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In Reply to: RE: Not bothering posted by Dawnrazor on October 5, 2011 at 21:48:36
I see a lot of material that was on the main Stereophile site. let's see what they produce on the new site from here on.
Bill
Follow Ups:
Yes, John Atkinson and Tyll Hertsens were kind enough to allow me to post previously published reviews from Stereophile and Inner Fidelity, respectively. All content on all of our sites shows the author at the top of each entry along with the original date of publication.
but they were not out of place given what you're doing and that you want to have some content as you launch. And I also noticed several (what appeared to be) original articles. Nice work and I look forward to reading more.
Sheesh, I can be pretty cynical at times but I'm a rookie compared to some of the inmates around here.
The Stereophile content is certainly relevant and I also find the older articles of value for a number of reasons the least of which being to illustrate the pace at which this technology evolves.
And thank you for the kind words. At this point all of the articles on the first page and the first few on the second are original/new content authored by me. Excuse me while I duck & cover.
Always have your asbestos suit handy, Michael. :--}
I'll see y'all at RMAF....you won't need it there.
Fair enough Bill. But do you think they will do reviews separate from Sphile? I thought this was a spin off site? So wont the reviews still come from Stereophile?
I know I am expecting too much from a magazine, and granted it is a large field with many many options. And they do have to sell gear to get advertizers, regardless of the rules they have.
Just seems like they are missing alot of stuff, so hopefully they will get their act together as you say.
What I as the Editor have to do is attract readers. Readers attract advertisers.
In terms of rules, there’s simply no connection between content and advertising. The people involved with advertising learn what I’m reviewing and what I have to say about it the same time you do - when the review gets published.
I learn about who advertises on the site the same time you do – when I see the ads show up on the site.
Hi Michael,
What I as the Editor have to do is attract readers. Readers attract advertisers.
That is my point. SPECIFIC readers attract specif advertisers. Do you get requests from Budweiser to advertize?? Why not?? Arent you attracting readers? But yet the only advertisers I see on the site are AUDIO manufactures. Just like you never see an investment bank commercial on football games but every tennis match is sponsored by some big bank or investment company.
I probably wasnt clear. Your site is set up to report on audio gear, and to get audio manufacturers to advertize. So the content is geared to readers who are in to audio gear.
Those manufacturers are pushing a mac centric "the computer doesnt matter" agenda, and so is your site in large part to attract the readers who buy into that paradigm.
So you are not devoted to getting the best sound out of computer audio, but to promoting the industry line of plug and play. You wont report on how to tweak the computer os or hardware or how to build an audio computer because this is "computer audio for everyone". Dumbing things down seems to be the trend these days so I shouldnt be surprised if it hits audiophilia.
And to John's comment about cynics which is laughable, you both certainly have the best intentions but are naive in thinking that there is zero connection between content and advertizing. If you dont get advertisers your site will be pulled. So the connection isnt explicit, but it is implicit.
> I probably wasnt clear. Your site is set up to report on audio gear, and to get audio manufacturers to advertize. So the content is geared to readers who are in to audio gear.
I would imagine the people responsible for ads would be happy to have clients outside the audio industry. While the content of the site largely remains to be seen, it is my intention to speak to people who are "in to" music. The distinction being, I do not assume that all AudioStream readers will also be audiophiles.
> Those manufacturers are pushing a mac centric "the computer doesnt matter" agenda, and so is your site in large part to attract the readers who buy into that paradigm.
You are imposing your very focused point of view onto a site that is a few days old. While I do not agree with your simple paradigm we'll have to wait and see what actually happens.
> So you are not devoted to getting the best sound out of computer audio, but to promoting the industry line of plug and play. You wont report on how to tweak the computer os or hardware or how to build an audio computer because this is "computer audio for everyone". Dumbing things down seems to be the trend these days so I shouldnt be surprised if it hits audiophilia.
You may want to tweak your crystal ball because its only showing you the things you want to see. But seriously, the idea that over time computer-based audio will provide better sound quality while becoming more plug and play is good news for those people who are most interested in spending their time enjoying their music. You call this a dumbing down, I wouldn't.
