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In Reply to: If you really want to see magazines whoring themselves out posted by John Marks on February 28, 2007 at 18:52:35:
> Is there anyone out there who for a moment can imagine John Atkinson
> allowing his magazine to be used in an advertising campaign comparing
> main speakers with subwoofer from the advertiser, with main speakers
> alone, no subwoofer, from others? I can't. I feel confident that he
> would quit first.What a question to ask but this ethics thing which currently seems to be being pushed by Stereophile is going to be double-edged as demonstrated by the avid audiophile bjh in a thread or two below.
To answer your question, John Atkinson has clearly demonstrated in the past he will do what is required to make Stereophile commercially successful. No problems, this is his job. Since it is inconceivable over the decades that he has not picked up a reasonable understanding of sound, sound perception and audio equipment this involves a fair degree of misdirection in support of what is commercially lucrative. A reasoned debate on the advantages/disadvantages of doing this for audiophiles and the audiophile industry would be interesting but obviously wholly impractical in public. However, the point is that he has demonstrated that Sunday school black and white ethics do not apply but what is good for the health of his magazine.
So would it be good for the health of the largest mainstream magazine to use the content as part of an individual manufacturers advertising campaign? Of course not. It could be commercial suicide unless all the other audiophile publications did likewise and, possibly, not even then because it would lose a lot of status/goodwill among audiophiles when it inevitably came out. Ditto taking direct payments for reviews and similar which crops up quite regularly.
But can you sell this as ethics to audiophiles?
Follow Ups:
> this ethics thing which currently seems to be being pushed by
> Stereophile is going to be double-edged as demonstrated by the avid
> audiophile bjh in a thread or two below.
Actually, I think "bjh" has way too much time on his hands, judging
by the fact that he has been going through my published equipment
lists to compare them with what I have posted on the Asylum, looking
for discrepancies.
> Since it is inconceivable over the decades that he has not picked up
> a reasonable understanding of sound, sound perception and audio
> equipment...
Yes. I believe so.
> this involves a fair degree of misdirection in support of what is
> commercially lucrative.
No.
> A reasoned debate on the advantages/disadvantages of doing this for
> audiophiles and the audiophile industry would be interesting but
> obviously wholly impractical in public. However, the point is that
> he has demonstrated that Sunday school black and white ethics do not
> apply but what is good for the health of his magazine.
I believe that the two are not mutually incompatible.
> So would it be good for the health of the largest mainstream
> magazine to use the content as part of an individual manufacturers
> advertising campaign? Of course not. It could be commercial suicide
> unless all the other audiophile publications did likewise and,
> possibly, not even then because it would lose a lot of
> status/goodwill among audiophiles when it inevitably came out. Ditto
> taking direct payments for reviews and similar which crops up quite
> regularly.
It appears that what you are saying is that if I were to behave
unethically, as did the unnamed reviewer for a magazine that is not
Stereophile, I should be condemned. But if I do behave ethically, that
is also to be condemned, because my motives for behaving ethically
are, according to you, themselves unethical.
> But can you sell this as ethics to audiophiles?
Obviously I can't sell it to you "Andy19191." But that does beg the
question, of course: were you kicked in the head by a horse as a child
or did that happene later in life?
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step outta line, the man come and take your cables away...
Sadly I'm forced to say this in advance...
> > this involves a fair degree of misdirection in support of what is
> > commercially lucrative.
>
> No.So this is where I bang on about the scientific method, audibility, cables, amplifier sound, controls, etc... You know it already and so it would only have a point from my side if I was trying to score points or reach the readership here. As an interesting debate it would appear a nonstarter from my side and the lack of reasoning in your reply suggests your not much interested either beyond the required.
> > So would it be good for the health of the largest mainstream
> > magazine to use the content as part of an individual manufacturers
> > advertising campaign? ...[]... and similar which crops up quite
> > regularly.
>
> It appears that what you are saying is that if I were to behave
> unethically, as did the unnamed reviewer for a magazine that is not
> Stereophile, I should be condemned. But if I do behave ethically, that
> is also to be condemned, because my motives for behaving ethically
> are, according to you, themselves unethical.Suspiciously far from the target but you did get in the unnamed reviewer for the readers. I was responding to John Marks question by pointing out that his hypothetical situation made no business sense and therefore trying to sell it as an ethical action was not particularly effective. Good ethics and good business were aligned and so your point does not seem to make much sense.
> > But can you sell this as ethics to audiophiles?
>
> Obviously I can't sell it to you "Andy19191."What have I got to do with it? I am interested in audiophiles and their response to this apparent ethics initiative.
< < John Atkinson has clearly demonstrated in the past he will do what is required to make Stereophile commercially successful. > >Your unfounded implication is that he will "whore" the magazine to do so. This is bullshit.
You may not have been around to remember Stereophile in its pre-JA days, but I was. John turned a magazine that perpetually late (as much as many *months*!) into one that came out exactly on time. He changed it from an alleged six times a year to monthly magazine. He increased the size from the "digest" format to something that could actually be sold on a newsstand. He hired a strong, consistent team of writers that could put out a quality product.
