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In Reply to: RE: Perhaps you can shed some light... posted by regmac on April 26, 2012 at 14:13:55
I think a lot of the answer to your questions lay in the field of psychology, rather than economics. Stereophile's circulation is roughly triple that of TAS's. (It's hard to say for sure because Stereophile's circulation numbers are verified by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, while TAS's haven't been for many years.)
TAS's advertising rates are significantly lower than Stereophile's. The last time we advertised with TAS it was about a 2:1 difference. Therefore Stereophile's rates are lower per reader, but significantly more expensive up front. Many companies, especially smaller and/or newer ones can "get into the game" much more easily through TAS than Stereophile.
The same is true with trade shows. It is much less expensive to exhibit at RMAF than at CES, which is one of the reasons that RMAF tends to be fun. Many exhibitors there are literally garage operations and there is a huge variety of interesting products there that may not ever achieve mainstream success. Remember when Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology created a big stir with his fan-powered subwoofer that would go to nearly DC? That was debuted at the RMAF, but to the best of my knowledge has never been displayed at CES.
As far as overlap between TAS and Stereophile, it has varied over time. I would guess that currently there are, at the very most, only a few thousand TAS readers that don't also read Stereophile. So advertising in Stereophile probably reaches most audiophiles.
Strictly from a business standpoint, I believe that advertising in Stereophile provides a significantly greater ROI than advertising in TAS. At the same time, no audio magazine can exist without revenues from sales of advertisements. So in a very real sense, advertising in a magazine that you don't believe in is akin to donating money to a political party that you don't believe in. (I suppose that this happens all the time, as many large corporations make large donations to both US political parties.)
Follow Ups:
> Stereophile's circulation is roughly triple that of TAS's. (It's hard to
> say for sure because Stereophile's circulation numbers are verified by the
> Audit Bureau of Circulation, while TAS's haven't been for many years.)
The Absolute Sound does publish its circulation in its annual Publisher's
Statement, which is required by the Post Office. While the rules governing
what can be counted as paid circulation are less rigid than the ABC's,
this does give a year-by-year yardstick. Their most recent figure was
published in their January 2012 issue (p.231). As of October 1, 2011, the
average number if copies sold per issue for the previous 12 months was
25,722.
For comparison, Stereophile's average paid circulation, again as of
October 1, 2011, calculated on the same basis and published in our
November 2011 issue (p.141), was 76,099.
So yes, the ratio of circulations is approximately 3:1 in favor of
Stereophile: 76,099 vs 25,722.
For reference, the following 2011 circulations were published for 4 of
the 5 UK-based magazines on a Norwegian forum a few weeks back:
What Hi Fi: 67,531
Hi Fi World: 16,862
Hi Fi News: 13,500
Hi Fi Choice: 11,420
Missing is HiFi+; I don't have any information on that magazine's circulation, I am afraid.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Yeah, but is here a category for issues stuffed into a radiator at the Waldorf? :-)
> Yeah, but is there a category for issues stuffed into a radiator at the Waldorf?
> :-)
Those were copies of both Stereophile and TAS featuring its products that MBL
had bought. The audio magazines, of course were much more effective at
damping resonances than general magazines, due to the denseness of the
prose.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
~!
The Mind has No Firewall~ U.S. Army War College.
I am sure Audio magazines work for MBL like speakers. For the common man's speakers however, Playboy may be a better choice because of the denseness of the pictures.
Cheers
Bill
density and firmness???
:-)
So there's a reason to have two audio magazines after all -- dissimilar publications damp radiator resonances more effectively.
> So there's a reason to have two audio magazines after all -- dissimilar
> publications damp radiator resonances more effectively.
And I think it safe to predict that a Web-based audio publication is useless
when it comes to providing any acoustic damping. :-)
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Awe, c'mon, it's the Waldorf, their radiators have been equipped with USB 3.0. :-)
that the combined figure for the UK publications is so high, particularly for What Hi-Fi? .
Given that the population of the United Kingdom is approximately one-fifth that of the U.S., and allowing even for a sizable penetration in offshore markets (presumably European), that would seem to indicate a proportionally greater interest in the field than exists in the U.S.
For fifty years the mainstream consumer has been told by "Consumer Reports" and "Stereo Review" a lot of bunk about how everything sounds the same (except for speakers). Their combined circulation is probably 50x that of all of the specialty magazines in the US.
The result is that anybody who promotes an alternative viewpoint, whether a reviewer, a salesperson, or a manufacturer is viewed with suspicion. The high-end in the US is essentially still-born. In contrast, even the largest circulation "mass-market" magazine in the UK acknowledges that every component sounds different (and some sound better than others). So despite the smaller population and the weaker economy, the UK remains an important part of the worldwide audio market.
Interesting. I dismissed Consumer Reports as far back as the 1960's because their reviews of speakers and automobiles were obviously bogus, based on my first hand experience of several speakers and cars.
