent and capable) where they can’t cognate the essence of what intelligence does or how it moves. They can’t decipher it and it’s not in the book.
Intelligence, much to it’s chagrin, to keep the entire thing moving or flowing.... is forced to be kind, in return, seemingly...forever. The endless beatings from the lack of intelligence. It’s called an act of humanity.
Some days, it wears thin.
I love you man. |
I was relieved to read the opening column of the latest stereophile. There is a ...group of Dr toole followers that do believe because he wrote the book and contracts to HK that anything other than Revel is a complete wast of time and money.
Those that need to believe, god bless ya'll.
First how boring would hifi be if we only had Dr Toole designs to choose from.
My experience doesn't jive with his and designing speakers with his requirements puts unnecessary requirements on partnering components reducing odds for successful implementation.huh, I mean the speakers can sound good, but often don't.
Most of us agree measurements aren't complete because we can find speakers that measure quite similar, but sound very different. Dr Toole offers his science as to why, science is theory. |
@mahgister +1 on all you wrote. Especially: I cannot imagine that an audio system has a sound of his own, when it is "off" in the box in the warehouse by virtue of the different measures of his components... He must be out of the audio laboratory and "on" and then in a particular different electrical grid, in a different particular acoustical room, in a different particular resonant vibrations states of his own treated or not treated against that....Then it has a particular "sound" for one pair of ears not the same for others one.... When I’ve gotten good advice, it’s usually come in the form of nudges, hints, tips. They’re always vague because they need to acknowledge the difference in our perspectives and experiences; but they are offered because of there *are* similarities we often discover. The most common ending I see in audio posts is: YMMV, and the key word in that acronym is "may." |
@cdamiller5
"Just get what sounds good to you" was how I used to approach audio, food, film, etc. It’s such a simple, seemingly irrefutable bit of common sense.
I’ve given up that bit of "common sense" because I have found it partially false.
I have not given up following my own instincts and tastes, but people able to hear more (or differently) than me have pointed out what I was missing.
They were friends and sometimes dealers. In all cases that mattered, they helped me discover something I couldn’t experience before but now was empowered to. That’s what good critics (amateur or professional) do — they teach you how to listen (taste, see, think) differently. And in my own case, I’d say they *improved* my listening.
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Some people, due to a lack of imagination, which is tied to a lack of cognitive speed or range, tend to drift into diktats, papal bulls and rule books.
As they can’t do the range, flavors, nor the risk ---of the intelligence shuffle.
That thing which comes to the forefront, when some are out of their range. The animal thing of knowing how safe they are.
The body, the emotions, the hindbrain... comes to the forefront, it forces the mind to retreat, when it can’t intellectually reach a thing. Danger!
So they get ’factual’, and ’linear’ and ’law-book’ oriented. They consult the biblical texts and lawbooks of their area of trade or ’expertise’, as they don’t have the range to be in the field, inventing or perusing the living moving always changing -edge of it all.
Oh yes. they, generally speaking -absolutely HATE the people who can.
They hate them for minimal sin (of all the sins of the intelligent and capable) where they can’t cognate the essence of what intelligence does or how it moves. They can’t decipher it and it’s not in the book.
Intelligence, much to it’s chagrin, to keep the entire thing moving or flowing.... is forced to be kind, in return, seemingly...forever. The endless beatings from the lack of intelligence. It’s called an act of humanity.
Some days, it wears thin.
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Stereophile are forever beholden to the churn and hype of products-for-sale. They exist to help companies sell new stuff, and while they have developed standards based on subjective listening experience and engineering know how, they can never abandon their core mission: to celebrate or denigrate somehow, the “consumability” of the new thing for sale.
People say it all the time: namely, that the improvements made in various elements of an audio system are either imaginary or incremental. Given all the equipment which has been produced so far, if there was never any more “progress” and all we could lay our hands on was the existing range of options, surely there would be an adequate number of combinations to keep our quest for the absolute sound alive and well until the sun burns out. I like this post... I cannot imagine that any piece of gear will sound like his measurements say they will....Sound is hearing experience... I cannot imagine that an audio system has a sound of his own, when it is "off" in the box in the warehouse by virtue of the different measures of his components... He must be out of the audio laboratory and "on" and then in a particular different electrical grid, in a different particular acoustical room, in a different particular resonant vibrations states of his own treated or not treated against that....Then it has a particular "sound" for one pair of ears not the same for others one.... I cannot imagine that a reviewer or a seller or any manufacturer, will oblige himself and will do a duty to reveal these inconvenient truths (for the sale pitch) that an audio system will sound vastly different in relation to the way these embeddings would or would not be adressed before you bought his 10,000 dollars amplifier or dac? Will you be pleased to learn that day that his perfect engineering gear is not enough by themself to create Hi-Fi experience? Asking the question is answering it.... :) Reviewers and manufacturers are, willing or not, sellers.... They cannot insist on the truth of their business not because they are liars, they are mostly not, but because an audio system S.Q. exist only in a precise particular state in a particular environment, for specific ears...And they must promote the only thing and facts they know of: the alleged superiority of their design in the audio laboratory or for their own taste, room, house, experiences, etc... Is it not? The key problem in audio is never adressed in magazine and if it is, they cannot focus on that key problem, because they must sells the piece of gear like a definitive solution...They must put the key problem under the rug so to speak.... The key problem is complex and triple problems that no single piece of gear can solve on his own ... :) The key problem is how to embed, mechanically, electrically and acousatically an audio system, in a way that his sound would be optimal? Is it not evident? |
Buy what you like hearing. Measurements are measurements. Ratings are ratings. Neither of them are a convincing factor. The only convincing factor is what you hear...