I would imagine the people responsible for ads would be happy to have clients outside the audio industry. While the content of the site largely remains to be seen, it is my intention to speak to people who are "in to" music. The distinction being, I do not assume that all AudioStream readers will also be audiophiles.
Personally I think this is doomed to fail. Music lovers just dont give a crap about sq. Mp3 is perfect for them and iTunes is the cats meow. They have already embraced computer audio.
EX. I know a guy who LOVES music. He played the trombone in many orchestras and bands, is featured on 2 cds and has an amazing music collection. He said he had over 5,000 records and as many cds. He bought one of those $99 usb turntables and started putting vinyl on his ipod. I tried to explain to him the importance of doing it right and the quality he was missing, etc. But in the end he just didnt care. Listening to music was more important than how it sounded. Hey some people LOVE Taco Bell. They wont have any inclination to read a site that talks about where to buy a better burrito....
Maybe I am missing it but dont audiophiles have enough "music" sites???
Again, best of luck but you seem to have too broad a focus to have content that engages such a large audience past the first few visits. Hopefully I am wrong. We will see.
You may want to tweak your crystal ball because its only showing you the things you want to see. But seriously, the idea that over time computer-based audio will provide better sound quality while becoming more plug and play is good news for those people who are most interested in spending their time enjoying their music. You call this a dumbing down, I wouldn't.
Well that is an IDEA. Though I think that better sq and plug and play are often mutually exclusive, the industry HAS to peddle that idea. You have already bought in. Buy in doesnt make an idea true though. If your site doesnt address the computer situation it wont help audiophiles. Since manufactures cant seem to make a dac that IS isolated from what happens in the computer, tweaking the computer is vital for sound quality and well it seems talking about that is not something this site will do. (Lets see how my crystal ball does on that one. FWIW, it is tweaked already with a custom made sand box and herbies dots.)
So IMHO this site wont really help me in terms of improving sq, hence my "not bothering" comment.
Thanks for your best wishes.
Obviously I disagree and yes, you are missing something but you won't know what that is because you're "not bothering" ;-)
Cheers.
> What I as the Editor have to do is attract readers. Readers attract
> advertisers.
Exactly the case, Michael. From my tribute to my mentor John Crabbe,
editor of Hi-Fi News magazine from 1964 to 1982, at the essay linked
below:
"If you tell the truth about components you review, there will always be a
small percentage of companies at any one time who are not advertising in
your pages. But if you publish the truth, you will have a good magazine.
And if you have a good magazine, you will have readers. And as long as you
have readers, disgruntled advertisers will eventually return. But if you
don't tell the truth, you won't have a good magazine. And if you don't have
a good magazine, you won't have readers, at least not for long. And if you
don't have readers, you won't have advertisers."
Those cynics who keep trying to link editors' decisions with advertising
would do well to keep John Crabbe's words in mind. They apply to websites
as much as they do to paper magazines.
Excellent quote and seems nearly self-evident.
I sometimes wonder with the more outrageous claims if the people making them aren’t inadvertently telling us how they’d go about things if given the opportunity.
> I sometimes wonder with the more outrageous claims if the people making
> them aren't inadvertently telling us how they'd go about things if given
> the opportunity.
I believe this is actually the case. The cynic is saying "If I were in your
situation, I wouldn't be able to stay honest so I must assume that neither
can you."
Hi John,
I believe this is actually the case. The cynic is saying "If I were in your situation, I wouldn't be able to stay honest so I must assume that neither can you."
Just the opposite. A cynic becomes cynical because of their honesty and constant experience that the rest of the world lacks it. So it is something more like "I have been disappointed frequently before by virtuous talk so why should this time be any different?"
Look at the first definition in the link below and it will become clear how the modern use of the term "cynic" probably arose.
From the same link:
": a faultfinding captious critic; especially : one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest."
Of course I saw that, but it doesnt undercut my point. Which by the way is that the cynic is cynical because their core beliefs are different from the masses. So in that definition the cynic doesnt include themselves as being motivated wholly by self interest!! They are cynical precisely because they are NOT wholly motivated by self interest and most everyone else is.
If they lumped them into the category they put everyone else, then they wouldnt be cynical!!
Now you're making my head hurt!It seems to me that there are posters here who will always think the worst of Stereophile. They're not being cynical, they're being bloody minded. They fit the type described in my previous post because they maintain their core beliefs, regardless of the facts.