As far as I know it's pretty much the AES position that CD sound is perfect and all players and amplifiers sound the same. I thought the problem was world wide.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
If it were not for Ralph Nader we would still be fishtailing on our Corvairs. And Epicure was a very good speaker.
Cheers
Bill
At the time, I couldn't understand why anyone would buy a book about cars written by a man who didn't drive.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
...we would never have invaded Iraq.
The story I like to tell about CR is about a shampoo review probably a quarter century ago. I have had dandruff since I was quite young. In this review of shampoos, the only mention of dandruff shampoos was this dismissive comment: "Any high-quality shampoo should remove dandruff flakes." The clear implication is that dandruff shampoos are a waste of money.
So I slapped my forehead and went out and bought their #1-rated shampoo. Within 2 days the flakes were raining down and my head felt like I had flees.
The other problem with CR is that their hypocrisy. Their methodology has serious problems--most importantly, that they fail to account for unit-to-unit variation, basing their judgments on a single sample. But sample-to-sample variability is one of the most important manufacturing faults.
There are other problems--like the fact that they seem not to pay attention to quality of construction. One product may have tighter tolerances and be built out of better parts than another, but if the other performs better when it's new--during their tests--they'll recommend it instead.
I haven't read the mag in years. Maybe it has changed.
Jim
Jim, just wondering whether the audio reviewers consider sample to sample variation. Say two Made in China samples of Acoustic Energy or PSB speakers to name just two. I can never be too sure if I will get a sample similar to the one that a reviewer raved about. Perhaps the magazines should review three samples and Measurements taken so that we can judge the approx max deviation in sound.
Cheers
Bill
Bill,
Let me first say that I'm an expert only on my own reviews and don't speak for Stereophile, and certainly not for the industry.
The best short answer is "no", apart from channel matching, which is revealed during testing, and is a good (but hardly perfect) indication of consistency. (That, by the way, is a very important reason why Stereophile's measurements matter.) There's also speaker matching, which isn't really fair because high-end speakers usually matched up either during manufacture or later). What I do is pay attention to workmanship and other indications of quality control, which would tend to indicate better uniformity. But ultimately I'm always working with just one (or, in the case of speakers, two) unit(s) (unless one fails and has to be replaced). It's just not practical to test multiple units, if only because manufacturers usually can't provide them.
An aside: This is one argument in favor of expensive parts: Apart from any cryo'd qualities (or whatever) they might possess, they're more likely to be in spec than the cheap stuff (but some manufacturers will by cheap, test it in-house, then match it up, which saves money). Parts with a tighter spec lead to electronics with more consistent performance.
I believe, however--and this was my point really--that there is a difference in claims and reader expectations. Even when it comes to measurements, Stereophile (eg) makes it clear that they're presenting information about that particular unit. One hopes for general relevance, but ultimately that depends on the skill and standards of the manufacturer (not just the designer). CR presents their measurements as objective and rigorous--a standard that, in this respect, they do not meet.
Readers of audio magazines should, in my opinion, consider that it is at least possible--I'm not sure how likely--that the sound may differ from one unit to the next. (And if you want an indication of how likely this is, note how often reviewers at Stereophile report that their review samples didn't sound quite right, or didn't work at all, and had to be replaced--then consider how often, in magazines and online pubs with lower editorial standards, such things go unreported. I think its reasonable to assume that a company that sends out a review unit that doesn't work right is more likely to send an out-of-spec unit to a customer.)
Here's another aside: I had a long chat with Caelin Gabriel from Shunyata a couple of months ago. I'm not quite sure what to make of this new cable-measurements regime that they've come up with (i.e., I'm not sure how it relates to sound), but it certainly does allow them a degree of reproduceability (in, eg, electrical connections between wire and terminations) that, as far as I know, other manufacturers can't match.
I'd be interested to hear from manufacturers on this one -- Charles? Vic? -- as well as from other reviewers and editors. If it's true as most people in this industry claim that the tiniest changes are audible, sample-to-sample variation is likely to be a serious concern.
Jim
Subjective listening tests are quite time-consuming to perform properly. Some manufacturers claim to listen to every unit before it is shipped. I personally believe that this would be close to a waste of time. The logistics involved in ensuring (for example) that each unit had an identical amount of break-in time would be daunting, to say the least. It wouldn't work to keep a "reference" unit on hand for comparison, as it would always have more run-in time than the test unit.
I could go on and on, but it doesn't take much imagination to see the limitations of using listening tests on the production line. I once asked a manufacturer that used these methods if they had ever rejected a unit because it didn't sound right. He said that there was *one* piece that had some ground-loop noise that didn't show up on their test bench.
