Annoyed By The Absolute Sound

[A. Vivaldi]

<font color='#000000'>Why do so many of the crew at TAS  only judge audio gear by how much they cost? They often say things like this: &quot;sounds almost as good as units costing ten times the price&quot; or... &quot;It's midrange in particular is so &quot;near&quot; state-of-the-art that it was only the audition of a unit costing over twelve times as much that required the word &quot;near&quot; at the beginning of this sentence.&quot; The unit they were talking about cost 1499k! One reader wrote a letter to them complaining about that their toting the Nordost Valhalla cables at 6000k a meter as unethical and immoral. They answered back that it was only fair to test all products regardless of price, and make their recommendations accordingly. They go on to say to the reader: &quot;besides have you heard the Nordosts? They offer no audible colorations whatsoever.&quot; Since they never seem to actually test or measure anything how do we really know?  If the Nordosts really did make a difference, how much difference could there be to justify the 6000k a meter price tag? Even if I was wealthy enough to afford them, I'd feel guilty spending 6000k a meter on cables as a human being, and I'd feel even worse for giving the manufacturers the satisfaction of my stupidity. I still read their mag for their sometimes good music reviews, but I'm ignoring their equipment reviews more and more. I wonder if some of these guys at the likes of TAS and Stereophile are in cahoots with these manufacturers and get kick backs? It seems all you need to do at TAS is be mysterious, pretentious, use meaningless jargon, and have ridiculously expensive gear at your desposal and people will listen, and who is this mysterious HP? Does he really exist? What are his credentials? I've never seen a picture of him. He seems to live in a never never land where audio equipment that only the Saudi royal family could afford is allowed to grace his golden ears. He seems to be reveered in a godlike manner. He answers to no one, and his analysis is regarded by many to be the definitive answer. I say BS. I've been led astray by TAS more than once and I'm tired of it. Does anyone know if there are any good audio mags out there I could find easily that are based more on the real world of high end audio?



 

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[Yamahaluver]

<font color='#0000FF'>Pompousness and subjective writing is the bane of this field unelss it is place like AH and some other few. This is how rags like Stereophool and other sell, by convincing others that the only way to Hi-Fi is also the shortest path to bankruptcy.

Stereo Review was one of those mags which used to be totally different from this route.</font>

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

<font color='#000000'>The Audio Critic
P.O. Box 978
Quakertown, PA 18951-0978
Phone: 215. 538. 9555
Fax: 215. 538. 5432

Four issues: US$24

Published quarterly, more or less. Because they tell the unvarnished truth they don't get a lot of ad space, and it's a bit of a shoestring operation so they don't always make their quarterly deadlines. But you will get your four issues, even if they're late. And it's still worth it. It is very professionally done, and their contributors/reviewers include ex-Stereo Review and Audio writers (the objective, scientific ones like Don Keele and Tom Nousaine).

Hell, you'll learn more from their Letters to the Editors page than you would from a whole year of The Absolute Scam or Stereophool.

I have some sample articles on my Website.

You don't need a subscription form. Just a note with your check, or call/fax them &amp; use your credit card. If you call, you'll probably talk to a nice lady with a slight Hungarian accent. That's the publisher's wife! She will be happy to talk about what &quot;a scandal&quot; the state of audio journalism has become.

I have become their Internet sales rep, but they don't know it yet.

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[Rip Van Woofer]

<font color='#000000'><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>

A. Vivaldi : ... and who is this mysterious HP? Does he really exist? What are his credentials? I've never seen a picture of him. He seems to live in a never never land where audio equipment that only the Saudi royal family could afford is allowed to grace his golden ears. He seems to be reveered in a godlike manner. He answers to no one, and his analysis is regarded by many to be the definitive answer.

HP is Harry Pearson. Here, at some length but still edited a bit, is what The Audio Critic had to say about him a few years back:

&quot;Harry Pearson, editor and publisher of this ultra-tweako journal [TAS] is the Charles Manson of audio. Not that he has homicidal tendencies but consider [the] similarities: he is totally self-absorbed; he spouts muddle-headed philosophy at the drop of a hat; he has delusions of grandeur;...a small but fanatical pack of disciples who will commit violence (to science, logic, common sence, even human decency) at his bidding; when provoked he rants and raves and lashes out, completely out of control; faithful cohorts suddenly turn against him...

&quot;...he has never really understood the cause-and-effect relationship between technology and the sounds he was hearing; he believed, and still does, that a good amplifier is made like a violin by some kind of sensitive Stradivari-like artist/craftsman...Today his magazine is...so deeply immersed in weirdness and unaccounability that not even tweaks can take it seriously anymore...&quot;

Note: &quot;tweak&quot; and &quot;tweako&quot; are TAC's favorite perjorative terms for hard core audio subjectivists.