It's not medical advice, it's not financial advice, it's advice on reproducing music in the home at, hopefully, a high quality that the audio press provide.
The onus is on us, the end buyer, to go and audition anything we take a fancy to.
I accept that if you're like me and live far away from stores, then an element of trust must exist.
The cynics I refer to have not given Michael's site a chance to evolve. Of course it will have faults, what aspect of life doesn't? They are putting in the hard yards producing it. Much of the above is just sniping from the sidelines.
Sorry, am I sounding too cynical?!
What with the editors doing the mock interplay and the resultant slight to readers, wow. It's not like you are leading the parade, the contributors here are way ahead of you.
A parade. I like the metaphor and in sticking to it, yes AudioStream at 1 day old has just joined.
On feeling slighted, you’re suggesting that some people now feel slighted because we’ve suggested that they may be inclined to do what it is they’ve accused us of doing?
I'd call that a draw.
At least Michael is polite about it.
There is another Stereophile reviewer who likes to insult inmates and insisted that a $35 AES cable is the way to test a 382k usb dac 'because' he did not have another transport and 'because' a rival vendor 'approved' it sonically due to his product 'sounding' better.
Because old school knows that two wrongs don't make a right.
> Because old school knows that two wrongs don't make a right.I think you misinterpreting what was being said. People make judgments and
statements based on their own experiences, cultural expectations, and
experience. (This is one of the subjects I will discussing in my forthcoming
lecture at the New York AES convention on October 21 - see link below - in
the context of assessing the sound quality of audio components.) People
therefore can't help but reveal their own ethos and expectations when
they make any comment. As I have written before on this forum, the words
we all choose to use are windows into our beliefs and character.
For example, regardless of what you think about his political beliefs,
when Rick Santorum equated gay marriage with having sex with dogs, we
learned more about Santorum than we did about homosexuality.Similarly, when people make baseless claims about magazine content being
determined by ad revenue - and baseless they are, third-party statistical
analyses published on the Asylum and elsewhere showing that there is
_zero_ correlation between Stereophile's content and advertising - we
learn more about those making such accusations than we do about how to
edit magazines.Let me assure you that any editor who put the interests of his
advertisers ahead of those of his reader would have a short career indeed,
for the reasoning outline by the late John Crabbe.
> I sometimes wonder with the more outrageous claims if the people making them aren't inadvertently telling us how they'd go about things if given the opportunity.
If someone feels wronged by this statement they should try to be more considerate before making knowingly outrageous claims. After all, if they didn’t knowingly make them the quote wouldn’t apply.
That’s preschool.
Either neither one of you understands what I typed or both of you are committed to making my point.
Does it increase the odds that I, or others reading this thread, will spend any time at the new site after this exchange? Does this exchange increase traffic to the new site? What would advertisers think about this exchange and its affect on their ROI?
> Does it increase the odds that I, or others reading this thread, will
> spend any time at the new site after this exchange?
I think it will increase the odds, now that it is clear that the site's
content is not affected by advertising.
> Does this exchange increase traffic to the new site?
I believe it will.
> What would advertisers think about this exchange and its affect on their
> ROI?
Why would that matter?
"I think it will increase the odds, now that it is clear that the site's content is not affected by advertising."
Advertising $ for good reviews wasn't my contention, nor did I ever suggest it. You must have me confused with someone else.
Coming to this forum and suggesting that members here are immoral and unethical because a few of them have directed such comments at Stereophile for such a practice isn't good business PR. The strategy of defending your integrity by suggesting people here are immoral/unethical is not a winning strategy.
"I believe it will."
Only based on your misunderstanding of my point above.
"Why would that matter?"
Because those who would advertise on your site expect that their investment pays off in such a way that it generates sales for them. If the representatives of the site that they're investing in, through advertising, are pissing off potential site visitors by insulting them, the return on that investment would tend to drop due to a decrease in potential visitors.
In general, for advertisers, an increase in visitors = an increase in sales and a decrease in visitors = a decrease in sales.
Based on past experience any mention on any forum increases traffic. No matter the nature of the exchange.
