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In Reply to: RE: New York Times on Harry Pearson posted by Peter Breuninger on November 13, 2014 at 05:14:27
I was sorry to hear Harry Pearson died, and offer my condolcences to his partner and friends.
Nice write-up, though one might expect a little better from the NYT. Harry Pearson convinced a lot of people to his point of view, started a minor trend in magazine publishing, and had an influence on a minor industry. I did not find him very convincing.
Michael Fremer did a more balanced, though still panegyrical, article on Analog Corner. However, here is a short paragraph laying out many of the issues.
"It may be difficult for some today to understand how one person with almost zero technical skills or understanding (Harry never did set up his own turntable) could so transform and/or invent a business segment but there's little doubt that he did just that using the power of the written word, a sophisticated esthetic and a world-view and descriptive language that he can rightly claim to have almost single-handedly invented. "
To me, that means he was not really qualified to be a professional reviewer of audio equipment. Anyway, I never paid much attention to him, except to some extent for speakers. We know speakers sound different, and if some experienced people, including critics, or a lot of consumers, like a speaker, I may find it worthwhile to seek out and listen to that speakers as well.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
Follow Ups:
FWIW, I agree with your opinion of the man. He wrote some very nice, flowery prose. But he was among the most subjective of reviewers, and that is a strike against him in my book.
And thanks for that 50 cent word (panegyrical) in your post! I haven't had to do a lookup in a long time!!
-RW-
But you obviously do not.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
loss I'm afraid
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
If Harry Pearson floats your boat, fine.
I don't feel any loss from not reading much of Harry Pearson or TSA, though I did read some in TSA. I think I got along quite well without him and other purely subjective reviewers, thank you very much.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
otherwise, he might have NOT heard what he heard, listening to all the best audio equipment.
...Julian Hirsch more convincing a reviewer than Harry Pearson.
HP was a music lover with incredible insight who was able to describe what he heard like few before or after him, making him supremely qualified to do observational listening reviews of audio components.
Who cares what you think?
That you would bring this topic up in a posting of the man's obituary shows how insensitive, inappropriate and uncaring you are.
Are you on the autism spectrum?
LOL! Apparently you care what I think.
Well, we have been talking about his obituaries for some days, and I stayed out of the earlier threads. Now we are looking at the NYT article, where I would expect some attempt to mention some possible criticisms.
I actually got more from the reviews in the old High Fidelity magazine than I did from reviews in Stereo Review.
Julian Hirsch was a much more compact writer than most, and he could give a good idea of what to expect from a speaker in relatively few words. His reports of measurements were not very detailed. The only speaker I bought that he recommended was the Quad ESL-63, but then many others also really liked them, though not Richard C. Heyser, although he did a good set of measurements. I never really had a proper place to put the ESL-63s to get the best results out of them, and in any case, I have better speakers now, which are much more room and placement friendly.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
> ...where I would expect some attempt to mention some possible criticisms.>
In an obituary?
What will they say about you?
If you don't agree with Harry or find his opinions useful, just ignore the post.
You've posted your silly opinions over and over on Critics so everyone knows what it is.
Harry Pearson was an influential and controversial person, so I would expect an obituary in the NYT to make some reference to that. They often do though in this instance they fell down on the job.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
...influential, yes, very.
Controversial?
Only to you and a small handful of others.
The Times had it right.
Are you afraid of ghosts or of the wrath of some all-loving gawd?
"We know speakers sound different"
We also know that electronics sound different. That is if we care to listen.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
Some of them may, but I can't figure out why I would want a preamp, amp, or CDP that would sound different from the accurate ones.
That's one reason I avoid tube equipment, because amps especially are likely not to have a flat response into most speaker loads. Though I have heard systems driven by tube equipment, none of them impressed me all that much.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
...accurate how?
They sound like real live music accuracy?
Or their distortion is low accuracy?
Not the same.
Which you prefer depends a lot on how familiar you are with real live music.
I bet many "golden ears" found it irritating that the deity of high end loved the lowly Original Advent,(with Masonite woofer), especially stacked.
Serving up content-free posts on the Internet since 1984.
you can find it here .
I most definitely agree with the concluding comments by JWC who opined they deserve the best associated gear. I used double New Advents in my garage system for many years driving them with gear not usually associated with their modest price. I upgraded the crossovers, replaced the internal wiring and added diffraction-minimizing felt around the tweeters.