So your original statement is absolutely correct. But the magazine's success was the result of hard work and a clear vision, not cheap ethics.
He may well have done all these things. None of them speak to ethics at all. Or do you believe that all of the problems you list (accurately I believe) of the JGH Stereophile were ethical failings on his part???? No, he was great at audio topics and not so great at running a mag. But this forum isn't about how to make an audio rag a commercial success.
Larry. Archibald.
Yes, LA was an important ingredient in Stereophile's success. Very astute, and certainly not a man to be underestimated. Obviously one of the smart things he did was to hire JA. The proof of this is how Stereophile has maintained its high quality even after being sold to a huge corporation.Most expected it to go rapidly downhill, but JA has been able to keep putting out a quality product even when faced with the restraints that are inevitable when dealing with corporate owners that are publicly traded. I can think of a manufacturer or two where this wasn't true...
I remember when Primedia acquired Stereophile, there was a lot of concern, including expressed in this forum that Stereophile would become another "Motor Trend" (a pejorative) as a result. And, for a time, it seemed that the "news hole" (i.e. the number of pages devoted to editorial, as opposed to advertising, content) shrank.That, too was discussed here, including by JA, who was pretty candid about the need to have a certain ratio of editorial pages to advertising pages.
But, I agree with you that, the way this has all "turned out in the wash" is pretty good. It does not appear to me that the magazine has suffered editorially under Primedia's ownership; and my perception of the magazine is that it has "stayed on course" despite the change(s) in ownership.
I certainly can't say that for TAS, although I have never followed that magazine as closely as Stereophile.
> > John Atkinson has clearly demonstrated in the past he will do what is
> > required to make Stereophile commercially successful.
>
> Your unfounded implication is that he will "whore" the magazine to do
> so. This is bullshit.The implication is yours not mine.
In opting to provide an attractive vehicle for the audiophile industry to promote its products when knowing something about sound, sound perception and audio equipment, just like you, John Atkinson has had to be somewhat careful about mapping from the brain to the mouth/pen. It is in this area that he has demonstrated a sustained ability to do what is required and it is in this area that questions of ethics arise that that those on the outside can see. Of course, he might be a complete rogue concerning internal matters but I would judge it unlikely given the length of his tenure and the lack of revelations from those he has been indispute with.
The contrast with the Audio Critic which I briefly browsed for the first time last night is striking. Peter Aczel can relax and map pretty much from the brain to the pen, write straightforward technical articles and reviews without the need for audiophile "creativity", call on people in the audio mainstream who could not have their name associated with the anti/pseudo science of Stereophile for articles and information, etc... Yet the lack of what one might call professionalism in considering what his readers are probably going to to want to read rather than what he wants to write about is striking compared with Stereophile. The lack of moderation, tolerance and acceptance of how low technology luxury goods markets are going to work must surely have started to have a negative impact on most of his readers after reading the first few anti articles.
...between Stereophile and The Audio Critic that, as a professed 'non-audiophile' and 'audiophile critic' may escape you.Stereophile is a paragon of ethics and is also commercially successful. It has never claimed to be a 'scientific journal'.
Their reviews are based on 'observational listening' and most follow with 'scientific' measurements.
Aczel, on the other hand, is very arrogant and unethical (search 'Fourier Speaker' for details) and The Audio Critic is a commercial failure.
That you prefer Aczel's brand of yellow journalism and pseudoscience does not surprise me.
> That you prefer Aczel's brand of yellow journalism and pseudoscience
> does not surprise me.
Your opinion of Stereophile is tainted by your own erroneous description of what their goal as a viabhle commercial entity is.
"The contrast with the Audio Critic which I briefly browsed for the first time last night is striking. Peter Aczel can relax and map pretty much from the brain to the pen, write straightforward technical articles and reviews without the need for audiophile "creativity", call on people in the audio mainstream who could not have their name associated with the anti/pseudo science of Stereophile for articles and information, etc..."So 'In contrast...," Stereophile's writers are unable to "relax and map pretty much from the brain to the pen," meaning that they have another agenda that does not allow them to tell the truth. That agenda seems to be making manufacturers happy. This opinion of yours has been addressed numerous times by JA, certainly to my satisfaction.
"...the anti/pseudo science of Stereophile for articles and information, etc..." Boy, that's a deusie! You are clearly stating that you Stereophile is anti science, or at the least, pseudo-scientific. If your feelings weren't clear before, they certainly are now.
"Yet the lack of what one might call professionalism in considering what his readers are probably going to to want to read rather than what he wants to write about is striking compared with Stereophile."Oh, this may ostensibly be a condemnation of Mr. Aczel, your implication (again not difficult to discern) is that Stereophile writes only what it's readers want to read, not what it's writers want to say.
Did I read you incorrectly?
> Your opinion of Stereophile is tainted by your own erroneous
> description of what their goal as a viabhle commercial entity is.Bit baffled by this. What is Stereophile's goal beyond being a viable commercial entity?
