[Scott[_6_]]

On Dec 10, 7:35*pm, wrote:
On Monday, December 10, 2012 6:17:06 PM UTC-5, Audio_Empire wrote:
The SR reviews are suspect due to SR's editorial policy which was
that everything printed in SR must serve the advertisers/potential
advertisers.

Science doesn't rely on editorial policies.

That is true but Stereo Review did.

Science relies on proper test methodology.


That is true but Stereo Review did not.

Anyone interested can seek out the articles (try either major urban public libraries or technical academic libraries) and see for themselves how well these tests were carried out.


Very poorly. Clearly Stereo review was a publication that had a very
clear preconception about how certain components sound. Clearly Stereo
Review was not a scientific journal and had no proper peer review
process.









That meant no critical evaluations of anything. Ever
wonder why SR never published a negative review from Julian
Hirsch? Because it was SR policy to not publish negative reviews.
That didn't mean that Julian never came across a piece of equipment
that didn't meet its public specs. It simply meant that SR didn't run
the review, that's all. You see, it was their editorial policy to cater
to the industry, not the consumer. It is because of this policy that
the late J. Gordon Holt founded Stereophile. His stint at High-Fidelity
Magazine (and I believe that he also worked at SR for a time too)
convinced him that these magazines weren't serving the interest
of the consumer. *That's also why that no one should be surprised
that SR's tests on the audibility of components, including CD players,
show no differences in audible performance. It's also where the joke
"quote" from Julian Hirsch goes like this: "of all the amplifiers that I
have ever tested, this was one of them" That "quote" applies to
tuners, CD decks, preamps, receivers, you name it. And no, Julian
never really said that, but if you read the sum-total of his work,
including going back to "Hirsch-Houck" labs before Julian went off
on his own, you will see that he never had an opinion. He just
measured the equipment against its published specs, and if it met
them, it was good for go. If not, that fact was never mentioned (as
far as I know and I subscribed to SR for decades!) and the reviews
were not published. The fact that to SR, everything sounded the same
was sacrosanct. I don't wonder that all of those "DBTs" showed no
difference in CD players.

Subsequent research has pretty much vindicated Hirsch, but that's the subject for another thread.

Since you are waving the science flag please show us the peer reviewed
published research that has "pretty much vindicated Hirsch."



BTW, the idea that a guy who thought all properly functioning amps sounded alike was serving his advertisers is ridiculous. For service to advertisers, Stereophile (along with TAS) takes the cake.

Sorry but that is nonsense. Unlike Stereo Review. TAS and Stereophile
were actually willing to print negative reviews of products. early on
neither publication even accepted advertising. So how were they in
"service to advertisers" then?


snip

As for the early Philips (Magnavox) players sounding "different" in
one of those tests, I agree. It did sound different from the early
Japanese players. It was listenable, the early Sonys, Kyoceras,
and Technics players were not and that's MY opinion.

The biggest trouble with high-end audio ever since the term was coined is the mistaken confusion of opinion with fact.

Then show us the science that establishes the facts. Until then I will
say back at you. Looks to me like you are mistaking your opinions as
facts.