At Ayre we go to extremes to ensure the consistency of sound. We never allow for substitute parts to be used. 99.9% of all solder joints are on PCBs that are soldered by robotic machines to ensure consistency. Every unit undergoes a battery of bench tests two separate time, once when first assembled and again after a burn-in period.
Occasionally a part is discontinued by the manufacturer (or the manufacturing process is changed). This probably happens to us more than most companies because our products stay in production for a much longer time than average. If a part is changed (as has happened twice in the last 20 years with Roederstein resistors), we perform critical listening tests to assess the impact of the change. Luckily for us, both changes had very small sonic impacts. In other cases (such as with the now discontinued Toshiba JFETs) we purchased a minimum 50 year supply as a lifetime buy.
The last thing we want is for the unit a customer purchases to sound different from a review unit, or for people to say things like "the latest version of such-and-such product doesn't sound as good as the earlier ones".
Of course we do offer sonic upgrades (at a reasonable cost) if and when we determine how to improve the performance of a given design. But that is a different story altogether.
A couple more things:
"Of course we do offer sonic upgrades (at a reasonable cost) if and when we determine how to improve the performance of a given design. But that is a different story altogether."It is, but it reminds me that it's not uncommon for manufacturers--usually at the lower end of the market--to "upgrade" a unit in order to lower their manufacturing costs. To be clear, I am NOT talking about Ayre here. This can be legitimate--sometimes you can improve sound while saving money--but more often, I suspect, it's a way of spinning cost-cutting as improvement. (Certainly it's an improvement for the manufacturer--just not the customer. Industry associations in some industries give awards for this sort of thing: Congratulations to ABC Industries for increasing their profits while fooling their customers! Congratulations to XYZ Foods for figuring out how to get customers to pay $15 for a jar of strawberry jam!)
Also notable that many manufacturers will make changes to their design or (more often) parts over time without telling customers, whether it's because the old part became unavailable or because they found what they think is a better part. Either way, if you trust the manufacturer's judgment--and probably you should if you're going to invest in their expensive equipment--then this either doesn't matter or is a good thing. But, given that sound is subjective, it does make it likely that the sound of your unit will vary from the review unit. (This is also an argument for continuing to review--and measure--older designs--CAT, Vandersteen 3, some Ayre units--over time, as Stereophile has often done. This practice has the added advantage of NOT motivating manufacturers towards planned obsolescence (or at least frequent changes in the product lineup).
And then there is the fact that tubes--which I continue to enjoy--are a huge and difficult to control (for consumers at least) source of sample-to-sample variation. Charles mentioned break-in in solid-state gear, but with tubes the performance of a product continues to evolve over the lifetime of a set of tubes. For some people, that's just part of the fun.
Jim
Edits: 05/02/12
Changing an existing design to reduce ongoing manufacturing cost is called "value engineering". In the computer company I used to work for this was often done by engineers working in the Manufacturing organization rather than Engineering. It was necessary to keep a close watch on what these people did, because their focus was primarily on cost.
A friend of mine told me that in the ancient past his father was the purchasing agent for a company that sold audio kits. If his father saw a good buy on a capacitor that had a value close to the one designed by the engineer he might just make a swap. Of course, these were kits, so if the resulting product didn't sound so great, that would be the customer's fault for building the damn thing incorrectly. :-(
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I am not sure on this but the last time I read Hi-Fi Choice at Chapters it was $13.50 Cad. The sales figures certainly don't indicate quality IMO since Hi-Fi Choice is better than What Hi-Fi for in depth 2 channel reviews.
I could not order Hi-Fi Choice as a subscription to get a lower price - so as much I liked it I really didn't want to spend $13 a month on it.
Hopefully they changed this - or perhaps I missed the foreign nation subscription rate??
I like Hi Fi Choice. Seems like a good magazine to me. Perhaps not as high end as some would like but interesting. I really like their comparison reviews. I buy it and Hi Fi News at the local Barnes and Noble. They cost me $10 US. I looked into subscribing but I'd only save about $9 a year for Hi FI News and nothing for Hi FI Choice. So I don't bother.
When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it. ~ Bernard Bailey
"When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it. ~ Bernard Bailey "
Unless your from Ontario (a Canadian in joke).
> that the combined figure for the UK publications is so high, particularly for > What Hi-Fi?.
What HiFi is a mass-market buying guide publication that also covers home
theater - its closest US equivalent is Sound & Vision - so its circulation
shouldn't be taken as typical of specialty audio titles.
> Given that the population of the United Kingdom is approximately one-fifth
> that of the U.S., and allowing even for a sizable penetration in offshore
> markets (presumably European), that would seem to indicate a proportionally
> greater interest in the field than exists in the U.S.
Even without What HiFi, I think there is some truth in this, given that there
are 4 magazines in the UK compared with 2 in the US. But if you discount
What HiFi for the reason I gave above, note that Stereophile has a
circulation greater than those of all the other English-language magazines combined.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
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