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+1 Millercarbon
I gave up on that post and greatly appreciate your summary!
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John's speaker measurements often confirm artifacts that the reviewer had heard No it doesn't. There is no connection between what the reviewer hears and their measurements. The ONLY way to assess a speaker is for me to hear them. Experience has taught me that the reviews are wrong and i am right. i hear artifacts that NO measurements can reveal and few other audiophiles hear. I am supreme. |
One thing which differentiates audio equipment magazine reviews from those reviewers of other cultural products— painting, music, film, dance, etc. — is that audio equipment is only partially an expressive artifact. It is necessarily instrumental to its purpose; in short, it is not trying to communicate something meaningful in the same vein as those other cultural products are.
Because of the above fact, magazines like Stereophile are forever beholden to the churn and hype of products-for-sale. They exist to help companies sell new stuff, and while they have developed standards based on subjective listening experience and engineering know how, they can never abandon their core mission: to celebrate or denigrate somehow, the “consumability” of the new thing for sale.
People say it all the time: namely, that the improvements made in various elements of an audio system are either imaginary or incremental. Given all the equipment which has been produced so far, if there was never any more “progress” and all we could lay our hands on was the existing range of options, surely there would be an adequate number of combinations to keep our quest for the absolute sound alive and well until the sun burns out.
The gist of my point is simply that there’s a major difference about the kind of “criticism” done by audio reviewers from those in other areas (who are *not* just trying to stuff a concert hall or a rodeo with easy marks) trying to interpret and convey the meaning of a new work of art. I make this point explicit here not because I think folks are unaware of it, but because I suspect this aspect is playing a role, somehow, in the ongoing discussion. |
We are kidding ourselves if we think this forum is mainly fact. Facts are things that proven or else are universally acknowledge to be true by everyone apart from the mad. Facts are hard to come by. This forum is about 90% opinion and 10% fact. Stereophile contains much the same mix, but their measurements are as factual as it gets. Long may that last!
Four cheers for John Atkinson. I have followed him since he started on Hi-Fi News & Record Review here in the UK in the early 1970s. He improved HFNRR and stood out as an innovator with his feet firmly on the ground. Stereophile is hugely better for his 30something years leadership. Jim is finding him a hard act to follow. Jim's editorial stance is quite a bit different from John's even though he says the mag won't change.
Those who question the benefit of measurements should note John's speaker measurements often confirm artifacts that the reviewer had heard (before he saw the measurements). But sometimes an appararently glaring fault in a speaker is not noticed at all by the listening reviewer. And that is not always because the reviewer might adore single-ended triode amps and horn speakers. |
To revisit audiokinesis' post for a moment...
"1. Up to this point, the model has been tested in one listening room.
(....and likely with the same equipment parameters, cables, source, etc.)
"2. The model doesn’t include variables that account for nonlinear distortion (and to a lesser extent, perceived spatial attributes).
("....we just listened with the same ears and stuff, took notes, and attempted to make specific judgements on what we perceived."...)
"3. The model is limited to the specific types of loudspeakers in our sample of 70."
(...which would all be considered 'vintage' by now....one would hope such has improved, even if repeated with 70 'specific current versions'....)
...and it's generally accepted that no speaker pair in a different room, driven by 'X' equipment and accoutrement', listened to by different ears coupled to a different wetware bias will Ever sound the same.
All Stereophile publishes is a humble opinion that one pays for....or not.
"Seas is the gold standard..." For you...perhaps shared by others....or not.
Perfection is a myth. One can pursue it, but like the gold @ rainbows' end, a dream. Some feel they've attained it, some just revel in the pursuit.
One hopes you enjoy the music that drives your vehicle, be it 'Toyota' or 'Ferrari'. Otherwise, this begins another forum that spans pages of chatter proving nothing except persistence to no real end.
I'm done, and out.
Have 'fun'....cheers, J
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I think I've mentioned this in a post somewhere in the semi-distant past, but I find Stereophile vastly more informative, entertaining and readable than it was several years previously. Sure, I use the magazine to glean info about the hobby and to get tips on where to next spend my inexhaustible pile of audio-oriented cash (in case you don't get it I'm just kidding here), but I mostly read the mag because I just enjoy it. I don't get huffy when an opinion doesn't go my way. ("Ugh! Those tuttis are too fruity!") I enjoy a touch of hyperbole. It adds energy and verve. The hobby is a playground for folks like me, i.e., folks who just like music. I'd rather be spending my money here than playing the tables in Vegas.
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rpeluso,
Why should you be remorseful? It's not your fault. |
The measurements will continue under the new editor.
We will take the reviewers like Herb at their word.
And then each of us draws his own conclusions.
I liken it to adult entertainment - don't ask for training wheels, because then you rob yourself of much of the pleasure.
As to those who cite the ASR website and its measurements-above-and-beyond-all-other-criteria credo as a corrective to Stereophile's modus operandi, the sound quality profiles of the gear ASR measures are 1 to 2 sentence afterthoughts... and you think that is a better approach to informing potential buyers of how a particular product might actually SOUND in their systems?
Respectfully, I think not. |
I was, and remain, remorseful, that John A stepped down and this person took on the role.
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I believe standards are real,, but I will not mention any product names.
SEAS is The Gold Standard.
Scan Speak and SB are excellent,
but I will not mention any product names.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sghncnGkFAo |
