Audiphile Press: Am I jaded, experienced, or has it declined?


I remember Audio, Stereophile and TAS as an older teen getting me excited about music reproduction and technology. Getting out to listen to speakers and find gear I could afford to take me to music Nirvana.

I still like the gear, still like talking about it, comparing tech, sharing experiences and advice, but I can’t remember the last time I really thought "wow, that’s good writing!"

How about you?

Has too much press devolved to covering only the most expensive gear?  Do we lack better international gear coverage?  Does it all look like it could be easily written by an AI chat bot?

erik_squires

After 5 years back into the hobby I decided not to renew my subscriptions

when the expired. TAS and Stereophile are much too parochial. They are

also forced to extoll the advertised brands and are really the last place to find

out what is new in the audio world. The British rags are done a little better.

I mainly read reviews now to see what music they use, and sometimes it is music I like to be added to my library.

like Jeff said, European press is better, so I always pick up magazine when I travel.

Thanks so much for the ChatGPT responses; those are actually entertaining.

The fact is that all print media is in its sunset (even if it only published as a PDF), and I would say that a lot of discussion about audio has moved to YouTube and online forums like this one, which allows the general public to be a larger part of the discussion.

With the rise of vinyl, people are caring about how they listen to music, and most of them are less than 30, which means there is a market for an online publication which reviews $500 turntables, not $5,000 cables.  On online publication which focuses on that market would seem to be a good idea, or maybe somebody is already doing it and I just don't know about it.

P.S. When I want to read someone who really knows how to put a sentence together, I turn to Raymond Chandler.

As some other have said, I really enjoyed Stereophile back in the day. I drifted away from audio as a hobby for a few years but after retirement, I seriously got back in. Initially I subscribed to The Absolute Sound. It seemed they reviewed mostly very expensive gear and I rarely read the reviews but instead looked at what  the gear was selling for. I let me subscription to Absolute Sound go and went with Stereophile. I only glance through each edition and rarely read any reviews. They also tend to review high dollar gear. Not sure I will renew my subscription with them. 

I should have added that since I am throughly pleased with my current system, I am not looking for new gear. The last thing I changed was my turntable about a year ago. At 74, I can probably enjoy what I have for the rest of my like. Without going into specifics, it is mostly McIntosh with a VPI turntable. I am not into streaming.