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Guess we still disagree.

The PRIME policy of enthusiast magazines is to keep up the enthusiasm."

I still think some of this is semantics, and the chicken/egg thing I mentioned. Practically speaking, for a mag existing on ad $$ the degree of enthusiasm of its readers is measured by the amount of $$ they spend on advertisers' products. Krell is not gonna spend their advertising money on a mag whose readers are extremely enthusiastic if those readers ain't buying what Krell sells. One method hifi mags employ to "keep up the enthusiasm" is to review almost everything in glowing terms. Another is to emphasize small sonic differences between for ex. a $2,000 preamp and a $7,000 pre as if they were huge - in particular when attempting to either justify or avoid discussing the major price difference. They do sometimes lay the "diminishing returns" rap on us, but refuse to call a spade a spade and virtually never use their clout in a manner which could alter manufacturers'/advertisers' diminishing returns pricing for the betterment of the consumer -- their readership. Instead they say it ain't their job to make value judgements. You may agree with them, but that turns me off rather than keeping my enthusiasm up.

This is all kind of irrelavent anyway. It was a pleasant surprise when PF made a change in their listing of reviewers' equipment after a suggestion here. But generally speaking editors of successful audio publications ain't gonna change their policies due to the suggestions/complaints of a few AA inmates, and apparently the overwhelming majority of readers are relatively satisfied, including you. JA is no doubt correct that neither I nor Avocat represent his average reader.

I went to high school in the early-mid '60's. I lived in Montgomery County in Maryland. It was a fairly well off county with a good school system, and way above average spending on music. NONE of the band/orchestra/music classes were mandatory. There were approx. 2,000 kids enrolled in my high school. Including kids who took music appreciation classes, band, jazz band, and orchestra, the total represented considerably less than 10% of the enrollment because some of us did double/triple duty.

Robert, you rejected: what I said about the music education/training the new students at MSM/Julliard etc. received in their homes all over the U.S.; what I said about the training budding pros coming to NYC apparently received in their homes all over the U.S.; what I said about judging what's popular today vs. what was popular 50 years ago. What leads you to believe things have gotten worse? The general public's music education and taste has always sucked.

"Frankly, the reason it doesn't worry me that much is that the hi-end has never had a relationship with the general public: it is a niche specialist hobby."

Exactly, so stop rapping as if lack of interest in quality music reproduction (and/or what you or I define as good music) is due to the decline of music ed/appreciation classes in high schools. There never was much music ed/appreciation; to my knowledge what classes may have been offered weren't mandatory; plenty of people (if not most) who took such classes still prefer to buy and listen to crap thru their i-pod or boombox over Mozart or Sonny Rollins.

"Avocat's position that it is the costly equipment reviews that have turned off the public is ludicrous: they have no problem dropping $4000 on a flat screen tv to watch brain anaesthesia, but the fact that they wouldn't spend $4000 on a really nice hifi says a lot more about the shifting priorities of the public than it does about the potentially flawed editorial policies of Stereophile."

What shifting priorities? The public never had hifi or great music as a priority. The only person I knew when I was a kid who was into hifi was one uncle. As you say, its a niche market.

IMO the hifi industry (certainly dealers) is generally speaking much more interested in selling mega-buck gear to loaded and gullible stock brokers who don't know an oboe from an English horn than in actually getting the Circuit City boombox public interested in "budget" hifi as an entry point for future greater interest. NON-audiophile niche TV, radio, print mags and e-zines have plenty of ads for HT and expensive flat screen TV's. How many ads for relatively inexpensive Rega/Creek/MF/Jolida/ etc. (or expensive Lamm/Ayre/CJ/VPI/Teres/Dcs etc. for that matter) have you seen in media the general public reads/watches/listens to? How many non-audiophiles do you know that have ever even heard of Sonus Faber/Rowland/EMM Labs/Supratek/Morch etc.?

From my vantage point hifi is doing fine, and I'm sure as hell not worried that new products won't be continuously appearing in the marketplace. Nor do I doubt that a tiny segment of society will continue to be interested in hifi/hi-end. But I have no illusions that the general publics' taste/interest in either sound or music will ever be radically uplifted.

Hey, we may disagree about all this stuff, but I'm glad to hear you're into jazz. Looks like you have a damn nice system too. Happy listening.


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