Over at Vintage, you'll find many Advent enthusiasts who continue to enjoy them. One gentlemen in particular, Bold Eagle, has fine tuned his in many ways resulting in what is the best pair I've has the pleasure to hear. While they don't offer the last word in transparency or top end extension, they remain a faithful reproducer of music lacking any overt sins.
I was an initial subscriber to TAS and had never considered stacking any speakers before reading about HP's Double Advents. Fortunately I'd already found my way to ownership of a pair of Large Advents driven by a Citation 12 amp. Under the influence of hearing my system a couple of friends also purchased Advents. So it was easy to convince one of them to bring over a single Advent so we could add that to one channel and use the balance control for a quick comparison. I had my own Double Advent system within a week!
The problem was the Citation blew up a few months later. The repair tech suggested it was not happy with the load of the stacked system and loud music. So I built a Dyna 400 which certainly could drive them. But a little something seemed to be missing in sonic delight. Still, I kept that system for a couple of years before moving on.
Bottom line, I forever had faith in HP's judgement, even while I could no longer afford his top recommendations.
"You can’t know what the “best” is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn’t any such thing." HP
...in 1976, what was better than stacked Advents?
Not very much.
Maybe KLH 9s, Infinity Servostatic 1As (when they were working) and Quad 57s.
There were *plenty* of speakers better than stacked Advents - DQ-10s, JBL L-100 and L-65, most of the larger ADS speakers, all sorts of KEFs, Spendors, IMFs, I could go on and on.
The Advents were good, but not great. They were one hell of a good setup for your typical college dorm - no doubt about that!
-RW-
There were *plenty* of speakers better than stacked Advents - DQ-10s, JBL L-100 and L-65, most of the larger ADS speakers, all sorts of KEFs, Spendors, IMFs, I could go on and on.
I agree with this, except for the JBL's. Horrible speakers. Personally I preferred the Dyna A25's to the Advents. Much cleaner on the top end.
Yeah, I got a pair of Kef 104 speakers then, used them for 18-19 years. They were very sensitive to placement due to a depression in the off axis response from about 1-3 kHz, though they had a very even response in the so-called listening window.
-----
"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
Snell A's
Des
you'll find two other answers in the reference system:Dayton-Wright electrostats and Magneplanars ("...which is the most precisely focused speaker we have ever heard..")
edit: Both of which were highly instrumental in guiding my path. :)
Edits: 11/13/14
...issue 1 was out of print by the time I requested back issues.I believe it was around issue #6 that listed stacked Advents on the reference list.
Edits: 11/13/14
They were listed from the very start. Since I have a nearly complete collection up until about two years ago, it is easy for me find the following information. I had forgotten that HP wrote a nice note on my copy of the first issue when he visited my house in 2003. BTW, he heard the Double New Advents I was using at the time in the garage system. He commented that he would really like to hear a pair with the drivers mounted flush in a "modern" cabinet.
Issue 1 Reference:
Turntable: Sony TTS-3000/3000a
Arm:SME 3009 II Improved
Cartridge: ADC-XLM
Preamplifier: Citation 11a; Audio Research SP-3
Amplifier: Phase Linear 700
Speakers: Double Advents, Dayton Wright electrostatic; Audio Research Magneplanar; Double KLH Model Nines
Issue 2 Reference:
Same as above with some additions...
Turntable: Panasonic SP-10
Arm: Decca International; Rabco SL-8E
Cartridge:Decca-London Five
Amplifier: Crown DC-300a; Citation 12
Speaker: IMF Monitor III
With Issue 4, the Editor's Choice concept was introduced with components ranked in categories. The Double Advents fell to the "Recommended" category with Maggies, D-Ws and DQ-10s holding the top spot.
back in those years. ;-)
Isn't it about the journey and what you've learned?
I first became aware of the magazine by meeting JWC at the audio shop where I hung out / worked around 1976. Fellow inmate Rick McGinnis was another regular at Fat Julian's Audio.
1973 was the year TAS began. Hmmm. I was 16. Here's the system:
Lenco L-75A w/Shure M91ED
Dynaco PAS3X preamp
Dynaco ST120 amp
Dynaco FM-5 tuner (I build that from a kit as I did with a later PAT-5)
Advent loudspeaker w/Microstatic tweeters
Smaller Advent loudspeaker
Dynaco QD-1 Quadaptor
I was sporting a "true" quadrophonic system:
1) Sansui 9090 db receiver - *loved* that walnut cabinet!