That said, I registered and entered this discussion to respond to a few questions that only I was in a position to answer.
Let's piss off some people at AA by suggesting they're immoral/unethical so we can generate some traffic to our site. You actually think it's moral and ethical to use this forum to direct traffic to your site for free. Wow. You take the cake and the box it came in.
Maybe these people should ask for the same discount that you're getting.
The link to the site was included in the first post (which I had nothing to do with). I chose to participate here for the reason I already stated - to answer specific questions relating to the site that only I was in a position to answer.
Joe, do you think (and I ask this in all seriousness, not as a wind up) that Michael's site will live or die with the attraction, or lack of it, of AA readers? I wouldn't think it would make a jot of difference.There's no reason to "use this forum to direct traffic to your site for free". The traffic will come, regardless of what AA members think.
If this site and its members truly won't make a jot of difference in traffic, JA's initial post wouldn't have made it to this site in the first place.
As long as it was OK with Rod, I have no problem with JA announcing the new site on AA. However, #1 neither rep should have pissed in this pool and #2, the "admission" that stirring the pot, if necessary, was (possibly) a premeditated action is appalling.
"If this site and its members truly won't make a jot of difference in traffic, JA's initial post wouldn't have made it to this site in the first place."
I think that post was a courtesy, not a necessity.
Many posts were negative from the start. The pot stirring started long before JA commented.
> I think that post was a courtesy, not a necessity.
I posted the announcement in this forum because I thought that those
passionately interested in PC audio would welcome another, complementary
source of information to the Asylum's PC Audio forum. People shouldn't
read anything more into this fact and my thanks to the moderators for
allowing me to make that post.
> Many posts were negative from the start. The pot stirring started long
> before JA commented.
And my comments to which some have taken great offense were specifically
aimed at those I called "cynics," who see unethical agendas at work in the
activities of those of us professionally involved in audio publishing. Yes,
perhaps I should recognize that when you are in a hole, it might be best to
stop digging. But to judge from the recent "Yikes" post, the baseless
accusation that our editorial decisions are based on advertising concerns
seems to be taken for granted in some quarters. Which is why I felt some
sort of clarification was in order.
nt
> the "admission" that stirring the pot, if necessary, was (possibly) a premeditated action is appalling.
Your quotes and parentheses illustrate very clearly that you know you're reaching for these conclusions. And you have to reach for them because they are not true. You made them up.
And you refuse to take me at my word and apparently would rather twist and interpret them so you can continue to be pissed off and appalled. I feel like I'm talking to some guy in a bar who's just pissed off because the lights are going to come on any minute.
The quotes were for emphasis (maybe not the best choice to show emphasis) and the parentheses around the word "possibly" were put there because you didn't outright say that it was premeditated, though one of your comments above did imply it was an option if need be.
Since you are not willing to put any effort into understanding why the comment JA made, and you agreed with, is wrong, it makes no sense to continue this exchange.
But you can have the last word.
sounds arrogant. Attract readers attract Ads???
When you put it that way, sure it does. But that's not what I said or how I said it.
Readership. Ratings. Advertising.
It all boils down to bottom line. Magazines (and television and radio) rely on advertising revenue. They're businesses after all...
Cheers,
Presto
journalists and reviewers who have a degree of humility, and those who think they are 'superior' to their readers.
I ignore the latter, who don't attract a broad base of readers but who may appeal to some advertisers.
They created a headphone oriented site some time ago. That might be a model for the PC audio site. The editor for that headphone site is someone who had been writing about headphones elsewhere.
I don't have any special insight. I might speculate that John Atkinson does not want to devote too much space to computer audio gear and topics in the printed magazine. High rollers in countries like Russia and China won't be interested in PCI soudncards and cheap DACs. On the other hand, many people who are interested in PC audio (and are not currently Stereophile subscribers) are not really interested in very high priced turntables, preamps, amps and speakers.
I'd guess that this is an experiment for Stereophile. One guy spends some time creating content for awhile and if it works, Stereophile taps into a new market. if it isn't working after 6-12 months, they move on to another experiment.
At present, the Stereophile forums are pretty barren for someone interested in PC audio. If you want good info or conversations about PC audio, you look elsewhere. That's bad news for Stereophile.
Bill
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