On 1 Jul 2004 00:54:32 GMT, in article , Steven
Sullivan stated:

By the way Absolute Sound is, IMHO, one nutty mag. Fads, feuds, crackpot tweeks,
purple
prose-laden gear reviews - it's all there. Although I am not familiar with your
work
specifically, I salute you for the great work you are doing on behalf of "golden
ear"
audiophiles and followers of the "high end". If there's any coupons left after
you shell out
for those x-thousand dollar speaker cables, you might want to consider buying
yourself a life.

It's all true! The "cult of Harry" is as weird as ever.

Unfortunately, Stereophile also grows progressively less readable with each
passing issue, IMHO. Part of the problem is that Mr. Atkinson seems reluctant
to exercise his editorial prerogatives; there is a definite sense of an absence
of strong leadership and the absence of an adult, guiding hand. As a result,
writers like Dudley, "Aural Robert" and certain others are devoting seemingly
ever-greater portions of their columns to political rants, domestic soap operas
and the like. Stereophile writers shouldn't write about irrelevancies such as
politics for the same reason IBM shouldn't diversify into making truck tires --
readers and shareholders can diversify their magazine and newspaper purchases
(or stock holdings) a lot more efficiently than an audio reviewer can learn
enough to become a value-adding political pundit (or even an entertaining
writer), or computer makers can learn how to make treads. But Mr. Atkinson lets
it all continue. I increasingly value writers like Damkroger who stick to the
knitting and do a really fine job, minus the doo-dads.

In addition, the equipment reviews seem have become, at last, totally unmoored
from reality. A recent review of an absurd $350,000 tube amplifier from Wavac
results in the predictable "takes things to a whole new level of heart-stopping
reality" praise from the reviewer. We then find out in Mr. Atkinson's technical
sidebar that this amplifier, costing as much as 3 Porsche 911s and rated at an
already-modest 150 W/ch, actually only reaches 2 W/ch before clipping. There
are some other eye opening measuremens as well, reminding one of Mr. Atkinson's
comment in another recent review (I believe about an amplifier Dudley was raving
about) that amplifiers that test like this are usually described as "broken."
Yet the Wavac review is unreservedly positive in recommending the expenditure of
readers' $350K. My point is not that this amplifier has nothing to recommend it
-- no doubt it is a real work of art if not of engineering. But if a review of
the most expensive home audio component in the world (?) is all sweetness and
light when the thing can only put out 1/75th of its rated power before clipping
and has no other obvious severe measured flaws, one wonders if equipment reviews
have any function at all -- besides providing backing pages for advertisements.

Oh, well. At least Stereophile publishes Mr. Atkinson's sidebars so that the
intrepid reader can see the foolishness of the accompanying review -- with the
Absolute Sound we have nothing but the Golden Ears to trust (you know, the ones
that declared any number of products -- e.g., the Hovland premamp, the
Hurricanes -- to be the Second Coming of Christ, only to run away from those
claims very rapidly because a few capacitors or some such were changed).

I'm growing to appreciate the British style of audio journalism a bit more. On
the whole, it seems decidedly more analytical and less emotional than its US
counterpart. There's a good degree of skepticism, and a feeling of balance in
the reviews. There's also less of a feeling of outright hostility toward the
readership. It isn't hard to detect in both the Absolute Sound and Stereophile
a real kind of "f*** you" attitude towards their readers, whether it be in
responses to letters in both magazines in which notable reviewers routinely
display childish pique, the tone of Mr. Pearson's periodic descents from Valhal
-- er, Sea Cliff -- or in Stereophile's recent arrogant response to numerous
reader complaints about too much Musical Fidelity -- "you don't like Musical
Fidelity coverage? Here's tons more!" -- including paragraphs spilled reviewing
Musical Fidelity's first watch. Yes, wris****ch. You read that right.

Sorry to take this thread so far afield! Cheers.