In the early years of high-end audio we could choose from a broad variety of periodical publications covering our field of interest. The mainstream magazines wrote what was essentially advertising copy for the mass market hi-fi manufacturers, and everybody knew it.

Articles in High Fidelity or Stereo Review weren’t taken seriously by anyone with more than a passing interest in audio. Audio magazine was a small step up in quality but, for real information and candid opinions, serious audiophiles turned to a healthy “underground press.” Stereophile and The Absolute Sound, and some others, offered honest opinions about products which seemed to be legitimate attempts by their makers to advance the state of the audio art.

Dealers, who were mostly genuine enthusiasts then, read the reports in the underground publications as avidly as the hobbyists did. Music lovers wanted to buy the best sound for the money and dealers wanted to sell the best-sounding products. Both relied on the high-end publications to ferret out the cream of each new crop of high-end audio components and accessories. Things are certainly different today.

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Today, magazines are big business and the entertainment business is the business they’re in. Their revenue comes from selling advertising, and the amount that they can charge for their advertising space is based on circulation. Expanding circulation requires broadening appeal to a wider audience of both readers and advertisers. Are high standards and broad appeal mutually exclusive? Is a frog waterproof?

As the field narrows, with less prominent publications either folding their tents or merging together, we are left with a high-end press that publishes what is essentially advertising copy for a few high-end manufacturers. Nothing they review ever performs poorly and no writer mentions that charging $30,000 or more for a pair of loudspeakers is simply obscene.

We get rave reviews of $20,000 speaker cables and $50,000 amplifiers that produce 3 watts of power. We are shown pictures of half-million-dollar home theater systems in the estates of movie producers because it’s entertaining. But what if we want some information about the products that we might really want to purchase for our own homes with money that most of us have to earn?

Reviews

In this era of dealer apathy, magazine reviews have become the sales tool of choice. Why should dealers take the time to actually demonstrate the sonic differences between products when they can just show customers a magazine review to assuage their apprehensions and grab their money?

Today’s magazine reviews are used as sales tools but they offer little information of real value. A typical review begins by paraphrasing the manufacturer’s advertising claims without questioning whether these claims have any validity. Then the reviewer rephrases the instruction manual with a description of how the product works. Wise consumers can obtain this information with greater accuracy directly from the manufacturer at no cost. What value has the magazine review added?

The magazines are written by amateurs for the most part. John Atkinson at Stereophile, and Bob Harley at The Absolute Sound are full-time professionals and their writing stands out in bold relief from the others. Most of the other writers offer equipment reviews as a sideline job which allows them to play with expensive equipment for free. They may have less experience setting up hi-fi systems than you do. What value do their subjective opinions have?

Stifling Progress

New manufacturers can’t get a foothold in the marketplace without a magazine review. Dealers simply won’t try to sell a product that has not received a positive review, yet Stereophile, for example, won’t review a product that isn’t sold by at least six dealers. This “Catch-22” has brought progress in the high-end to a virtual standstill. The only things that continue to steadily advance are the exorbitant prices. I’m sure that many potential enthusiasts have opened a high-end magazine and looked at the prices of the products they’re reading about and abandoned the hobby without further investigation. $10,000, or more, for speaker cable? Who’s kidding whom?

The magazines have to be entertaining to maintain readership. An occasional article about 3 watt single-ended mono tube amplifiers is fun, but what about value? Is that ever mentioned?

The magazines have to publish every month or so. Well designed products simply can’t be improved every other month and some of the very best components stand the test of time with few or no modifications to the original engineering concepts. A product that is new and expensive, or even “revolutionary,” isn’t necessarily superior. Do they ever say so?

The magazines have to deal with political pressures. Advertising revenue has a lot of influence but it’s only one factor. Free equipment to reviewers in the form of indefinite loans means that certain brands will get preferential treatment in print. Dealers sell the magazines and they are unlikely to push a magazine that just ripped their favorite big-bucks product so negative reviews are softened until they seem almost positive in nature. Some products, especially the most expensive ones that should be held to the highest standards, richly deserve criticism for less than perfect design and execution. Do you ever read any? The more it costs, the more they fawn over it.

Maybe we should abandon our reliance on the commercial magazines and turn to those helpful individuals who spend their lives lurking on the internet. They are always eager to offer advice or criticism while hiding behind the anonymity of their screen names.

The Internet

Following the threads of some audio news group postings reminds me of the party game where a story is whispered from one person to the next. When the story has completed the circle of everyone present, the first and last individuals in the chain compare their tales.

Stories get changed by repetition even if they start with the facts. Think about what happens when they begin with false or misleading information.

The internet is truly the world’s largest group of the blind leading the blind, but most information presented on the internet is free so how can you lose, right? Just remember a couple of my favorite quotes: “Free advice is usually worth just about what you paid for it,” and “If you measure a room with a rubber ruler, you still don’t know how big it is.”

Thinking that you know the truth when you possess only false information is worse than not knowing. When you think that you already know, you stop learning.

Would you accept medical advice from some anonymous @ on the internet? I guess some people do, but it’s risky business. And bad advice about audio is even more serious. Bad medical advice can only kill you. Bad audio advice can wreck the sound of your hi-fi and you’ll have to live with that!

The internet does provide direct access to the companies that make audio components. This fact alone makes the magazines largely irrelevant in the internet age. If you want to read performance claims and instruction manuals you can download them for free. If you want to read amateur opinions about product performance you can get those free too. Why purchase a print magazine to read reviews that offer essentially the same thing?

An Alternative

So what is your alternative to the biased opinions, misinformation and unreliable subjective evaluations that you get from commercial magazines and the internet? The Audio Perfectionist Journal.

The Audio Perfectionist Journal offers reliable information culled from a lifetime of experience and experimentation.

The Audio Perfectionist Journal accepts no advertising and has no financial support from, or obligation to, any manufacturer.

The Audio Perfectionist Journal is completely reader-supported.