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In Reply to: RE: Attention Rectilinear III owners posted by Chef Henry on September 02, 2014 at 14:36:35
I found the Stereo Review article by Julian Hirsch. Enjoy reading.
Follow Ups:
Ryan,
If you go back to the original review on the lowboy version, Julian's review stated that "it could not be distinguished" from an electrostatic. Readers objected vehemently to that statement. His comments in the later highboy review deny he said that and he back away from his first review's comments; but he definitely did. A case where his rhetoric caught him up.
Years and years ago, my friends and I caught on to the code behind Hirsch-Houk Labs rhetoric, and found that unless Julian was wildly enthusiastic about a product, it was just OK. The other part of the article, Gladden Houk's lab work, was well done, and it was worth wading through Julian's over heated rhetoric to get to.
Back in the 60's and 70's I subscribed to several of the news stand publications, including Stereo Review, High Fidelity and Audio. Audio was by far the best of the three, and I thought High Fidelity was the runner up, although all three did some good articles, many of which I still have. In that same period, I thought the British magazines were the best and I bought them when I could find them. I particularly like the approach of What Hi-Fi? and Hi-Fi Answers, as they focused mainly on matching components into systems; rather than the American mags focus on individual components by themselves, and then ranking them in some kind of absolute hierarchy.
Jerry
Minor point, but the first review was of the Highboys and the later one (with the back pedaling) is of the Lowboys.
Edits: 09/06/14
Hi Jerry,
For a long time electrostatic speakers, particularly QUAD ESL 63, have been the gold standard. I have heard Spica, my own Spendor BC-1's, and many oters compared to them. However, if a person claim that they are indistinguishable, I think it would reflect more on his hearing ability than on the quality of the speaker. I guess Julian just got overenthusiastic. I don't contend, as some do, that he was hearing impaired.
I agree with you 100% about understanding Julian's code. I know people like to villainies him, but as villains go, he is pretty mild. I have personally met much worse. If you think Julian is a villain, you need to get out more, but be carful! Villains do a lot worse that convincing you to buy mediocre stereo equipment!
Dave
You have to keep things in perspective. Julian Hirsch was a founder of the New York Audio League back in the 50's. Their goal, as I recall, was to select "reference" equipment, and evaluate other gear as compared to the reference. That eventually lead to writing the articles for Stereo Review. At that time, there really was nothing else around that gave good advice to consumers. Stereophile came along later with its no-nonsense approach. In fact, Stereo Review predates stereo, so it had an earlier name that I don't recall. Hirsch-Houk also wrote reviews for one of the electronics magazines (maybe Electronics World or Popular Electronics, I can't recall which)and it was interesting to compare the two articles for the same components. Same test data; but often presented differently, and the text in the articles was different as the magazines had a different orientation.
I once came across a JBL engineer at a group presentation. Someone in the audience asked if Julian was on the take. His response was that he was honest, he just couldn't hear. From my standpoint, Julian suffered from an over-heated typewriter. I listened to a lot of the speakers he reviewed, and in many cases did not agree with his views.
A commonly used phrase was: "This is among a handful of the finest equipment we have auditioned". All I can say is that he must have had very large hands.
Jerry
LOL! Well, nobody is perfect. Still, he was an important pioneer in our hobby!
Dave
Jerry,
I'm posting this strictly from memory without doing any research, just FYI -
Before it became Stereo Review the magazine was named HiFi/Stereo Review and before that (IIRC) it's name was HiFi and Music Review.
Cheers,
Al
You have a good memory, that's spot on. After I posted, I looked up Julian Hirsch on Wikipedia. Along with his history, they noted he was a graduate electrical engineer. They started out with the Audio league, and published a subscriber supported newsletter. Similar to JGH's Stereophile; but much earlier. Interesting reading.
Jerry
.....a villain, but I'd sure call him a hack!
Cheers,
Al
I was a teenager back then who purchased, subscribed and devoured Stereo Review, High Fidelity, Audio and Audio Scene Canada. In addition, I used to fill-out the "reader service cards" and received many pieces of audio brochures. And I agree that the British audio magazines were better in content and ads.
I was never critical of Julian Hirsch's test reports but I did learn about the basic fundamentals of audio specifications, consumer electronic products and marketing. Lower is better. Coloured vs Transparent. Price vs Performance.Ryan T
Edits: 09/04/14 09/04/14 09/04/14
Thanks for the link! First, that has to be the youngest picture of Julian Hirsch I have ever seen! By the time I started reading Stereo Review, he was much older. I remember when he was sent a box of Q-tips marked L and R for his comments about the sound of(or lack thereof)cables.
The Rectilinear III's design is very interesting to me. It uses a 5" full-range from 500Hz to 3000Hz augmented by a woofer an a tweeter. This is a method that is still popular with DIY'ers, although many cross the the tweeters higher and the woofers lower. They probably could have also done this with the III's, but they would have sacrificed dynamic range and has more cone breakup with the whizzer.
The designers of the III's also have taken great care to give even dispersion throughout its operating range. The whizzer cone seems to be employed more for even dispersion as opposed to extended response. It should be very effective in this regard. I think that this is important for real, in room performance.
The III's appear to be a very good balance of dynamic range, extended/flat frequency response, and uniform dispersion. Unfortunately, I have only heard them in environments that were too compromised to assess their actual sound quality. However I sill find them a very interesting design that I hope to hear some day.
Dave
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