Anthony (Tony) Cordesman has passed away

I will miss AHC. His ears seemed very similar to mine, though his budget was larger.

I found his email decades ago and we exchanged brief messages every 10 years or so. His advice was always sterling.

A favorite comment by AHC, from one of his reviews:

When it comes to actual recordings, I have not yet heard any reason to even go as high as 192kHz. Some of my colleagues disagree, but I have so far found rates above 96kHz/24 bits to be a waste of money. I do buy the 96kHz/24-bit version of the music I download or stream for safety’s sake, but most of the time, a good 16-bit/44.1kHz version of the same mastering of a recordings will sound exactly the same. One has to be very careful in paying what usually is nearly twice as much for the 96kHz/24-bit when there is no way to hear whether there is any difference, particularly with a modern DAC with really good filtering. Oddly enough, the better your DAC, the less likely you are to hear any difference.

Loved his audio reviewing work.  Not nearly as big a fan of his other work as a national and global security analyst.  I wrote to him once because I took issue with something he had written regarding geopolitics, mentioning that I was a big fan of his audio reviews.  He never replied.  Still, he will be missed.  RIP, Anthony.

I read, and trusted, Anthony's reviews for the past 40 years. He had a very good ear and a true talent for putting into words what he heard. His insights will be missed, and the audiophile world is a little murkier with his passing.

AHC pulled the wool over my eyes with his praise of Adcom electronics in the 80’s. At around 19 years old and having just entered HEA with a JVC Y-5F/Ortofon MC 10/ Ohm Walsh 2 speakers/Kimber cables with a Toshiba SA-750. I felt my receiver was my weak link? Purchased an Adcom stack 545 amp 555 pre and tuner. Needless to say other then the increase in power the Amp/Pre were only marginally superior to the Toshiba receiver. Less then a year later I turned in my Adcom power/pre for an Amber Series 70/FF-17 preamp and later Magnepan SMGa’s that provided several levels of improvement. My point is be careful with so-called experts. AHC made a fortune for Adcom and could have been generously compensated? FWIW Steven W. Watkinson was my favorite reviewer in my formative HEA days.

I thought the article was a joke until the last paragraphs.  I remember reading his op-ed's in the newspapers and his name from AS.  Trying to evaluate and figure out audio products and world politics surely share the difficulty of simultaneously accurate subjectivity and objectivity.