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In Reply to: Re: Almost correct posted by andy19191 on March 1, 2007 at 10:18:02:
...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.
Follow Ups:
> 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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