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Read this months Stereophile and also a great little zine called The Hi-Fi Reader where Art's interviewed. Really trashes him....
Follow Ups:
It took awhile for me to warm up to him (must be the New England Yankee in me) but now I look forward to reading him. His contributions to the 2007 Buyer's Guide "deserve him a prize".
HP is pretty harmless. He is not as influential when it comes to enthusiasts' buying decisions as he once was.
...for criticism.He's a pretty private guy with a big ego and sort of a dual personality - an excited kid full of wonder in a candy store, or a critical, condescending ass when you cross him.
You could see this in his reviewing vs his answers to critical readers in the old 'Letters' columns.
Many of the writers who worked for HP and TAS in its heyday ended up leaving for various reasons.
That includes AD who I met at the only big staff meeting weekend TAS ever had in about 1986. AD seemed like a very nice guy to me.
Most of the writers I spoke with after they left were critical of HP, particularly his management style, or lack thereof.
Many of the writers wanted and expected more personal attention from HP, which they never got. It was usually an editor you dealt with about your reviews who said "HP wants you to do this..." I gave HP a hard time about this once and he agreed to call and talk with every writer at least twice a year. It never happended.
He drove the magazine into bankruptcy twice with his big spending habits and lack of business acumen, usually hiring personal friends as business managers.
But everyone I spoke with still had a lot of respect for what he writes and had accomplished, virtually creating high end audio.
Since he was HP's set-up guy, I wonder if HP stood up for him of left him to fend for himself?
> ...I wonder if HP stood up for him of left him to fend for himself?>New management with a business focus to bring the magazine out of bankruptcy probably weren't willing to reimburse HP's set-up guy what he had been getting paid.
Just a guess.
I know there was a lot of negotiating to get HP's contract signed.
Markwell was a great guy who went on to work for a manufacturer so I'm sure he did well.
Just reading his drivel is enough to make one puke: he is THE prototypical hi-fi snob.
nt
Bill Bailey
___________________________________________
See my stereo config ... but always looking for cost effective improvements
Hi Mike:I believe it was J. Gordon Holt. Gordon started Stereophile years before TAS. He was the first to focus reviews on high end products, i.e., those seeking faithful music reproduction, as opposed to general consumer audio products. He also created the initial lexicon of high end product reviewer's language. From what I remember reading, Pearson once acknowledged his debt to Holt. HP's objective in starting up TAS was to produce a better and more frequent publication. It's interesting the paths both publications have taken since then.
Also, the concept of creating high end audio begs the chicken VS egg question. Was it writers like Holt and Pearson or designers/manufacturers like Klipsch, Villchur, Marantz, McIntosh, etc.?
...where did you first hear about:
Infinity Speakers
Audio Research Corporation
Magnaplanar
conrad-johnsonHP claims he coined the term 'high-end' and has it copywrited/trademarked.
> I believe it was J. Gordon Holt.>
He was the first to publish 'observational listening reviews' and to begin developing a vocabulary to describe what he heard.
> Also, the concept of creating high end audio begs the chicken VS egg question.>
.
"...where did you first hear about:
Infinity Speakers
Audio Research Corporation
Magnaplanar
conrad-johnson"In hi-fi stores.
The term "high-end" is typical market-speak bullshit and if HP coined it he did us no favor.
I think old HP is a very perceptive and interesting writer on movies. When he stopped writing in Perfect Vision I stopped buying it.
Listen to track 5 of stereophile Test CD #1 where Holt reads his article published in Stereophile way back in 1963.
I was a charter subscriber to TAS and for the first few years I read and enjoyed it as an addition to Stereophile.However, your "test" looses on at least 3 out of 4 counts. I happen to have a duplicate copy of Stereophile, #2-71, identified as Late Summer 1971, with my handwritten note I received it in July '71 (unfortunately I sold my first several years' issues some time ago). The Recommended Components list in that issue includes:
Audio Research SP-2c preamp
Infinity preamp
Audio Research Dual-50D amp
Infinity SS-I speakers
Infinity 2000A speakersIn addition, "Quickies" reviews include the Infinity 2000A, and Audio Research SP-2C and Dual-50D with full reviews promised for the next issue. Under "Miscellany", there is discussion of a new Audio Research speaker, a magnetic system that behaves like an electrostatic and uses large-area ultra-light-weight Mylar sheets as radiators. Many of us elder audiophiles know the original Magnaplanar speakers were distributed by ARC and sold under their name. So, here is J. Gordon reviewing or introducing three products out of four from your evidence list two years prior to Volume 1, Issue 1 of TAS. I'm not certain but I don't believe C-J existed at that point in time.
