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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: I'll take this one posted by John Atkinson on September 22, 2005 at 14:16:40:
In random order:1) The very title "As We See It" more than strongly implies that these are the views of the magazine as a whole. The fact is that you don't just choose random editorials that support random viewpoint from say, Lipshitz or Aczel.
2) Austin didn't represent his opinions as opinions, but rather as facts. For example, "There's some interesting science behind the Intelligent Chip, but it is not especially novel, and it's happening between our ears, not between the chip and the CD." He makes it sound as if he had proof this were the case.
Contrast this with Stereophile's earlier dismissal of Belt's tweaks, "So why not just dismiss the whole business out of hand? Because there is a possibility that, as unlikely as it seems, Mr. Belt might actually be on to something." Or Stereophile's dismissal of the Tice "Magic Clock", I would never discount a product merely because I don't accept the explanation offered for its operation. Most cable manufacturers present questionable arguments on their products' behalfs, but I still find significant sonic differences among cables."
It's especially disturbing because on this forum Austin has admitted that he has previously rejected tweaks out of hand (speaker cables) and yet now accepts them as valid. How do we know he won't change his mind about this one?
3) You could find anybody to support any opinion conceivable. Geoff Kait would say that all tweaks (including the IC) work great. Austin says all tweaks works great, except for the IC and maybe mechanical supports under power cords. We could find any number of people that think nothing makes a difference except loudspeakers.
The point is that each of these people are drawing a line somewhere. Logically speaking, there are only two valid places to draw a line:
a) The only real differences are those we can measure. Everything else is psychological.
b) There are more things we don't understand about sound reproduction than we do. When we have credible reports of an effect, we must investigate it and not dismiss it out of hand.
Stereophile has had a history stretching back more than 40 years that is consistent with (b). Now with Austin's editorial Stereophile has dipped a toe into the "objectivist" waters of (a). This diminishes the very foundation of the magazine's philosophy.
4) Austin had not listened to the tweak in question when he wrote the editorial.
5) Much of Austin's editorial is based on unfounded assertions. These range from the absurdly ridiculous, "the imaginary differences are far easier to sell [than the real ones]", to the shamefully libelous ones, "There's money to be made from people's open-mindedness (if you want to call it that), not just from daft tweaks and obvious snake oil like the Intelligent Chip."
In my opinion it was a mistake to publish this editorial, and furthermore Austin owes both Kait and Curl apologies.
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Follow Ups
- A few problems - Charles Hansen 16:26:40 09/22/05 (0)
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