November 2014 Stereophile Disappointment

I gave up on Stereophile (and several other audio mags) years ago. Once you realize their job is, like someone here has said, to make you doubt your current gear and buy The Next Big Thing, then you might start to get happy with your system.

It occurred to me that I had to be generally content with a system at some point, so cancelled all of my subs and got off the endless upgrade merry-go-round. I'm better off for it.

Interesting running argument that Fremer (who I don't trust as far as I could throw him) had with Art Salvatore here: http://www.high-endaudio.com/reviewers.html

...as well as his insights into mags/reviewers at Stereophile, TAS, etc.:

"There is even a Reviewing the 'Reviewers' section. One important file in it...A focus on John Atkinson's dubious editorial decisions, and Stereophile's blatant "commercialization", over the last 25+ years. These facts and events are detailed, documented and seriously questioned.

Using their own written words, Atkinson and other "reviewers" are unmasked and exposed in a manner unlike anything else ever seen in print, the Internet or otherwise. The latest column discloses yet another shameful chapter in Stereophile's recent history, and closes a sad story that began back in November 1995: Wes Phillips - The "Intrepid" Audio Reviewer."
 
Hi Fi News and RR

Rankings - in reverse order:
3.) TAS. I keep picking up cheap subs at shows - but the pattern has been -after a year of reading it I can't find anything except the music reviews worth bothering with and don't renew. probably done this 3 or 4 times over the years.
2.) Stereophile. From JGH days - they have to some degree tried to figure out why they heard what they hear.After nearly fifty years of fiddlin around with this stuff (even got paid to do it for a couple of decades) - it's clear to me that we often aren't measuring the right aspects of equipment in many cases.Q -what are the "right" measurements ?
3.) I drive 25 miles each way once a month to pick up Hi Fi News and Record Review. Like stereophile they listen and test/measure.Excellent music reviews ,ground breaking evaluation of currently available digital downloads and a refreshing lack of group think/party line amongst their writters. Been readin this mag off and on for 35 years or so -under Paul Miller's editorial direction they have resumed being the best hi fi magazine in the English language.
And like a lot of folks I'm simply not intersted in high end audio equipment -plain ol' hi fi's plenty good enough for me.
 
I think you may want to take another look at your rankings. ;)

Otherwise, great post, and one I strongly agree with.
 
A reminder to folks, again please read the forum rules before posting.

For instance:

3. Discussion should be specific to a particular article. General comments on audio gear and philosophy are prohibited. This includes talk of industry conspiracy theory, proclamations of snake oil, collusion of reviewers and advertisers, the price of gear, and other inflammatory remarks that lead the discussion away from the specific article being discussed.
 
I started out reading Stereo Review when I was younger (and didn't know any better) and often read Audio as well. I preferred SR but my foundation was wrong. Now, I used to read Stereophile but now read only TAS. I find Stereophile too "preachy" and any audio mag that finds time and space for anything other than audio is out to lunch (ie: geopolitical commentary, politics, philosophy etc) as if any of this adds any more validity to the audio comments. The fact Stereophile publishes specs from tests is nice, but it adds cost to the mag. TAS, I find, a easier read, more intelligible, and they get to the heart of the matter, how it sounds. But I do find them preachy as well, and their addiction to the highest end is repugnant. Moreover, they respond by saying "if we don't report on it, whom will?". Well, I myself am finding the continual issue focus reviews of $100K speakers, amps et al disconnecting. Who is buying this? You? Certainly not me. Nor do I ever see myself doing so. TAS seems to favour certain manufacturers more than others, Stereophile does not. Although there is a definite focus in TAS on digital audio/computer sourced music and Stereophile is definitely in the LP/analog camp with its resident priest, Micheal Fremer. He writes well, but not being a LP fan I find his continued pontification of its superiority nauseating. Originally I could see it as an opinion but it clearly is not.

I can't help but thinking what is either mag doing to create new converts, or keep the ones it has. How does one reach the newest audience when the idea of a magazine, or any recorded medium, for that matter, is quaint at best. Both are talking to people ALREADY audiophiles, but to someone trying to get in it is akin to reading Omni with no science background. And neither mag addresses the real elephant in the room: pricing. No one takes the manufacturers to task on the cost of the gear. Personally, I believe pricing is the number one reason audio will fade out. Of the best out there, none is under $100k. Retarded. It is getting harder to find audio shops, entry level gear and going into a store filled with "attitude rich" people turn off most, especially the uninitiated whom are limited in knowledge and questions. Not very rosy picture, I agree, but that is how I see it and the magazines are in a crucial position to do more and none are taking the bull by the horns and making a stand to ensure audio's future. So long as they get limited access to the TOTL gear for free, it seems that is all that matters. Every month a new "benchmark" is made. I suppose you can tell I am not as enthusiastic about mags as I once was. Now, I just listen.
 
We're supposed to stick to particular articles, as the OP did, but this discussion has veered off into the general. I'm hoping to turn it back with this post, by pointing out some history, which most folks (luckily) are too young to have lived through, and some new behavioral theory.

