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In Reply to: RE: An Open Letter To Robert Harley posted by soundchekk on July 5, 2009 at 01:20:42
soundchekk-
okay. what you imply is that audio magazines run a 'confidence game'(see joe montagna's explanation in the film "House of Games"). if so, then will subscribers continue to participate or condone this 'game'?
Seems to me that Mercman and other posters are demonstrating a bit of honest outrage at this particular example of the 'con'. good for him.....and for us 'rookies.
your perspective - a functional approach - perpetuates and supports the continuation of the 'con'. of course, we can always 'vote with our feet' and terminate our subscriptions. but, someone, that seems to me to be an example of dumping the baby with the bathwater.
Follow Ups:
The way I see it:
The time for flashy magazines that will be used as a base for taking buying decisions, is diminishing more and more. That puts them heavily under pressure.
The marketing-budgets spent by companies will be cut down and as a consequence the quality of magazines will suffer. It is obvious where all this will end.
People won't rely on a single persons opinion/review any longer.
People want to see numerous trustworthy references, mass testimonials and experiences.
If 500 people say it's great - they'll buy. The power of internet marketing!
Internet platforms are making quite some money on "customer" testimonals, banners, links, you name it, as marketing instruments. Guess who is paying all this!
Consumer testimonals, "trusted reviews" and "forum talk" are gaining ground as marketing instruments - day by day.
People more and more base there buying decisons on these "marketing" instruments.
The industry must use these as marketing instruments. (And there are using them)
Conspiracy, fatalism - no man - it's all about "marketing" - getting into peoples minds and wallets to be able to survive.
You just need to find the best way of how to do it.
Best marketing is if your customers don't even realize that it is there and still start buying your products.
In many cases we are adressed on a subconscious level. The pity, you just can't do anything about it.
This you might call a conspiracy against all us poor potential customers.
One of the nice sideeffects, since I switched to DIY-Audio and Opensource software, is that I am much less affected. That makes me feel a little bit better. Though I am well aware that I can't get away from being manipulated in all the other areas of my daily life. It's just a big part of our life.
It only happens once. After buying a receiver that Julian Hirsch recommended and finding that it just didn't sound right no matter how I adjusted it's billions of settings and then incurring a large restocking charge I wrote him and reviewers in general off.
But they still provide a data point and those in Stereophile at least listen to the gear. The ones that do go bad usually do so by starting to fancy themselves as entertaining 'personalities' and think that reviews are just an opportunity to present themselves to their adoring fans. Those I skip unless they are reviewing something of high interest.
But... I don't see attempts at what I'd call 'manipulation' which I think is attempting to link lifestyle attributes to products. "Show the world that you are a success, buy this watch". As John Marks, I believe it was pointed out, for better or worse, stereo's are no longer sex symbols. Sigh.
To some extend popularity is a reliable metric. However to keep it in perspective just look at the politicians in office and remind yourself that they won the popular vote.
Rick
After buying a receiver that Julian Hirsch recommended and finding that it just didn't sound right no matter how I adjusted it's billions of settings and then incurring a large restocking charge I wrote him and reviewers in general off.
Not all reviewers are stone deaf like Julian. What I learned from him when I was a teenager is that most specs are virtually meaningless. Information devoid of knowledge. My lesson was learned on an AR integrated amp. Measures great, sounds bad (especially at low levels). On the other hand, I have learned a great deal about music and critical listening from some very experienced reviewer ears! :)
rw
> okay. what you imply is that audio magazines run a 'confidence game'(see
> joe montagna's explanation in the film "House of Games"). if so, then will
> subscribers continue to participate or condone this 'game'?
Without wanting to make any comment on TAS, all soundchekk has demonstrated
is how little he knows about or understands magazine publishing.
If he is correct, why then does Stereophile give so many positive reviews
to products to companies that don't advertise. We even put products from
companies that don't advertise on our cover!
So before you believe uninformed BS like this, please give us the benefit
of the doubt.
Mr Atkinson.
I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion of what's going on at TAS. I've been trying to figure it out. I imagine everyone is talking about it at over at Stereophile and elsewhere. So maybe you could tell the story using one of those comic book cartoons in the next issue.
> I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion of what's going on at
> TAS.
It would hardly be appropriate for me to make any comment at all on TAS.
They do things their way, Stereophile does things its way. I am content
to leave it to the readership of both magazines to judge our efforts.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Thank you so much for that Mr.A. An Englishman in New York indeed!Such a pity some of the rest of the Stereophile writers cannot display such ethics-Especially those whose services were terminated by TAS.
No ,I do not have shares in TAS or am even currently a subscriber but this whole TAS bashing do resemble the scene at a nasty accident: First on the scene would be the peanut gallery, bleating with Orwellian precision the same old advertisers and the press chant.Then regularly as clockwork the 3 ambulance chasers namely Kuller, Marks and Hansen will arrive. The first 2 I can understand but Hansen puzzles me-Yes there is Valin and Nordost but he is not TAS. It is only my opinion but I would never ever purchase a product from a company whose principal acts this way regarding another company in a public place.But hey that's only me-it seems to work for him and his company.
Finally a late arrival at this accident seems to be Mr Rankin who behaved in exactly the same way he did with 6 Moons. Would I buy from him? Ummm not if it means I have to wear the type of underpants he demands.
