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In Reply to: RE: Well, that really is interesting... posted by AAG on June 19, 2015 at 15:04:10
My favorite Political Science joke:
Q.: What's the difference between Perception and Reality?
A.: Reality, you can change.
In my more than 35 years of reading Stereophile, I think I can recall one headphone that had measurements published on it, but that could have been actually measurements of some associated effects processor and not earcup measurements. OK: NO headphone measurements!
I cannot recall Stereophile ever publishing measurements on a phono cartridge or turntable made by John Atkinson (with the advent of affordable personal computer vinyl-equipment testing software, MF has begun publishing screenshots of some measurements, but not consistently for all such components, and that is just one writer's doing that for his column and those measurements are not "official" in the sense of speaking for the whole magazine).
I cannot recall "official" measurements on surround-sound processors, but some graphs have appeared in Kal's column.
It is possible to make arguably meaningful measurements of audio cables--AFAIK Stereophile has never done so.
So, I think that the reality is that there is a huge amount of stuff written about in Stereophile that never gets measured and most people don't notice because they have never seen such measurements and so they don't miss them.
You do raise a valid point that the division of the editorial staff between columnists and reviewers can result in episodes of inconsistency, strictly speaking. My approach long has been that when I encounter a piece of gear that I think is worth the trouble, I ask John Atkinson if he can find the time to measure it. This past week he measured Wilson Benesch's second-generation entry-level speaker, the Square One v.2. Items that I was the first to write about that later received extensive follow-ups or even from-scratch full reviews by others have included DAC/HPAs from Benchmark and Grace Design; darTZeel's NHB-108 power amplifier, Bricasti's M1 DAC, and the B-1 and K-1 loudspeakers from Vivid Audio.
In contrast to how I have handled things, I think it is fair to say that Sam Tellig tended not to make his fave raves available for second opinions, a streak that was disrupted when his Class A+ Digital Processor rating for a budget DAC from Musical Fidelity was made provisional and then upon measurement and listening, that rating was downgraded.
I am not bent out of shape at the idea of a Magneplanar loudspeaker's receiving coverage and not full measurements--in just the same way that I don't think that my praise of Audio-Technica's M50 headphones was inherently suspect just because they received a place in the RCL with no other writer having heard them and no measurements made. More than one AA poster has thanked me for that recommendation. If people need measurements on the A-T M50, they are available elsewhere. And panel speakers are sufficiently sui generis that I think that how the speakers are actually set up in one's room is far more important than QUASI-anechoic measurements ever could be.
I hope this helps.
JM
Speaking of course only for myself.
Follow Ups:
Thank you very much for responding.
And just to be clear, I didn't wish to argue over the relative merits of measurement vs not - but rather was just wondering what the editorial policy is vis a vis measurements and how that squared with JA's statements from:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/god-lives-details
It seems that if it's a review, and depending on the type of equipment getting that review, there will be measurements. But if it appears in a column, that is not equal to a review and isn't subjected to measurements.
However, all are eligible for Recommended regardless.
Question though - are the columnists and what/how they cover treated as more independent entities apart from the review portions of the magazine?
Is there an over arching editorial vision or mission statement that is wound through the whole?
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
--Celine
> It seems that if it's a review, and depending on the type of equipment
> getting that review, there will be measurements. But if it appears in a
> column, that is not equal to a review and isn't subjected to measurements.
That is correct, with the exception I occasionally make when a product
reviewed in a regular column appears to have issues that require further
investigation.
> However, all are eligible for Recommended regardless.
That is also correct, as a review in one of Stereophile's regular columns
is equivalent to a full review both in other magazines and in Stereophile
before I implemented the policy of including measurements in our full
reviews a quarter century ago.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I see your Four Goals as honorable and worthwhile.
Do you really feel as far away from goal #4 as ever? Do you envision some day publishing extended thoughts on that?
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
--Celine
> Do you really feel as far away from goal #4 as ever?
You are referring to what I wrote in the essay linked below: "build up a
measurement database that will eventually reveal correlations between
what is heard and what is measured."
> Do you envision some day publishing extended thoughts on that?
There are some broad correlations, yes, but nothing that I feel confident
enough to publish. But from my 2011 Richard Heyser Memorial lecture to
the Audio Engineering Society, said only half tongue-in-cheek: "if you
want to make and play back recordings that people will prefer, you use
spaced omni mikes to capture the sound at at least 176.4kHz, and play it
back through an NOS DAC, a zero- or low-negative-feedback amplifier with
very low static distortion below 1W and primarily second-harmonic
distortion at higher powers, driving large panel speakers via exotic cables."
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Yes, that's the one I was referring to.
That's some good advice..and as an Apogee owner I am inclined to agree.
Thanks - Good luck and Godspeed in the pursuit.
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
--Celine
Thank you very much for responding.
And just to be clear, I didn't wish to argue over the relative merits of measurement vs not - but rather was just wondering what the editorial policy is vis a vis measurements and how that squared with JA's statements from:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/god-lives-details
It seems that if it's a review, and depending on the type of equipment getting that review, there will be measurements. But if it appears in a column, that is not equal to a review and isn't subjected to measurements.
However, all are eligible for Recommended regardless.
Question though - are the columnists and what/how they cover treated as more independent entities apart from the review portions of the magazine?
Is there an over arching editorial vision or mission statement that is wound through the whole?
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
--Celine
But seriously...
Speaking only for myself, and as I understand things, columnists are given a wide latitude to request equipment for evaluation for possible inclusion in a future column, equipment that might not meet Stereophile's normal criteria.
I think that in my experience the riskiest such move I ever made was to request darTZee's NHB-108 before they had a US importer. In the event, the NHB-108 turned out to be not only the sweetest-sounding solid-state amp I have ever heard, it turned out to be a real product from a real company, and was later reviewed and tested.
As I understand it, while reviewers may suggest equipment to be reviewed, it is John Atkinson who assigns gear for review. Which only makes sense. He has to be able to make sure that there is an absolutely fetching mix of reviews in any given issue, and he has to be able to schedule his time dedicated to measurements.
Beyond those pragmatic concerns, I think that columnists in general write from a more personal perspective while reviewers write from a more objective perspective, but that might be overstating things. A review has to include subjective reactions, and a column has to impart objective data points that are relevant to a reader's deciding whether something is worth further pursuit.
And just to tweak your restatement of what I said above, column coverage does not necessarily involve measurements, but in certain cases, there may be a measurements Follow-up. Recent examples from my column include the Lindell AMPX Class A power amp and a couple of ATC loudspeakers.
In rare cases, something that I write about will turn out to merit a review and not just measurement, so the readers get the benefit of more than one complete perspective on an important product, examples being Vivid's B-1 loudspeaker and Bricasti's M1 DAC.
Ciao,
john
It's always nice to get a flavor for the mechanisms behind the curtain as to how things are structured.
I'm still not 100% on the editorial policy regarding when a component does or does't merit a visit to the test bench. But it sounds like there is a fair degree of latitude given in that regard.
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
--Celine
JA once tersely remarked in print that I had not "suggested" that he listen to the Bricasti DAC; I had ORDERED him to.
OK, so what if I did?
It ended up on the cover of the issue that his review of it ran in, didnn't?
jm
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