In the young days of audio, 1950s, 60s and even the 70s, measuring gear was difficult, and unreliable due to lack of standards. Lots of gear was produced that measured terribly. Lots of gear didn't meet its maker's specs, or even come close. Some of it sounded bad, and some sounded good anyway.

The objectivist mags arose to combat this problem. Their first goal was to measure, to provide real specs. They correctly felt that their first priority was to force mfrs to publish real numbers. During this time, the industry struggled to agree on measurements. Even something as simple as amp power could be stated as IHF, or RMS, or peak, or any given mfrs' own standard. There was no obvious way to discuss how things sounded, but as much gear that measured badly also sounded bad, it was valid to focus on measurements.

Harry Pearson and J. Gordon Holt started with the luxury of decent measurements, and focused on the fact that measurements didn't appear to fully correlate with SQ. The debate over if and why this is true still rages, but it's interesting to note that most industry professionals simply accept that once you get the measurements within acceptable range, listening tests are crucial in the design process.

Ken Kantor brought up in an interview that we haven't yet defined the goal. Oversimplified, is the goal to have the playback itself measure like the original, or is it to create a human perception of being like the original? Is it the case that certain types of distortion of the original cause humans to perceive the playback as being more like the original? There's little work on this that's come to the audio public's attention as yet, although our own RichPA has pointed out studies showing that humans are capable of having repeatable preferences even where they cannot reliably tell two things apart. The point is that this whole area of study is still in its infancy, and HP and JGH were applying practical problem-solving years ahead of the behavioral science.

If you start with the idea that it's difficult to define exactly how a system should perform (so you can't really even describe "a perfect copy machine"), and add the idea that the measurements don't always indicate whether the perceived performance will be acceptable or not, then subjective listening tests become valid data points. In fact, rather than double-blind testing for a small number of folks' ability to differentiate, a better data set would be to test large numbers of people on their preferences. That data set is indirectly gathered by sales. The more people have a preference (even though they can't reliably differentiate), the more they buy. The role of a professional reviewer thus becomes to act as a substitute for mass preference testing. To the extent that they accurately describe what they're hearing, a consumer can use the review as a reference, once the consumer gets an idea of how the reviewer's perceptions usually differ from his own. This, of course, is exactly the point Erik was making.

Art Dudley is good at describing what he's hearing, and many people have found their perceptions agree with his, so he's thus a valid data point for those consumers, even if he can't reliably differentiate his preferences, and neither can they. The name-calling could more happily be left out, but I suspect it arises from long-term frustration with folks who haven't read or can't accept that behavioral science has validated the existence of reliable preferences that can't be differentiated.

OK... sorry for the long post!
 
Ken Kantor brought up in an interview that we haven't yet defined the goal. Oversimplified, is the goal to have the playback itself measure like the original, or is it to create a human perception of being like the original? Is it the case that certain types of distortion of the original cause humans to perceive the playback as being more like the original?

That strikes me as Kantor attempting to move the goal posts, leaving quite a bit of room for other reviewers/magazines and mfg's, to say, "Hey!, the new consensus is...well...we're not sure what type of response we're going for now, so just buy this new amp/speaker/cable/source. It sounds more like 'human perception of the original', not so much live..." Or whatever the soup du jour reviewer terms and fave components are that month.

It's a ridiculous assertion in my opinion, dressed up as pseudo-scientific or well-thought-out "expertise" talking. The goal has always been to reproduce what we hear at a live event, which of course can never be done 100% because of recording mediums and playback limitations, and so on.

This yet again shows that the main purpose of audio rags' like TAS & Stereophile for the past few decades is not to accurately inform about gear, but to get you to cast doubt upon your otherwise very good sounding system, so that you constantly spend thinking the next upgrade will get you to audio nirvana.

I think P.T. Barnum would laugh his ass off.
 
...The goal has always been to reproduce what we hear at a live event...

Kantor's point was much more complex than this discussion, and I'm not qualified to explain it, but one of the questions he raised was whether that is really the goal, or whether the goal is perception oriented, or something else altogether. You can call that moving the goal post, but Kantor doesn't write for any audio mag, and is usually considered a rabid objectivist. Alleging that he's trying to justify subjectivism to promote sales is insupportable... and I suspect he'd be offended at the idea, so keep in mind he's an active member here; you're not just typing into the ether. Also keep in mind that generalized attacks on the mags are not allowed in this forum.

That said, let's please stick to the OP's topic, which is a specific article by Art Dudley. In the article, Dudley attacks double-blind testing. Kantor's point merely allows us to begin the process of integrating measurements, double-blind testing and subjective preferences into a single coherent approach to SQ; something that's not been attempted before.
 
It might not have been his intention, or it may have been, but at minimum it sounds like grasping at straws to me. I'd wager that some in the audio press will be more than happy to run with it as I mentioned. I may be wrong, but having seen many years of this kind of thing from them, yes you can call me cynical.
 
...........There's little work on this that's come to the audio public's attention as yet, although our own RichPA has pointed out studies.............