> So 'In contrast...," Stereophile's writers are unable to "relax and
> map pretty much from the brain to the pen," meaning that they have
> another agenda that does not allow them to tell the truth.I was contrasting the tasks of the two editors. John Atkinson has a relatively difficult task to achieve which, as far as I can judge, he does well. Peter Aczel has/had a relatively straightforward task which was good in some respects but remarkably poor in others. A difference in professionalism is probably a good way to summarise it.
I intended no comment on the writers. In the very little I have seen of the Audio Critic some of the writers are clearly technically knowledgeable about the hardware they are reviewing, some are audio (not audiophile) professionals and the reviews would appear to be fairly conventional reviews of technical equipment. The writers in Stereophile on the other hand are generally not technically knowledgeable about the technical equipment they are reviewing and, I suspect, probably believe it to have little relevance. What they produce is intended for the consumption of audiophiles rather than people with some technical knowledge and an interest in the technical peformance of the hardware. To point out that much of what they produce is technical nonsense and in the commercial interests of the current audiophile industry is fair. The motivation will obviously vary from writer-to-writer and, although it is interesting to speculate about the rogue/nutter ratio, it is rarely possible to judge with a high degree of confidence from the outside. What is probably not fair is a black-and-white zero tolerance when one is not part of the intended audience.
> You are clearly stating that you Stereophile is anti science, or at the least,
> pseudo-scientific.Indee but why should this be a problem to you as a subjectivist?
> If your feelings weren't clear before, they certainly are now.
Feelings about what?
> Your implication (again not difficult to discern) is that Stereophile writes only what
> it's readers want to read, not what it's writers want to say.I was contrasting the magazines/editorship. If the editor of a commercial publication did not consider what the target audience wanted to read this would be strange. Are you claiming that the editor of Stereophile does not do this? Or, having introduced the word only, are you going to claim he does not only do this?
You seem intent on not explaining yourself. But the effort to get you to try bores me, so I'll only comment on one "point" you've made:"> You are clearly stating that you Stereophile is anti science, or at the least,
> pseudo-scientific.Indee but why should this be a problem to you as a subjectivist?"
Well, to borrow some of your technique, I'll ask you a question: what makes you so sure I'm a "subjectivist??" That I don't find JA's approach to equipment reviewing to be "pseudo-science" has nothing to do with being a subjectivist or an objectivist. And it should be a "problem to" me because I find your comments to be untrue. You have based your opinions on a complete lack of knowledge (kind of unscientific of you, isn't it?).
Something about him seems familiar... Oh yeah!... kinda like Pat D with a brain and with a sprinkling of DB/SM personality dust.:)
.
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
(nt)
Prefer in respect to what?Unlike yourself I suspect, I feel no need to join or root for one audiophile tribe or the other being more of an observer. Nor have I purchased either publication. For sometime I have been meaning to buy a copy of Stereophile to look at on an aeroplane but have never got round to it. I did email The Audio Critic once asking for a table of contents of the web magazine because asking for money for a publication without indicating the current or recent state was strange. I did not get a reply and so, not surprisingly, I did not send any money.
As a consequence I have no preference in the sense I suspect you mean. I have briefly listed a few fairly obvious differences between the two but they were not statements of preference being more observations.
> What have you observed that is good about the Audio Critic?>First, I want to say I appreciate the softer, more thoughtful tone you've been taking lately in your recent posts.
As a charter subscriber to The Audio Critic when it began in about 1978, it has changed dramatically and I have a very strong opinion about it (surprise). Here's my take on it.
Aczel's background before publishing TAC was as an ad copywriter who worked in audio. The first issue was a listening comparison and rating of about 24 different audiophile preamps available at the time. No one before or since had untaken a survey of that magnitude. The magazine was a force to be reckoned with.
In 1980, after a very irregular publishing schedule, the magazine gave a rave review to a new speaker, the Fourier, and the magazine ceased publishing for 7 years.
In the meantime, the Fourier company was a flop and went bankrupt. In 1987 when Aczel and TAC came back, he admitted he was a 50% owner of Fourier.
Since then, his tone changed dramatically. It's as though he is an angry, bitter old man with a vendetta against high end audio for rejecting his 'first correctly designed loudspeaker'. He has aligned himself with people like Tom Nousaine, who believe that null DBTs *prove* nearly all amplifiers sound the same, for example.
I have not read TAC in years since it stopped appearing on newsstands. Aczel used to call TAC the audio magazine 'you loved to hate'. Now it's just plain hated.
Aczel is deaf, anyone reading his foolishness can tell as much.That you don't seem cognizant of that fact, or at least you comments suggest as much, doesn't bother me. To be honest I suspect your ignorance is more likely than not due to your being deaf as well... in the sense of not having developed a discerning listening facility.
ps.
OH, that he actually returned to publishing after his serious ethical affront is in and of itself more than adequate a reason to shun the man, why anyone would even bother debating that point is simply beyond me; thought were I forced to speculate I would suggest a deficit of sound ethics on the part of his defenders.
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