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I know this an equipment section, but does anyone know if High Fidelity was an "above ground" publication or "below", like Stereophile in the 1960s ?
And when did HF (and others like "Audio") begin describing the sound of equipment ? J.Gordon Holt started it - but when did the others catch on ?
Thanks
Follow Ups:
Very above ground. High Fidelity and Stereo Review were the LIFE and LOOK of the hobby in the middle decades of the 20th. AUDIO was like Scientific American.
Stereo Review had better writers, such as Henry Pleasants and Igor Kipnis, while High Fidelity seemed to cover more equipment in a less nerdy fashion.
I miss 'em all, and it's great to find back issues on line as a recent poster kindly provided a link.
and Julian Hirsch praising every piece of equipment reviewed, always ending with.."of course, one would have to hear this piece of gear in their own system to make an evaluation.."
Corny but certainly true.
I've got reprints from the middle 60's; but nothing earlier.
I also think there were British publications, like Grammophone, that went back well before Stereophile and did reviews that talked about the sound quality.
Jerry
High Fidelity was VERY mainstream but along with Audio and HiFi Stereo Review it was all we had. I still have the issue of High Fidelity where they announced the addition of a very young (18 as I recall) Gordon Holt to their writing staff.. I was a charter subscriber to Stereophile in about 1963 or 1964 I think. Gordon and I used to talk on the phone every so often. He talked with many of his subscribers back then. Years later I joined Stereophile and later other Zines but Gordon and I remain in touch and he end up being my very best friend
And I his. His death left a very great hole in my life. Gordon was six or seven people and I knew them all.
Bob O'Neill
nt
Stereophile goes back to the early/mid 60s, can't find my old copies for the exact dates.
I googled this and found it was started in 1923. I know they did equipment reviews along the way, so I'd guess they predate Stereophile by more than 35 years.
Jerry
detail certain gramophones, tonearms, horns, new amplifiers, vacuum tubes, etc.
On one Voxaurea gramophone, the reviewers even commented that they like the reproduction of high frequencies better with the gramophone lid open instead of closed, despite the increased record surface noise. They even determined that the lack of treble was partly due to the Thorens Primaphonic soundbox design.
In the 1929 issue, there is an article about a DIY horn extension for cheaper, table top, talking machines. The DIYer even claims that his successes are "endorsed by several competent gramophile friends." The results are a "more spacious reproduction; the tone is bright and forward; range is increased in the treble and bass; and the volume is noticeably better with no annoying boom in the lower register."
There is even mention of experiencing various new talking machines at the British Industries Fair just like our audio conventions in Las Vegas, etc.
Some dates and data gleaned from Wikipedia:
Audio goes back to 1947; but also claimed to have descended from Radio, founded in 1917. It was originally called Audio Engineering; but dropped Engineering in 1954 when the AES was formed.
High Fidelity goes back to 1951.
Stereo Review started in 1958 as Hi-Fi review, changing to Stereo Review in 1962.
These histories make interesting reading as there were a lot of name changes, mergers, etc.
Jerry
.......and as for the rest of it, the sound of audio gear was being described as far back as the acoustic era.Please see link below to old High Fidelity with J. Gordon on the masthead as Technical Editor:
Edits: 03/13/14 03/13/14
Thanks guys, I guess Holt was the first to describe *stereo* components. Still noted - I would think, being that the "above grounds" were not doing this, in the late 50s and early 60s. I guess they did later that decade.
And speaking of old writing, I just read a vintage Stereo Review from '59 (with its original name) and in it, the editor was *asking* for transistor gear. This, to alleviate the "hum" of stereo playback discs. Interesting....
And I was surprised to see that High Fidelity did a couple of horn reviews - in the 70s ! I thought horns were long dead by then. Klipsch ('71) and Altec ('78). I wonder if there were any more horns reviewed during that period.
the prototypes being dated at 1938 and limited production beginning shortly thereafter. I think that probably qualifies it as the longest continuous production piece of hi-fi gear, though it has gone through some revisions. It is clearly the same speaker that it always was though.
The Altec 19 came out around '76 and that was probably the last major stab at it that they made.
