Everything you need to know in order to get better sound for less money: Audio Perfectionist Journal.

The Journal is an educational publication which can be ordered from this site. Go to: Order Instructions.

Two free issues of the early PDF Journal can be downloaded from: Free Journals.

Read the copy on this site to learn why you should read the Audio Perfectionist Journal for sound advice about sound.

In language you can understand,

You’ll learn:

How audio systems work and how to properly apportion your budget to get better sound for less money.

How each component in an audio system works and which parts of that component make the biggest audible differences in performance.

The meaning of various terms and (often) confusing or misleading descriptions.

How to interpret measurements and other objective performance tests.

Where to save money when building or upgrading your hi-fi system and where not to scrimp.

Equipment reviews are included with an emphasis on demonstrating the sonic effects of various design choices. Reviews offer real information about how the products work not just the opinions of how the product sounds to the reviewer.

Interviews with audio innovators—not celebrities—are included for the purpose of education rather than product sales. These interviews are with real engineers who can offer real information not simply rhetoric.

Personal experiences are included. What we’ve learned from our experiences may be of value to you.

Timeless data is included. The data presented in the Audio Perfectionist Journal will be valid until the laws of physics or the principles of electronics change. That probably won’t happen any time soon.

Of course there is also a huge collection of valuable information to be found in the early PDF files of Audio Perfectionist Journals #3-8, too.

Audio Perfectionist?

For our purposes here a perfectionist is defined as one who is constantly seeking to improve on the current situation. An audio perfectionist is one whose obsession is with sound quality, specifically the quality of reproduced sound in the home. There is no deeper philosophical meaning implied. I’ve been called an Audio Perfectionist and it serves as the name for this web site and my Journal.

The purpose of this site is to provide meaningful information about high fidelity sound for the home. Whether your primary interest is music or film sound or multi-media sound, if you want to hear an accurate presentation of the recorded signal you need a high fidelity audio system. The information offered here will be helpful to those seeking the highest fidelity of sound reproduction.

Fidelity means faithfulness or adherence to the truth. High fidelity sound offers maximum truth or faithfulness to the original recording. We hope that the recording is true to the original event but, if it is not, a high fidelity playback system won’t romanticize it with complementary colorations. This point is philosophically critical. A high fidelity audio system should not attempt to make a recording sound better by altering the recorded signal in any way.

A high fidelity audio system should be assembled from components which are designed to accurately reproduce the signal. It should not be necessary to combine a “dark” speaker cable with a “bright” amplifier to achieve a “synergistic” blend of colorations because this is a slippery slope to mediocrity.

Today it is becoming increasingly difficult to find audio components designed to provide true, high fidelity playback of recorded music because the high-end audio business is in a state of complete disarray. Many industry members seem to have lost sight of the original goal of the high-end: accurate music reproduction in the home.

Manufacturers continue to raise prices in the hope that customers will assume that products which cost more must be better. Magazine reviewers buy into this assumption and rank product performance in order of price.

Dealers are abandoning high-end audio for the potentially more lucrative home theater and custom installation markets where affluent customers are far less discerning about or interested in sound quality. This leaves magazine reviews as the only source of advice for the confused music lover.

Magazines are in the business of selling advertising and providing entertainment. They continue to publicize and support ridiculously overpriced products that perform poorly. The industry is in a downward spiral that may result in its complete demise. The truth needs to be told.

An audio component that performs at the highest level is not likely to be cheap. Less consumer demand means lower production numbers and higher cost. Higher performance is partly achieved by greater attention to detail and that costs money, too. Even with allowances for these facts, most high-priced, high-end audio products are just what you’ve always suspected that they were—a rip-off. You can nearly always get equivalent or better performance for less. There are exceptions. Some really expensive components actually are the best, but how does the frugal enthusiast separate the wheat from the chaff? Where do you turn for reliable, unbiased advice?

Whether you are a discerning listener who wants the best sound for the money or an industry professional searching for the best products to represent, the Audio Perfectionist Journal is the one source that you can rely on for accurate information about home audio equipment and technologies. Here you’ll learn about all the things the commercial magazines and underground publications either don’t know or don’t want you to know. And you won’t find any advertising. If we rave about a component it’s because we think that it offers high performance and value, not because we rely on the manufacturer’s advertising money for survival.

To find out why you can’t always trust other sources of information, read the Audio Magazines page on this site. To find out about the subjects that have been covered in the Audio Perfectionist Journal, read the Journal page. To read about some of the misinformation that is freely offered elsewhere, read the Watch Dog page.

Thanks for visiting the Audio Perfectionist web site. Please tell your friends about this new source for real information about home audio equipment and technologies.