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(John Atkinson)

....snips of items considered by me closed...In message
jBGyc.32786$HG.21420@attbi_s53
Tom Nousaine ) wrote
(John Atkinson) wrote:

Again, Mr. Nousaine, these are all questions for which you can work out
the answers yourself. I don't see why, in a thread where I am trying to
address a specific misstatement you made about Stereophile's content,
that I am therefore obliged to answer _all_ the questions you throw up
in an apparent smokescreen of confusion and obfuscation.

Actually I think the smokescreen lay on your side of the fence. IMO your
publication encourages Audio Urban Legends (seemingly occasionally invents some
.....like Armor All) yet you claim higher ethics.

I see no reason that people shouldn't be exposed to things that seem evident
from a careful read of the magazine. Like nearly every product that gets
reviewed gets a place on the Recommended Components List or that the list
claimed more components than were actually there for some time. Or that
wires/cabling seem to carry a significance that exceeds their sonic
contribution.

I assume you wish to downplay the "significance of cabling," Mr.
Nousaine because you believe that cables, provided they are of the
appropriate length, gauge, and construction, don't affect sound
quality.

I don't "believe" that cables are cable...all the extant evidence
shows that this is true.

In your opinion, Mr. Nousaine. Others hold different opinions, even
regarding the "extant evidence," it should be noted.

Sure. That's fine but it seems to me that those who hold 'opinions' held that
are contrary available controlled listening test evidence ought to be noted.

As I said, all I am doing is addressing your specific point
concerning the proportion of _reviews_ of cables published in
Stereophile. As I have shown, to derive your "12%" of reviews that
you decribed as referring to a "few years," you chose a specific
single year (2001) that was untypical. However you wish to describe
this -- "cherry picking," "data dredging" -- it is bad science on
your part.

There is no science involved.

Considering that the subject being discussed was your statistical
analysis of the incidence of cable reviews in Stereophile, this is a
surprising admission on your part, Mr. Nousaine.

The significance of cabling is reflected in [Stereophile's Recommended
Components list], mentions in reviews and perhaps most loudly in the
allied component lists.

Of course. No-one has said otherwise. All I have been doing is addressing
your incorrect analysis of the incidence of cable reviews in Stereophile.
You should note that I have not expressed any opinion _at all_ about the
significance of Stereophile's overall coverage of cables.

So what is your opinion? And what is your opinion on the "sound" of
interconnects and speaker cables?

It is what it
is. If you feel that that coverage is out of proportion to the importance
of cables in absolute terms, that is an opinion you are welcome to hold.
I don't see any need to argue with it, nor do I see any need to change
either my own opinion or how I edit Stereophile as a result of you
expressing your opinion.

I have never expected anything to change :-)

You keep trying to pretend you were talking about Stereophile's
Recommended Components listing when Dr. Richman's original statement
and your original response concerned _reviews_.

No pretense. I think that restricting the data discussion to items
"reviewed" understates the relative importance of cabling in your
publication.

So why then did _you_ make that restriction, Mr. Nousaine? Here again
are your exact words:

A study of one of the last few years Reviewed Components for the
previous years showed 12% were cabling, more than any other
single product category except digital components and loudspeakers.

Please note that all I have been attempting to do in this thread is
to correct your statement that "12%" of the reviews published in
Stereophile were of cables. Yes, you have brought into the discussion
Stereophile's "Recommended Components" listings, amplifiers, the
ancillary components listed in our reviews, even the late Julian
Hirsch and Stereo Review's editing policy [and now my 1985 capacitor
listening tests], when all you really needed to do was acknowledge that
your 12% figure was incorrect, that the actual figure is 5% when all
the reviews published by Stereophile are taken into account, or 6% when
the reviews are restricted to those published since I became the
magazine's editor in May 1986.

Please I made no restrictions on any given point.

Really? I quoted your exact words above, Mr. Nousaine. Both Dr. Richman
and you were clearly first referenced the incidence of _reviews_
published in Stereophile and _that_ was what I was addressing. That you
subsequently expanded your initial statement to explain that you had all
along been talking about the incidence of cables in Stereophile's
"Recommended Components" still doesn't make your "12%" figure correct.

I see nothing wrong with expanding discussion. But in the same vein the 12% was
a real figure and verifyable.

My point was that Richman was wrong when he made the statement...

Really? Here are Dr. Richman's exact words:

Even the content of such magazines as Stereophile and The
Absolute Sound, contain relatively few cable reviews...

and, of course if you restrict yourself to "reviews" he was right. I
have said so.

If you had, I must have missed it, Mr. Nousaine. My apologies for
prolonging the argument unduly, therefore.

But if you look at the overall imprint of Stereophile it looks like
you are more than happy to Recommend that enthusiasts devote at least
10% to cabling.

10% of what, Mr. Nousaine? The number of components in enthusiasts'
systems? Their total enthusiam for audio? What they're prepared to spend
on components?

That's a good question. If I took a quick survey of the listed accessories of a
couple reviews in the June issue I might get a higher number. If we use your
review criteria we'd come to 6%. I haven't figured out the 'price' ratio.

But because there has been so much discussion in this thread over cabling and
the idea that you have placed so much effort in addressing (defending) coverage
of items that have never been shown by any interested party to actually have a
positive (in the sense of improving acoustically reproduced sound) I'm
wondering why the real figure matters. That there IS a real figure for
Stereophile (and other high-end parties I might add) toargue about is of
interest all by itself.