...........The name-calling could more happily be left out, but I suspect it arises from long-term frustration with folks who haven't read or can't accept that behavioral science has validated the existence of reliable preferences that can't be differentiated...........

Can you link to where Rich pointed out these studies? I'd like to check them out, because the way it's worded here sounds kind of oxymoronic.

............The goal has always been to reproduce what we hear at a live event..........

The goal has been fidelity to the source. Once that is achieved, then attention can be focused on the separate issue of the recording process yielding the sound you want.

..........AD wastes 2-1/2 pages setting up and demolishing straw men in an attempt to discredit blind testing. In the process he completely ignores the question of how to compensate for expectation bias in sighted subjective testing............

That question is always ignored.
 
The goal has been fidelity to the source. Once that is achieved, then attention can be focused on the separate issue of the recording process yielding the sound you want.


Not where I come from, if you mean fidelity to the recording source equipment and the media used. I'm talking about fidelity to the original event, whether in a venue or a studio or elsewhere.
 
Kantor's point was much more complex than this discussion, and I'm not qualified to explain it, but one of the questions he raised was whether that is really the goal, or whether the goal is perception oriented, or something else altogether. You can call that moving the goal post, but Kantor doesn't write for any audio mag, and is usually considered an rabid objectivist. Alleging that he's trying to justify subjectivism to promote sales is insupportable... and I suspect he'd be offended at the idea, so keep in mind he's an active member here; you're not just typing into the ether. Also keep in mind that generalized attacks on the mags are not allowed in this forum.

That said, let's please stick to the OP's topic, which is a specific article by Art Dudley. In the article, Dudley attacks double-blind testing. Kantor's point merely allows us to begin the process of integrating measurements, double-blind testing and subjective preferences into a single coherent approach to SQ; something that's not been attempted before.

Agreed. You can call Kantor many things, but a subjectivist he is most certainly not.

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk
 
Not where I come from, if you mean fidelity to the recording source equipment and the media used. I'm talking about fidelity to the original event, whether in a venue or a studio or elsewhere.

The only task that a home stereo system can reasonably be asked to perform is to be faithful to the source, be it record, cd, music file or whatever. Getting the correct sound of the original performance onto the record etc is a job for other equipment and personnel.

If you want a stereo that plays the sound of the original performance when that isn't what is captured in the recording, then you want a stereo that will only occasionally and accidentally be right.

Likely because to an experienced listener, especially one like Dudley, it can be easily dismissed.........

Anyone can easily dismiss anything they don't want to think about. I can see why someone making their living reporting their subjective findings would want to ignore that issue.

If someone showed me credible evidence that the sight part of a sighted listening test made no difference at all, I could easily dismiss it, but I've never had to, because no one has ever shown me such evidence.
 
Anyone can easily dismiss anything they don't want to think about.

If someone showed me credible evidence that the sight part of a sighted listening test made no difference at all, I could easily dismiss it, but I've never had to, because no one has ever shown me such evidence.

So what do you consider to be credible evidence? Another blind test?

What difference exactly do you think the sighted part makes?
 
I never subscribed to Stereophile but, from time to time picked up an issue with the listing of equipment by class. In Holt's time, I was much more then equipment roller and found much of what I liked and bought also was in their class A and B category. I was somewhat surprised at this. The lowest piece I owned that they reviewed and put in a class was the AVA SuperPas3x that they had phono preamp issues with and Frank addressed so well after. It was a class C component. From these experiences I figured while reading mags may be interesting, I would just trust my own senses. More recently, I picked up a Philips 6731 and was overwhelmed with it. I later found and read the TIC writeup done when it was #3. It finally ended up #6. I have not had a chance to listen to 1-5. Conclusion, even as an old man, I still have it.

Do not worry about what others think but, strive to improve yourself as there is where it finally matters.
 
Sighted vs blind testing. Years ago we did a bind test and then used the same equipment in the sighted test. The judges included musicians, audiophiles, and audio engineers. The results were within 5% of each other. Of course the panel was above Joe Average in terms of music hearing. The amps were a mix of separates, integrated and even a receiver. The speakers were a set of Bozak Concert Grands. We had a couple of back up speakers but the panel knew the CG universally and several owned them. It may or may not have skewed the results but, think not.
 
The only task that a home stereo system can reasonably be asked to perform is to be faithful to the source, be it record, cd, music file or whatever. Getting the correct sound of the original performance onto the record etc is a job for other equipment and personnel.

If you want a stereo that plays the sound of the original performance when that isn't what is captured in the recording, then you want a stereo that will only occasionally and accidentally be right.

I think we're going in circles here. It's a bit silly to think a system could reproduce "what is captured in the recording" but not the sound of the original performance, or vice versa. It might be a lot easier if we all just get the same systems that for instance Eddie Kramer, Greg Calbi, or Bob Ludwig used to engineer their recordings and largely be done with it. Or perhaps I'm just a Luddite? :rolleyes:

And with that, I think it's time for me to unsub to this string.

Good luck!
 
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