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In Reply to: RE: Nice summary posted by Charles Hansen on June 25, 2017 at 15:52:13
...although I hate to admit it.
I had just discovered high end audio and bought a pair Dahlquist DQ-10s when his first issue came out - they were his reference loudspeakers along with the electronic crossover and woofers.
Of course I bought those, too.
Then he rated the Rappaport PRE-1 as the best preamp. I was talking to a salesperson at Jonah Millers in downtown LA who said he wanted to sell his so I bought it.
Aczel said the best amps he had heard with his DQ-10s were the Quatre Gain Cells.
Quatre was located in the San Fernando Valley about an hour away and I saw an ad in the LA Times Audio Section for a sale they were having - I drove up and bought two of them.
So I was using Aczel's bi-amped Dahlquist reference system until the next issue of TAC came out when he traded in the DQ-10s for LS3-5as.
Follow Ups:
sold DQ-10s along with Magnepan. And Quatre Gain Cells because Dahlquist recommended them!
i had found were best driven by the hafler 500.
...regards...tr
Strongly influenced? Man, you drank the kool-aid! Just out of curiosity, how long did you stick with that system?
For me an even bigger influence than Peter Aczel was J. Peter Moncrieff of "International Audio Review". It's a bit ironic as his story arc was somewhat similar to Peter Aczel's - both lost credibility when they began selling their own products.
The very first person to write about tweaking was Enid Lumley in TAS. At the time what she was saying seemed so far-fetched that she was largely dismissed in an abusive way. However virtually everything she wrote is now an accepted part of high-end audio. J. Peter Moncrieff picked up the torch on this and was the only guy to really explore this in depth. Like Aczel, Moncrieff eventually decided that he knew more about equipment (capacitors in this case) than anyone else and started having them made to his specifications and reselling them for a handsome profit. After that there seemed to be a clear trend whereby equipment that used his parts received noticeably more positive reviews than equipment that didn't. It would seem that the results of that editorial strategy is fairly self-evident.
As always, strictly my personal opinion and not necessarily that of my employer or favorite magazine publisher.
I liked his reviews as well. Particularly the one on the Rockport Sirius III and the VAC Phi 70. Very well reasoned and logical reviews. Don't really know about his conflicts of interest but the thoroughness of the explanations was inspiring.
Do you remember when Moncrieff came up with the idea that he could thoroughly test phono cartridges by dropping the stylus on a sheet of glass and then doing an FFT of the output? As I recall he thought this methodology was so conclusive that he didn't even need to audition the cartridge.Then there was time Moncrieff pronounced the Oracle turntable as precisely 634 times better than the LP-12.
Edits: 06/27/17
> Do you remember when Moncrieff came up with the idea that he could
> thoroughly test phono cartridges by dropping the stylus on a sheet of glass
> and then doing an FFT of the output?
It's not a bad idea, except that it doesn't account for the effect of the vinyl
groove walls on the behavior. Years ago, Russ Andrews in the UK pointed
out to me that the "plop" sound when you drop the stylus in the groove
does characterize the phono cartridge's performance, though in a somewhat
uncontrolled way. I have analyzed a lot of these over the years.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
And why do you (all) feel it's necessary to dilute his death thread with it?
Perhaps my rant should be directed at AA moderation, which doesn't seem to care.
.
Geez Louise-each and every time anyone dies-a fate we shall all share-and the person is discussed, someone has to spout the ubiquitous "let's not talk badly of the dead" bit like a school teacher correcting an evil student without a hall pass. It's as silly as it is predictable. It brings to mind news of Glen Frey's death on JA's website and the brew ha-ha over the merit of The Eagles' book of work. I happen to side with The Dude on that one btw.
I was responding to a post in a sub-thread about J. Peter Moncrieff, an
audio reviewer who, like Peter Aczel, was/is a superb writer but who also
shared some behavioral patterns with him.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Mr. Atkinson,
Is is too soon to "turn over your hole cards" for the Peter Aczel poker pot?
Shall we expect a Sterophile eulogy - by you, by Olsher, by any of the "old guard" still writing for your rag?
(did JGH ever comment on the Aczel phenomenon - publically or privately - or Larry Archibald?)