I'm just interested in who is caring for readers (like me) and who is
not. And as far as I can see Stereophile is not in a general sense.
And that's primarily because you are carrying and occasionally promoting
the High-End Myths and [Urban] Legends instead of emphasizing acoustical
performance.

In your opinion, Mr. Nousaine. I am content to let readers make up their
own minds on the value of the information Stereophile offers them.

Agreed. As a subscriber I have given you mine.

...snip discussion about Grado....

Look, Mr. Nousaine, if you are serious about making it your mission
to criticize magazines that compete with your own, why don't you
investigate the fact that some reviewers (not Stereophile's) act as
paid consultants for manufacturers whose products they review?

Asked before. Who are you talking about?

If you note the number of quotation brevets (), Mr. Nousaine, you
will note that you are inserting an answer into text quoted from prior
messages. That is why it looks to you as if it was "asked before." It
was.

Time and resources permitting I will conduct independent evaluations
for manufacturers on contract and and DIY enthusiasts but I do not
now nor have I ever consulted in design with a manufacturer.

No-one has said that you do "consult in design," Mr. Nousaine. But if
you do consultancy work of _any_ kind for manufacturers whose products
you review, shouldn't that fact be made public in your published
evaluations? And why isn't it a conflict of interest?

It has been publicly acknowledged.

Not in the magazines to which you contribute, Mr. Nousaine, that I could
find. That doesn't mean it didn't happen, of course. Could you give me an
issue and page-number reference?

None of this has ever been a secret. I've publicly acknowledged such on line.
As far as I know no publication, even yours, has ever listed the resume of a
reviewer.

And I've never reviewed a product (or measured one for another evaluator
that I've measured independently in the course of a review)...

Forgive me, but it is unclear what you are saying here. By "measured
independently," are you referring to your consultancy work for
manufacturers? If so, does that mean that your consultancy work is
restricted to the same kind of measurements that you publish in Sound &
Vision and Mobile Entertainment? And if so, am I correct in inferring
that you've never reviewed a product or published measurements of a
product that you have consulted on?

That is true. The companies that submit products for review in Sound & Vision
(and even The Audio Critic and The $ensible Sound) are large enough to have
their own measurement facilities.

But, again I have not "consulted" on any products other than making
measurements similar to those published in the mentioned publications.

Here, by the way, is what you wrote in an earlier posting on this
subject, in message :

I have occasionally been hired by home audio loudspeaker companies to
evaluate products on a for-hire basis providing data like that contained
in my magazine reports or on some occasions exceeding same.

And in message :

In my case the magazine doesn't pay me nearly enough to preclude
opportunity for other work in the field. My contract only specifically
requires story ideas to them first and to obtain prior agreement for
any editorial work for a competing publication.

...but even if that had happened, so what?

Personally, I feel that for a reviewer to be paid by a manufacturer for
work he does for them when the same reviewer may then be called on to
evaluate that company's products by a magazine by whom he is also paid is
by _definition_ a conflict of interest. My opinion.

Well by that logic I'd say that any manufacturer who buys advertising in a
publication and also submits products for review should be covered under the
same restraints.

There is also the fact that no matter how honest the reviewer is and
how disinterested he can remain, the manufacturers are not bound by any
conflict of interest and can start offering the reviewer consultancy
work _because_ he also writes reviews.

So far that hasn't been an issue. The companies that are interested in this
have been small start-ups. Of course, what you said could be true....but the
same temptations reside in the publishing side.

This is why Stereophile's reviewers cannot do consultancy work, period.
Other magazines practise other policies, which is fine by me as long as
the policy is made public so readers can judge accordingly.

Measurements are measurements. Why would that be a conflict of interest?

See above.

As far as other instances I know of none offhand. [The late] Peter
Mitchell consulted and evaluated products but as far as I know he
didn't review his own work.

Yes, Peter's primary career was as a consultant. As he wrote a news
column for Stereophile when he was alive, not reviews, I don't see
that this was a conflict of interest.

As above; why not?

Because a) Peter did not evaluate products for Stereophile, b) his
consultancy work was declared up front in Stereophile, and c) even in
his news columns, Peter never wrote one word in Stereophile about the
companies to which he was a consultant.

How do you know? How were readers supposed to know that? These are rhetorical
questions because I've never seen any publication publish a client list of
contributors or staff. And although I haven't read every issue of Stereophile
this is the first time that I've heard this policy made public.

When Peter approached me in 1987 about him writing a news column for
Stereophile, these are the conditions we arrived at, in order to allow
him to do so.

Why don't you investigate a magazine (not Stereophile) whose current
policy is to sell its cover to an advertiser?

I'm guessing that you are bringing up The Audio [Critic] and Fourier
loudspeaker issue again.

Why would you guess that, Mr. Nousaine? I used the word "current."
And The Audio Critic didn't "sell its cover to an advertiser," it
published a highly complimentary review of a product made by a
company in which the magazine's editor, by his subsequent admission,
had a 50% equity holding.

OK who is currently consulting on products that they are reviewing?
And who is selling the cover?

A Google Web search combined with a groups.google.com search will give
you some answers to these questions, Mr. Nousaine. I instanced them
because you are the one who endlessly questions the ethics and motives
of Stereophile on the newsgroups, you are the one who publishes a column
in The Audio Critic where you criticize the content of audio magazines
including that of Stereophile. You pretend to be a disinterested observer,
Mr. Nousaine, yet you don't seem at all interested in what I personally
regard as major ethical breeches committed by writers for and editors of
magazines other than Stereophile (including some of those to which you
contribute).

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

OK so you're content to make obscure accusations and not back them? That's fine
with me.