JBL has a number of recently introduced speakers with horn loaded tweeters and midranges that are a shot at the state-of-the-art. So there are still new horn based designs coming out. Volti Audio makes a Klipsch inspired line, and Pi has some nice horn loaded speakers. There are any number of horn loaded, limited production, lines coming out of Asia as well.
It was out of production for a time about 10 years or so ago, when the Hoosier Garage Door King owned the company. I was very active on the Klipsch forum at the time and remember this well.
It seems it's never having been out of production is now part of the official company mythology.
I imagine that is still probably the oldest run in audio. The Ortofon SPU cartridges have been around a long time as well, though the form factor has changed with the step-up transformers being moved out of the headshell.
The Altec-GPA 604 Duplex driver goes back to the mid 1940s, several years before the KHorn and the Tannoy Dual Concentric. But it was out of production for some time during the transition from Altec to Great Plains Audio.
Regards
nt
Thanks for the horn referrals - I guess Tannoy's aren't horns - but are "waveguides" with compression driver. GedLee, SP Tech, Amphion and Emerald Physics also do this (newer designs in the past decade).
I wonder if J. Gordon Holt reviewed any horns in the 60s and 70s - being an (apparent) strong supporter of them.
Waveguide is often used as a euphemism for horn, the dreaded "h word". Makes for better marketing given the prejudice many audiophiles have against horns.The Tannoys use the woofer cone as the treble horn, so do other coaxials such as the Radians and Beymas. I suspect the KEF LS 50 is horn loaded in the treble.
Late in his career Holt was fond of Tannoys, large studio monitors as I recall. I think he owned some and used them at home.
Edits: 03/15/14
Holt wasn't the first to try and describe sound quality. The name "Stereophile" dates it. Some of the electronics magazines had equipment reviews (Electronics World, Radio & TV news for two)much earlier.
I did enjoy the early subscriber supported Stereophile by Holt. It was one of the better commentaries, and didn't espouse some of the nonesense that later advertiser supported "audiophile" magazines are guilty of. Holt called it as he saw it and you could rely on it.
Of the newstand publications, Audio was my favorite, and I still miss it. High Fidelity had some good articles; but the Hirsch-Houk reviews were often ludicrous, and you had to learn to read between the lines. Julian Hirsch sometimes let an overheated typewriter run away with him, and he "damned with faint praise" the lesser products. Unless he was way over the top on a review, it was just an average product. "...this is one of a handful of the best we have tested..." was found in many reviews, so I concluded he had very large hands.
Jerry
I still have some of the old Stereophile Magazines. I go back and read them from time to time. It is amazing how much information was in the articles. I also like the music articles called "Building a Library". They had some excellent comparisons of available recordings. They did not hold back if they did not like something.
Of the newsstand magazines, Audio was head and shoulders above High Fidelity and Stereo Review. It was also far more technical. I miss it too.
Dave
Stereo Review, High Fidelity and Audio were always pretty common fair on magazine racks.
As for electrical and sonic reviews in these HiFi/Stereo publications, they were being done in the early 1950's if not before.
Earlier radio publications of the 30's and 40's also did electrical and more basic sonic reviews of AM radios.
I think my oldest audio related magazines are "HI Fi Music at Home" from 1953.
One reviewer in the later 60's seemed to review everything by saying "the best I ever heard" so there were lots of bests.
Came across a site some time ago with mags going back to the '20s that were both technical, diy, and had subjective evaluations. Read a couple and one article compared a pair of mechanical victrolas including a steel needle swap. Seems rolling is far from a new concept.
Don Brian Levy, J.D.
Toronto ON Canada
It was above ground like Stereo Review and Audio.
High Fidelity was a direct competitor of Stereo Review. Gordon did do reviews that described sound for High Fidelity but the magazine put too many limitations on him which led to his leaving and eventually founding Stereophile which had no advertising at all when it was founded so there would be as little pressure on the truth as possible.
I always thought Audio was the better of the three. As a matter of fact I still have some of the annuals that listed equipment specs and prices. It was invaluable when checking out new stuff.
I agree. Audio was for real enthusiasts. The other 2 were for casual involvement most of the time.
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