> Shall we expect a Stereophile eulogy?
No, other than what I posted on Stereophile's Facebook page on June 25.
> did JGH ever comment on the Aczel phenomenon - publicly or privately - or
> Larry Archibald?
Yes, in private, but it would not be appropriate to repeat what was said in a
public forum.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
...I don't believe it is realistic to have some kind of a solemn memorial on Critic's Corner on an internet audio newsgroup when the person involved was an unpleasant huckster critic who took advantage of many of the people here.Actually some people here have said nicer things about him than I would have thought.
Edits: 06/28/17
Get a hint.
(nt)
...so good, all the others are boat anchors.Remember in the early 1980s when he printed his newsletter on red paper so people wouldn't photocopy them? You also could barely read them/
He wrote reviews like ad copy.
I could never figure out who he was writing them for - his readers, the manufacturers who also paid him to consult and buy his parts, or himself and his ego.
Edits: 06/27/17
...I was a cofounder of the Norrthern California Audio Society in 1979.J. Peter lived in Berkeley and used to come to our meetings.
He was a real character.
I think he managed the apartment building he lived in on Telegraph Ave. at the time. A buddy and I went to visit him once and saw his listening room with the walls lined with records in racks made from 2 X 4s.
There were a pair of Acoustats near the wall and and old beat up red listening chair across from it.
I used to see the big guy riding his 10-speed bicycle around town with a t-shirt, shorts and earmuffs on, no doubt to protect his hearing so he could hear the trebles.
Ironically he was the only audio writer to criticize Aczel in print for his lack of ethics in reviewing the Fourier loudspeaker. And then he was reviewing equipment with his capacitors, solder and wire in it.
I met Enid once, too, in about 1981 at a party at Art Ferris' (Modulus preamp) house. She was 6 feet tall and very personable.
Edits: 06/26/17
a couple of times and BOY was she outspoken. she made Mel Schilling quite nervous when she visited Music and Sound on Ventura Blvd across from Woodland Stereo with a leather case of LPs.
it came up in the discussion that she soldered her speaker wires directly to her Maggies.
...regards...tr
...I was looking for new speakers and had probably heard a half dozen that didn't do anything for me - then I heard the DQ-10s and I had to have them.Looking for the electronic crossover, I ventured into to a high end shop in Huntington Beach called Haven and Hardesty.
Dick Hardesty, who later became the Audio Perfectionist and wrote an ezine, showed me an issue of TAS and introduced me to the underground audio publications. I was hooked, kool-aid and all.
I kept the speakers for about 5 year but I highly modified the them subbing a KEF T-27 for the two tweeters among other things.
After about 3 years I bought a pair of real subwoofers and traded the Quatre amps for a Threshold 400A on top and a Bryston 4B on the subs. The Rappaport went for a Threshold NS-10 (not one of Nelson's finest) and later and ARC SP-6B.
Ahh, the good old days.
Edits: 06/26/17
> > So I was using Aczel's bi-amped Dahlquist reference system until the next issue of TAC came out when he traded in the DQ-10s for LS3-5as < <
Great story, thanks for sharing! The funny thing to me is that the DQ-10's were overall much better than the (admittedly good for the day) LS-3/5a'a. The worst problem of the DQ-10 was the horrible piezo-electric "super-tweeter". Simply disconnecting it solved a lot of problems. More gains could be had by mirror-imaging the upper-frequency drivers and replacing the stock wiring and capacitors, but that kind of tweaking was just a glimmer on the horizon back then.
I never had a chance to hear the Rappaport or the Quattre, but I bet the system sounded a far sight better than just about anything else for back then, with the possible exception of tubed electronics from Audio Research, Marantz, or McIntosh, and ESLs from KLH or Quad.
As always, strictly my personal opinions, prone to error and not necessarily those of my employer or favorite reviewer.
...I mirror-imaged mine, subbed better caps and and did a bunch of other stuff including using a KEF T-27 tweeter in place of the two stock ones.
I wrote an article about my mods and sent it to HP and he published in TAS in about 1980.
I went out and listened to the LS3-5as and thought they were pretty amazing in the way they threw an image but the DQ-10s sounded much better.
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