Edits: 07/09/09
> Then regularly as clockwork the 3 ambulance chasers namely Kuller, Marks and Hansen will arrive. The first 2 I can understand but Hansen puzzles me-Yes there is Valin and Nordost but he is not TAS.>
What this represents is how the new owner of TAS handles these ethical dilemmas. Very differently than HP - remember Steven Stone?
> Finally a late arrival at this accident seems to be Mr Rankin who behaved in exactly the same way he did with 6 Moons. Would I buy from him? Ummm not if it means I have to wear the type of underpants he demands.>
LOL!
Hi there.
We can openly discuss more "BS" issues, as you call them.
We could e.g. discuss the "industry" presence (In your case you called it "lurking") in this forum.
Already the presence of any manufacturer or reviewer is used (Hmmmh - perhaps some of them did not even realize it yet) or better must be seen as a marketing activity or as a marketing instrument.
All this has nothing to do with conspiracy theories. This is just the way how todays marketing works.
People should be aware though, that they are being manipulated, if they like it or not. (1st-year marketing-psychology)
If this complies to the forum policy - fair enough. Again - there is nothing wrong about it!
My earlier statement, BS as you called it, was not based on a sudden flash of inspiration.
Neither you don't know my background, nor my contacts.
(You might guess that I have/had something to do with marketing for quite a while)
A final comment: Keep in mind - with all your media experience and presence - to judge others people statements in an open forum and to rate it BS, could easily turn back on you.
This kind of wording I'd call forum slang. Reading such an "emotional" reaction doesn't look very professional to me. Keep in mind that your signature even lists your company. I assume that you're officially representing it.
.
Both sides of the river, there is bacteria; there must be meaning behind the moaning, is this living?
Hey John,
I'll be the first to admit that I tend to be a conspiracy theorist, so I certainly can see soundchecks point of view.
If he is correct, why then does Stereophile give so many positive reviews
to products to companies that don't advertise. We even put products from
companies that don't advertise on our cover!
HMMM. Maybe to be able to write things such as that when someone reveals the con? :)
And I think it is safe to say that the manufacturers who dont advertise and get a good review, see the lift in sales, and think twice about advertising. It would be interesting to see how many STARTED advertising after a positive review.
Also, my store is a well respected brand in its market and guess who walked in the other day? Yep, a magazine representative. This was a city magazine just starting out. Well, he shows me how we were "featured" on a few pages and then casually shows the back cover that is blank, saying that there is still time for us to advertise with them!
Granted this wasnt anything like a review as it wasnt that kind of mag, but the take home for me was pretty clear.
Dont get me too wrong, I ditched stereophile a long time ago, and Tas as well when they wrote their first computer audio article, so I probably belong in that group with Soundcheck that knows nothing about magazine publishing.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though. I don't remember thinking too much or at all that the reviews were clouded by advertising when I was subscribing.
I was more of the mind that they were not really helpful as one component can sound dramatically different in another system and well none of the reviewers systems were even remotely close to mine.
There was once a mag that I forget the name of who had 3 or 4 reviewers review the same piece and list their different systems. That kind of review process seemed a lot more informative than those of Tas or stereophile. And is a huge advantage AA has over magazines I think.
rw
They merged with Positive Feedback a few years ago to become Positive Feedback Online. Reviewers still list their complete systems, including accessories.
Hey Alan,
Yeah that sounds like the one. Thanks for the info.
DO they still have different reviewers review the same piece? Or is it the standard 1 reviewer per piece?
The last time I can REMEMBER a mag doing that was when Stereophile did a review on the Pass Aleph 3 and I think it was Muse K reviewed it and said it was better than the editors reference, so it was "time for him to enter the fray" or something to that effect.
I hope that it didnt sound like I am antimag. I dont think I am it is just a challenge as things can be so system dependent to make a review almost useless.
Some of it is that I had tas and stereophile say 14 years ago or so and well the changes were pretty much always for the worse IMHO. Like Harley. I loved him at Stereophile, but I have it in my head that he ruined TAS. Hey I am not sure that is right, but that is what is in the old noggin so I have to go with it.
Now if I just picked them up today I would probably think they were great without anything to compare them to. But both set the bar so high years ago that it is easy to see how they diminished.
And what really soured me was when Tas did their first computer audio article. I remember thinking how some of it was accurate and some was just plain wrong which lead me to wonder how much of the other stuff was like that but I was just to dumb to know.....
i don't agree with the poster re magazines con game; the pov espoused is a tad cynical, conspiratorial and fatalistic. my point was that when the reader comes upon a piece of 'dreck' writing, s/he has to confront and oppose the writer and editor in writing. otherwise, readers are left with no option other than passive consumption or merely voting with their feet.
i think that the written outcry on AA and Computer Audiophile is the positive testimony of activist readers and should be applauded.
will this outcry evoke a reply from TAS? I would hope so, but i aint gonna bet my retirement on it :)
lord addleford
> don't agree with the poster re magazines con game; the pov espoused is a
> tad cynical, conspiratorial and fatalistic.
Or in my words, "BS."
> my point was that when the reader comes upon a piece of 'dreck' writing,
> s/he has to confront and oppose the writer and editor in writing.
> otherwise, readers are left with no option other than passive consumption
> or merely voting with their feet.
I totally agree. Which is why I lurk on this and other boards. I look
for, and value, feedback on what Stereophile is doing right _and_ wrong.
yes, "BS". and your active engagement (jousting) on 'the boards' augurs well for the continued vitality of 'phile; it is an unwritten element of being the editor-in-chief!
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