From: CARVER@Polyester.CS.UMASS.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: Re: Please suggest Audio magazines!
Date: 29 Dec 92 19:52:11 GMT
Reply-To: carver@cs.umass.edu
Organization: Computer and Information Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

In response to a question about audio magazines to subscribe
to lgoodfie@sobeco.com (l.goodfield) writes:

>For subscriptions to the Absolute Sound: 800-825-0061
>			    Stereophile: 800-238-2626
>
>Personally, The Absolute Sound is the better of these 2 magazines, but
>Stereophile does providfor decent reading.
>
>Lionel.


Personally, I find Stereophile to be far superior to The Abso!ute Sound
(note true name!).  TAS has become increasingly annoying to me and I
will not be renewing my subscription (which is ridiculously high anyway).
I can no longer stand their haughty, snotty, etc. attitude:  only they
know the true (absolute) sound.  So, every review/article has the
obligatory comment about how awful CDs sound and every other review/article 
has a swipe at how stupid, deaf, misguided, boring, etc. the reviewers
at Stereophile are.  I find these rantings neither (wholly) correct nor
in any way useful (to me).

Another problem with TAS is that they are resolutely anti-measurements.
As a result, you get reviews with statements like, "I don't know how low
these speakers actually go, but they sound like they go pretty low."
Very informed and informative!  By contrast, Stereophile provides some
measurements and has been engaged in their own search for correlations
with listening judgements (particularly with speakers and CD).
Of course, this is precisely the reason that "high-enders" like those at
TAS don't like Stereophile anymore:  they've "sold out" to the
measurement forces (despite the fact that listening judgements are still
the primary standard in Sterophile and the many Stereophile reviews that
say something to the effect that "this may measure great but it sounds lousy").

TAS also has many more blatantly false/ludicrous "technical" articles
and explanations than Stereophile.  You should read some of the
explanations for why CD transports sound different in the latest issue!
Stereophile has been investigating (at least potentially plausible)
explanations like jitter, power supply interactions, impedance mismatches.
Furthermore, I find the dogmatism of TAS publisher HP (who is never,
ever contradicted by any of the staff writers...except Tony Cordesman...
and he appears to be on the way out) that there is one and only one
absolute sound to be absurd.  You weren't there for the making of the
recording, but you know that those players on those instruments in that
hall on that day with those mics, etc., etc. must (or could not possibly)
sound a certain way.  Nonsense!

I could go on...but to get to the bottom line....if you are someone who
"wets his pants" over the "vast new horizons" opened up by the latest
$4K moving coil phono cartridge then TAS is definitely for you.  Note
that Stereophile is also definitely a "high-end audio" magazine.  If you
don't hear differences between electronic components or if you don't
care about what differences there might (or might not) be then
Stereophile is not for you.  No receivers!  If you have found through
personal experience that not all amps sound the same and that they don't
sound like mass market receivers and are interested in finding out what
high-end is about then I would suggest looking at Stereophile before TAS.
Stereophile also has a section about new developments in audio and had
articles about DCC and MD well before the mass market mags.  It even
mentions AES papers...sacrilege!

As for the "mass market" audio magazines...Stereo Review is pretty much
useful only if you want to see what the latest bells and whistles are on
the new crop of receivers or CDs.  Typically, everything meets its specs
and sounds "fine" to Julian (since everything basically sounds perfect).
[Actually, I take that back...he once reviewed the Acoustat electrostatic
speakers that I own and found that his "multi-hundred watt" Carver
reference amp couldn't drive them above background music level...though
they sounded OK for background music.  Funny, since mine can get pretty
darn loud...maybe he should have broken them in and used an amp that had
some current capability?  Good job Julian.]

Audio is pretty similar.  It occasionally has technical articles that
are of some value, but it is schizophrenic on the sound of components.
While some of the reviewers make listening evaluations, the main
reviewer, Len Feldman, rarely finds anything to criticize sound-wise.
My favorite lack of consistency is that he nearly always says that a CD
player sounds great just like every other CD player---i.e., all CD
players sound the same.  However, every couple of years or so he will
compare a recent CD player to an older player and find that---to his
utter amazement---the newer sounds better---e.g., the new one doesn't
sound as harsh on CDs whose poor sound he had blamed on the CD rather
than the player.  Which is it?  Do all CD players sound the same or not,
and if they don't then do they only sound different after several years
of changes or can different players of the same vintage, but with
different size power supplies, etc. sound different?  Can/does Len hear
or care about subtle differences or only more gross differences??

Finally, for the anti-high-end paranoid, there is the Audio Critic, in
which every third sentence contains some reference to (always unidentified)
"tweakos" who are said to believe things that are so bizarre that I have
never seen them mentioned even in TAS!!  Here again, everything---except
speakers---sounds the same.  Useful technical articles sometimes, but
unwarranted conclusions are often drawn.  If you HATE the high-end then
this magazine is for you!

(Note:  there are many other non-US and even US audio magazines.)


Of course, these are just my opinions....

In any case, none of these magazines replaces personal experience.
Contrary to what you often hear on rec.audio, most high-end audiophiles
didn't learn what to think about the sound of audio compoents from
reading TAS and/or Stereophile.  We got into high-end audio through
personal experience and only later picked up these magazines because
their reviewers were hearing what we had been hearing---IN SPITE OF what
we had been reading in the mass market mags.

Norman Carver
Computer Science Dept.
University of Massachusetts