See why I like them so much?</font>

 

[gene]

<font color='#000000'>I myself find it very interesting that Stereophile magazine expends quite an effort to measure electronics and loudspeaker performance, but never measures cables. &nbsp;Cables are the easiest things to measure in comparision and would certainly add more credibility to their subjective reports on the products.</font>

 

[goodman]

<font color='#000000'>

Does anyone know if there are any good audio mags out there I could find easily that are based more on the real world of high end audio?

Check out audioperfectionist.com, a journal that accepts no advertising.  It is written by Richard Hardesty, an engineer, who spent many years in retail and wrote for Wide Screen Review.  You can download the first two issues of the journal for free.  Those issues contain a lot of information, more than enough to allow you to decide whether you want to continue.  Hardesty's goal is high end, but getting the most for your money.  Every audioholic should at least read the first two issues.  I would be interested in hearing what others think after some exposure to audioperfectionist.com.</font>

 

[hopjohn]

<font color='#000000'><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> I would be interested in hearing what others think after some exposure to audioperfectionist.com.</td></tr></table>

I read the enitire two free journals on your advice. I think that many of Hardesty's ideas are truly sound, but can't help but feel he is a questionably huge Vandersteen proponent. While this might just be coincidence, it does make you feel something fishy is going on. I can understand his need for choosing the Vandy subs for its Q adjustment, but the mains also? Just makes you wonder.

He did very little to explain where or how to obtain the passive filters he speaks of. I'm not a tweako wizard so I wouldn't know how to construct these or where to find them, he is a little too presumptious with his audience in this regard. Though overall his prose is fairly understandable, he repeats himself too often. He makes you wonder at first if he is talking about something new, until later you realize he is saying the same thing again in a different way. I find his writing technique a little strange, it doesn't flow well from subheading to subheading. He also had a tendancy to ramble about technical babble well after he has made his point. I found myself saying &quot;get on with it&quot; quite often.. &nbsp;Maybe he is just trying emphasize his points, I don't know, but it was annoying nonetheless.

He was also hypocritical saying initially that the room acoustics he performed would meet spouse approval, his wife maybe, but not most. He was using big 'ole tube shaped traps and hanging up fiberglass diffuse, and absorption material. If you want to meet wife approval you hang a quilt not fiberglass. If you want to use diffuse in corners you have to put a nice big &quot;pretty&quot; flower pot there, not a bass trap.

I wouldn't have a room large enough to bring out my mains a &quot;minimum of 3 feet&quot; from the back walll, which he lists this as the number one most important thing to do in speaker placement, not that this is his fault, but how am &nbsp;going to expalin when my wife sits at an angled position to the TV and she can't see because the speaker is in the way? Just little things like this made so much of what he recommended unreasonable in a real living space. If you have a dedicated HT than by all means, go for it. I just feel there there is no pratical way to adopt his setup in a normal room that must be lived in. You can use his ideas, but compromises are great.

Also his particular techniques require me spend a huge amount of cash relative to my income. &nbsp;A minimum of four subs are required in his HT setup, each at $1250. Also your main amps require a line level output. (something he never states in clear terms) which none of my current amps have.

Overall I'm sure this would be a great way to go. and there are ideas in these journals that can be adopted rather easily, without much effort in any real living spaces that can make your system sound better. So read it at the very least for this. Due to the compromises I personally would have to make and also many of the necessary equiptment changes, I won't be adopting his entire methodolgy anytime soon. &nbsp;In my opinion you would need the following five things things to take full advantage of his concepts, which I myself do not have:

1) A very comfortable income.
2) A dedicated room.
3) Measuring equipt that can accurately measure bass frequencies.
4) good knowledge of passive filters and where you might aquire them
5) Willingness to replace many of the components already in your system.

Just my take.</font>

 

[jeffsg4mac]

<font color='#000000'>I read as much as I could stomach of the dude and he is the epitome of audio snob, advocating high end cables and how he hears a huge difference, blah, blah, blah. This guy couldn't tell the difference between a clock radio and ice cream sandwich. No thanks.

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[Rip Van Woofer]

<font color='#000000'>Re: Audio Perfectionist. It looked promising at first as I agree with the basic philosophy that an audio system should be as neutral and transparent as possible (this view cannot be taken for granted!). But then, like Jeff said, he starts veering off into tweako territory. He is *much* too kind to Stereophool mag, IMHO, for one thing. And for another, I downloaded one of his &quot;Watchdog&quot; articles and it was an ill-informed and sometimes ad-hominem attack on the &quot;10 Lies&quot; article from The Audio Critic that I think generally tells it like it is.

I don't know what kind of engineer he is/was, but if he was an E.E. I'd be surprised.

