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We're getting closer to discovering the critical points...

Rick,

Thanks for the refined reply. I still have some disagreements with both you and Avocat, but they are becoming better defined as we continue this discourse.

First, I believe you confuse advertising goals with editorial goals. Certainly advertisers aim to get purchasers. That's a no-brainer. However, just because a manufacturer advertises in a given magazine doesn't mean that magazines editorial policy is PRIMARILY about readers buying those things. The PRIME policy of enthusiast magazines is to keep up the enthusiasm. This by nature means that advertisers are attracted to the readership. I bet you'd find that advertisers prefer enthusiast publications to buyer's guides by a very wide margin. Enthusiastic readers buy things more readily than uninspired ones. One should also note that with the exception of CR, there aren't any mags I can think of that are strictly enthusiast or strictly buyer's guide-types. Stereophile already has a lot of the buyer's-guide in it, but the balance, in my opinion, is positively to the enthusiast side. My issue with Avocat is that I believe he is proposing to shift the balance of Stereophile away from being primarily an enthusiast mag to being much more of a buyer's guide. That is something I am personally not interested in, and so I let my opinion on it be heard.

Secondly, I think you are way off on a tangent from my point about music education. You seem to be focussing your comments on professional musicians, and those who would become professionals. I'm not talking about those people AT ALL. I'm talking about music theory and appreciation being taught in high schools to students who are not likely to become musicians. One isn't able to opt-out of basic physics because one doesn't plan on becoming a physicist. Students today don't take much music in high schools because very few schools offer any courses at all. Go ahead: look up the curriculum of New York City public high schools. Look up the curriculum in Boise. You'l find that music theory, music appreciation, music instruction are at all-time lows in public schools.

The professional world is independant from my comments, which were about searching for reasons why the high-end MAY seem troubled (again, I don't think it really is). Not caring very much about the QUALITY of music reproduction would be one problem (the new high-end may just be compressed mp3s). Not actively listening to music as a prime activity (as opposed to semi-listening as background to something else) may be another. Not knowing squat about music may be in there as well. This is the way the general public is now, and they aren't too interested in music, so why would they care about high-end equipment? 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. 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.

"How does one judge the quality of jr.&sr. high school music training anyway? Go by the level of ability possessed by a young pro in Duluth? Go by what's popular among the masses in the "hinterlands"? Was Frankie Avalon's popularity in 50's symbolic of better music ed than Brittney Spears' popularity now? Dianna Ross's popularity in the '60's/70's indicates better music appreciation than Mariah Carey's popularity now? Rap's popularity shows a lack of music ed compared to the popularity of the Dave Clark Five decades ago?"

These are not meaningful questions, because there is a real lack of music education across the board, and poularity of music genres has nothing whatsoever to do with music knowledge.

I also grew up listening to DUke Ellington, Jackie McClean, Eric Dolphy, Brubek and Miles, and I still do...;)


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