Dan says:

I have reformatted the original post from Anthony in order to make it
more readable. I intend to pin it on the wall at the radio station I
work at. As a service to you all, I am pasting it again below, and
attaching it in a text file.

Dan

On Wed, 6 Jan 1999 20:55:39 -0500, "Anthony PDC"
wrote:

Having been interested in audio for a number of years, I wonder
whether fellow readers/contributors might care to comment on the
following:

1. Audio magazines and their reviewers cannot be objective since their
proprietors depend on advertising money from the audio equipment
manufacturers;

2. Audio equipment dealers in general measure up the punter and sell
them the most expensive kit they think they can flog to these innocent
souls. “Facilities” figure highly in the sales pitch, as do “watts”.
These dealers know little about hi fi and rather more about sales
targets and shifting boxes. However, they are not as disingenuous (but
only out of sheer ignorance) as the specialists “see below”;

3. Specialist “mid/upper-fi” audio dealers are driven by smaller
profit margins and therefore have to compromise their integrity fairly
nakedly to the objective observer. Among other things, deals with
particular
manufacturers figure largely in how they pitch their ‘advice’ to the
half-savvy punter. Photocopies of favourable reviews are much in
evidence in the showroom – a product of the same little conspiracy
that fuels the audio magazine industry. The brands most often pushed
change year-on-year, depending on the deals struck with manufacturers.
Last year’s top model becomes this year’s crapola. Their staff are
reasonably bright, but suffer from a mild form of self-guilt over the
fibs they have to tell. However, by default, their stuff is usually OK
anyway, since it achieves the minimum standards for decent sound
reproduction;

4. High-end “audiophile” dealers usually operate from a converted
house/barn/ bus stop/trailer-park (though there are exceptions – there
are a number of “New Jerusalem” outlets in big cities. These often
concentrate on just a few brands since they are de facto factory
outlets (not at factory prices however!) for the elite manufacturers
).
On the whole, however, profit margins are exceedingly slim, thus the
high level of desperation and self-deception among their proprietors.
And can one blame them? – well , erm…yes and no. The tyro’s first
foray
into these dealers’ premises can recognise them thus:

? the staff often sport (often greying) pony-tails, and perhaps a hint
of unreconstructed hippyism; ? there is a large second-hand equipment
section, fuelled by the dealers’ victims’ cast-off equipment (as a
result of the permanent paranoia instilled by the dealers’ perennial
prosetlyising;

? analogue equipment such as LP turntables and valve amplifiers will
be
much in evidence – a mithrab will be set aside for stupendously costly
stuff, eg a Linn Sondek LP12 or Pink Triangle turdtables powered by an
elastic band, together with a mechanical pivoting tube with a needle
attached at the end; (apparently these devices are dragged across a
plastic matrix with grooves moulded in);

? romantically named cables and interconnects at fabulous prices
(notwithstanding the testimony of any competent electrical engineer’s
evidence to the contrary of the “golden- eared” (hey – hairy-eared!)
dealer);

? a purposeful, nay maniacal, advocacy of particular esoterica eg
cones
($50 and up for three bits of cheap brass billets in velvet-lined
jewellery cases - giggle); astronomically-priced interconnects; bits
of
silver wire, and a Tolkien-beating fantasy about the sonic advantages
of
anything analogue costing the earth;

? …and recently (as profit margins have dictated) a Damascan
conversion
to CD (read digital) – but only from the (hitherto unconverted – tee
hee) “high end” analogue equipment manufacturers. Their
banks/accountants said “hey guys/Neanderthals… get your asses to
digital
or else…”. And of course they did. Now we hear the likes of Naim/Linn
et
al saying stuff like “…we believe we have now achieved digital
playback
to rival the very best vinyl turntables”. Please…I mean how do
manufacturers and the magazines which promote their business
differentiate between CD players that sound substantially the same as
a
$145 Sony? By pricing them at $1500+ of course – and by virtue of the
terminally insecure disposition of the “audiophile community”.

The latter category of dealer is, by and large, by far the most
dishonest, or self-deluding, plain crazy, or a combination of all
these
things. Isn’t it time this whole business was exposed, debunked, or
otherwise demystified by a paper from a competent person whose skills
combine the following: audio engineering; music (lover) (performer)
(composer) (concert-goer) (statistician – for blind testing of audio
equipment with informed listeners and interpretation of results)?

To you all in anticipation.

Ant

PS: Four years on from that post above-quoted, SACD and DVD-Audio are
genuine advances over CD and high-end LP playback. Anyone with ears
can discern the higher quality immediately with half-decent
amplification/speakers. Trouble is (for the cottage industry, ever
intent on exploiting vulnerable and insecure people with an audiophile
self-esteem problem) one can buy a universal
SACD/DVD-Audio/progressive scan video DVD player today for $160, which
rather craps on everything analogue that ever moved in terms of
consumer-level playback quality. Said device is the Pioneer DV-563A -
get it at Best Buy or elsewhere.


Regards,

Anthony

Asus P4P800/XP