While I will acknowledge that HP initiated many factors of high end product reviewing, I will not concede that he created high end audio - except perhaps in his own mind.
...Infinity 2000A speaker in Stereo Review in about 1972.Julian Hirsch gave it an A-.
That doesn't mean he had anything to do with the creation of High End audio.
Perhaps 'raising audiphile's awarenes of High End audio' is more descriptive of what HP and TAS did.
I knew about Audio Research long before the Absolute Sound started publishing. I owned one of William Johnson's modified Dynaco PAS-3xs (wish I still had it) when he was still operating as Electronics Industries (I think I am remembering that correctly). And I heard the Maggie T-1Us at my local dealer, Douglas Dynamics, before the Absolute Sound mentioned Magneplanar. As has been noted J Gordon Holt did cover much of this stuff first.
HP may want to believe that he invented high-end but it just isn't so.
I can't claim to have heard them all at the time of their original release but to me high-end started with the Quad ESL-57, Marantz 7/8B/9/10B series, the KLH 9s, HK Citation 1 & 2, etc. The dance had already started long before The Absolute Sound started publishing.
HP claims he coined the term 'high-end' and has it copywrited/trademarked.
And in TAS' copyright notice, it used to say " Not one word " of The Abso!ute Sound may be used without permission...
You can't copyright a simple word of prhase, and he wouldn't be able to trademark it unless he'd say, named the magazine High-End or used it as an advertising slogan or somesuch.
"Bullshit" --Used without permission of The Abso!ute Sound
se
Good for you! I have always thought that phrase 'not one word' was totally nonsensical.
I dunno, Mike. First time I saw "Stereophile" was 1969.Was TAS in business then? Obviously, if it was, I didn't know about it; not that that means a whole lot.
...until about 1973.So what?
Did you read about any of those brands in Stereophile in the 1970s?
So what? Those of us reading Stereophile in the early days learned plenty--plenty--that we never heard in the existing mags of the day AND that we never really saw discussions of in the AS when he did start it. No comparison.
At the time, I was also an avid reader of Stereo Review, High Fidelity and, occasionally, "Audio."By and large, the equipment reviewers for those magainzes focused exclusively on "the numbers." If "the numbers" were good, these guys said, "Wow! Terrific numbers! Sounds good, too." There was a tremendous reticence, a distrust really, by those reviewers to use their own ears. They used their ears, if at all, to validate the measurements. I think that's backwards.
JGH and the boys, of course, started out without any numbers at all; they just listened.
If you want a great illustration of what I'm talking about, compare JGH's review of the Bose 901 with Julian Hirsch's. (I've read both.) Here's a really unorthodox approach to speaker design but, frankly, Hirsch tells you very, very little about how it sounds say, in comparison to an AR-3A, a "conventional" speaker of good reputation at about the same price. And even he admits that his "numbers" don't mean much. JGH does a good job of describing the speaker's sound. (Yeah, I also heard the 901 in 1968 or 1969; although it was "ahead of its time" in that its aggressive equalization in the bass range required more drive than the amplifiers of the time could deliver.)
I do like the fact that Stereophile measures things. But I think they have their priority straight; listen first, then measure.
I'm really uninterested in whether HP first "discovered" Audio Research Corp., Magnepan, etc. BFD. For one thing, if TAS didn't start until 1973, I beat them to the punch on those brands. First time I knew about Magneplanars (driven by ARC electronics) was when I heard them in 1972, in Baltimore where I was a TA at Johns Hopkins. And yes, they were a "revelation."
nt
Usually one of the ways for grad students to earn money.