2) Dual 1249 table with Shure V-15 Type III and Pickering CD-4 carts
3) 4 JBL L-100s (later replaced by JBL L-65 Jubals - *great* speakers!)
4) Teac 4 channel open reel deck, 3.75 and 7.5 IPS with auto-reverse
5) Technics RS-676US cassette recorder
IMHO, this very same system would still sound pretty good today. I later replaced the Sansui with a Marantz 4270 4-channel receiver. Lord knows, that was one sweet piece!
No matter, it was entirely possible to assemble a very good sounding system back in the mid-70s and early 80s if you knew your stuff and had the money...
-RW-
Garrard Lab 80 with a wooden tone arm yet! Who knows what cartridge?
Akia M8 reel to reel
Scott integrated amp of some kind.
Jensen TF-3a speakers
All completely destroyed in shipping while returning from overseas. :-(
Down hill after that, thanks to the scummy sales people at Pacific Stereo (many of which own big name audio companies today).
Crappy sand amps and crap speakers in the early to mid 70's. Name brands to be sure but just awful crap with recognizable brand names on it. I suspect this is what HP was reacting so strongly against. Not that it mattered considering the 'lifestyle choices' I was making at the time! =:-0
Better and more expensive sand amps and speakers in the mid to late 70's. Marantz 2325 receiver, JBL 166 Horizon speakers, B&O turntable, sounded good to me. Still enjoying those 'lifestyle' choices, just better choices! ;-)
Not into audio at all in the 80's or early 90's. Mostly traveling and trying to make money.
Still, I bet those stacked Advents sounded pretty good!
Still, I bet those stacked Advents sounded pretty good!
They did crank in my small bedroom. My brother would comment as to how the medicine cabinet in the bathroom between our rooms would buzz when I played some bass heavy content from EL&P, Rick Wakeman and yes Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra . The Advent brochure specifically mentioned how well the Mehta performance did with first octave bass. :)
As the resident audio geek in high school, I was asked to provide the sound system for playing music at the 1974 Miss RHS pageant. By 1974, I had upgraded parts of the system. Now used a Technics SL-110a table/SME 3009 arm/Ortofon M15, H-K Citation 11/Crown D-150 driving double Advents with the Microstatic tweeters. Since we needed more horizontal dispersion, the speakers were deployed side-by-side.
With the right amps.
Perhaps Quad II's?
Serving up content-free posts on the Internet since 1984.
would have been the late 70's. They belonged to a mutual friend who had a few bucks (lots of bucks at the time) who did a 'long term' loan to a big customer of his(not audio), and whose home I heard them in. Our mutual friend had NOT loaned the amps he normally used with them so they were hooked up to the cheap-assed and worst sounding sand-amps of the day and sounded pretty bad.
Had a chance to buy them from the owner once he finally asked for them back (he had less bucks at the time) but passed because of how had they sounded in the guys crappy system.
But who knew?
Not me!
Unless, of course, you agree that the more important attribute of an audio system is not how it works but how it sounds.
Edits: 11/13/14
know exactly how the engine or transmission in his Ferrari works?Could Neil Armstrong build a Saturn V?
That none of these individuals fully understand exactly what's behind the tools of their trade certainly didn't affect their ability to utilize them. :)
Edits: 11/13/14
I am certain that both Armstrong and Schumacher were never bothered with science merely with aesthetics.
From the Armstrong wiki page:
"... awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1955, and a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1970 ..."
My dad's CO was Neil back in the early 50s aboard the aircraft carrier Essex. And dear ol' dad received one-on-one mathematics instruction from Neil hisself. I can assure you that Neil easily had the smarts to understand quite well how the planes he was piloting worked....
-RW-
"Unless, of course, you agree that most important attribute of an audio system is not how it works but how it sounds."
He would never agree to that. He is, after all, a measurement guy.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
You seem to think it's an 'either-or' rather than a 'both' methodology. Actually, I do want a reviewer to be able to give a good idea of how the equipment performs, and this goes for speakers, too. Sorry if that offends some. Harry Pearson could not do this. With Stereophile, often the reviewers and the measurers are not the same people
But I really don't need a reviewer to tell me how equipment sounds, as I can determine that for myself by listening to it. That includes auditioning at home with return privileges. Isn't that what audiophiles recommend?
I would never buy a speaker without auditioning it extensively.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser
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