There might be useful stuff here and there (the acoustics feature had solid info, although the advice wasn't always practical as Hopjohn noted above). But he strikes me as rather full of himself. Not good company for long. It's possible to have strong opinions -- even contrary ones -- and not be a bore (the editor of TAC is a good example IMO). Hardesty's a bore.

Oh, by the way, Hop: I didn't think I could get my dipole mains 3' from the wall in my little den, either. But where there's a will...

 On the other hand there's no WAF worries in my den.</font>

 

[Guest]

<font color='#000000'>I discovered Hardesty's stuff (as well as AH) while I was shopping for new gear two years ago. I agree that most of what he said in the first two issues was sensible. I had independently discovered that Vandersteen 3A Sigs are wonderful speakers and was blessed to be able to afford them. Perhaps I gave him more credence than I should have because of this. So I subscribed. He has gotton progressively less lucid touting ideas and concepts I can't follow as well as ridiculously high end CDs and preamps. He believes in long interconnects and short speaker wire, the logic of which completely escapes me. Somehow he went from simple ideas about room acoustics and speaker positioning to rejecting any CD player less than $1K as inadequate. I've always said that PT Barnum's adage about fools and money applies better to audio gear than anything else and he got mine. At least I didnt spend $100/ft on speaker wire.

My system(Vandy 3A sig, two &nbsp;2wQ subs, VSM1 rears, VCC1 sig ctr, B&amp;k ref 30 pre , B&amp;k 7250 amp, Denon 2900 DVD, Bang and Olafson TX2 TT, papasound PPH 100 phono pre
AR intercon and 12g zip cord from parts express.</font>

 

[hopjohn]

<font color='#000000'>RE: 3' out from front walls Yea Rip, but didn't I read somewhere where you moved them out an inch a day? C'mon man, my wife would be on to that in no more than a week.</font>

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>

hopjohn : <font color='#000000'>RE: 3' out from front walls Yea Rip, but didn't I read somewhere where you moved them out an inch a day? C'mon man, my wife would be on to that in no more than a week.</font>

<font color='#000000'>I have my own little den where WAF isn't a concern but the size of the room is (my listening position is now just a little under 6' from the speakers!). And I never did the inch a day trick myself; I just heard it from someone who did! And if your wife would catch on in a week, hey, seven inches is better than nothing!

Seriously, elsewhere both Dan and I talked about putting casters or furniture sliders under the speakers to move them out from the wall while listening and back afterwards. That might be a real, workable solution even if a bit of a PITA. Hey, being a true audiophile requires sacrifice!</font>

 

[JAB]

<font color='#000000'>I see ole Harry Pearson of The Absolute Sound ( and you might as well include J.Gordon Holt, former owner of Stereophile and now writing for TAS) is taking a major broadside from Forum posts without realizing the big contribution ole H.P. (and JGH) have made to the audio industry over the years. &nbsp;I'm old, It is late, I'm tired, so I will vent further later. You youngin's need a history lesson!!

For anyone interested, I am OLD, have been a subscriber of TAS from issue 2, so I believe I have solid credentials to form a proper reply. No, I am NOT an audiophile snob, but I credit those two ole guys with teaching me how to use the hearing system I was born with instead of spec laden poop sheets supplied by audio manufacturers. It worries me to read all the decisions being made in buying receivers etc. by audioholic contributors by comparing spec (B.S. is a better name) sheets provided by A/V and audio manufacturers.

Good Nite, all - we'll have at it later.

Al</font>

 

[Rob Babcock]

<font color='#8D38C9'>Personally I love TAS; it's about the only paper audio mag I read, although I occasionally read the HT mags. &nbsp;HP is a true original. &nbsp;About the only guy as entertaining as him is Corey Greenberb, and I don't think he writes anymore (I think he's with CNBC on TV now).</font>

 

[sqlsavior]

"It Was Thirty Years Ago Today"

I read the first few issues of TAS when they came out sometime around 1980 or so, and hadn't read it since until recently, at a friend's house. I think the addition of advertising (how long ago did that happen?) has definitely made it poorer. It took a certain amount of hype to promote a $2500 pre-amp some 28 years ago, but that was nowhere near the amount of hyperbole and BS needed to push $5000 speaker cables these days! However, they did spur me into getting a moving-coil cartridge (a hell of an expensive "needle" for a college student back then), and started me down the path...

Way back in the 70s some friends had posted a "B.C." cartoon in their stereo store. Rodney the knight is interviewing a peasant under a sign that reads: Stablehand Wanted.

"Do you have any experience?" he asks.

"I used to sell Hi-Fi..."

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I have been annoyed by TAS (and most audio magazines) for years. The worst part is that they advertise insanely expensive cables as though they could make a difference!

 

[chadnliz]

I dont see anything wrong with selling ad space, some cables make a change and some dont and I am not interested in a debate but selling ad space is no reason to get balled up, there are junk products pimped on every TV and Radio channel, so why not print medium?