Your 'simple test' is confusing. But my 'answers' are that I first heard of those mfgs in Stereophile, but I didn't read TAS at its beginning. Holt started the whole thing. Who cares who coined the term 'high end'. Pearson used Holt as a model in part because Holt couldn't hold to a steady publishing schedule and, I believe, Pearson came out of the publishing business.
> ...I believe, Pearson came out of the publishing business.>IIRC, HP was the environmental reporter for Newsday on Long Island before he left to found TAS.
As I've mentioned before, it was Dick Hardesty, ironically, through his high end boutique in Huntington Beach,CA who first showed me high end audio and introduced me to TAS in about 1976.
I subscribed to TAS with issue #7 (and ordered back issues) and read Stereophile from time to time. They were very different publications.
Stereophile was nearly a one man operation. Holt wrote interesting stuff but in comparison his magazine seemed very amateur.
TAS on the other hand wrote about the High End equipment and their designers - Nudell, Johnson, Winey, Dahlquist, Marantz, Levinson and the rest - and really made it all come alive. HP and his writers had strong personalities, just like the designers, and it made for compelling reading and many times drama.
So it was TAS that first really exposed me - and many other audiophiles to High End audio in the mid to late 1970s, when it was beginnnig to become a force.
Just because your particular individual experience may have been different doesn't change what HP and TAS accomplished.
Well, there's YOUR personal individual experience and MY individual experience and how it is that your PIE defines anything about what HP "accomplished" is a mystery to me in light of the last sentence of your post. JGH was there first and best. Neither mag is what it used to be, but HP is still writing in the back pages of the AS and I think the only way he can do that is to totally ignore what's in the rest of "his" former mag.
< < I think the only way he can do that is to totally ignore what's in the rest of "his" former mag. > >
For how maligned Harry Pearson has been over the years, I say of all audio journalists, he was IMO the most-responsible for the awareness and existence of "absolute fidelity" and the mere interest in high-end audio.I also say too many people have read stuff into his journals that he never implied. Pearson's biggest problem, from my perspective, is his writing style, where propensity for ambiguity has gotten him into trouble.
And in my "Don Allen" era of audio, I say Pearson is the only audio journalist I'd be interested in reading.
Unfortunately not one direct hit to the heart as yet.
My opinion still holds now as it did then.....I think there will always be disagreement over whether HP was blatantly arrogant or naively idealistic.
(nt)
Not even close in my opinion.
whats new with that? it would be interesting to read an all inclusive biography of tas and its inner workings but i dont have any interest in spats. harry had policies that he expected would be followed.i have always respected tas for its content and integrity, even if it veered a bit now and then. tpv never got much of my interest either, and after a trial subscrip, i neglected to re-up. the early ones were rather obscure to me.
i guess audio and music is WAY more important to me than video and film.
...regards...tr
They had a falling out when Dudley lied to hp (so says hp) over a piece of equipment when AD was affiliated with TAS. I once worote to Stereophile complaining over a thinly veiled attack on hp that Dudley wrote, he avering that no critics ever mentioned dynamic range when hp virtually invented such discussions, cpoining the "macro" and "micro" variants.
Dunno if he actually doesn't like HP or not but if what AD writes about him routinely demanding meals at 3 star restaurants, rare wines, etc. is true then I don't blame him - that's the equivalent of a shakedown as far as I am concerned.
< < the equivalent of a shakedown > >This is just plain wrong. For a decade or two, HP was extremely influential. Manufacturers were clamoring for his attention, hoping to get a positive review in TAS. He probably had a half-dozen callers each week.
Now, it so happens that HP enjoys the finer things in life, such as good music and a good meal. It's preposterous to think that he should have to treat visiting manufacturers to dinner several times a week. So if they want to go out, they get to pay.
I took HP out to dinner perhaps a half a dozen times in my life. He knows some great restaurants, and we had some fantastic meals together. Even with the liquor added in (he and I are both port fanatics), I don't think I ever spent more than $200.
And if I was stupid enough to think it was buying me some good exposure in the magazine, I got what I deserved -- nothing.
Go ahead and look in all the back issues you want. HP gave the original Avalon Ascent a nice review back around 1989. MK (who visits these forums, but whom I have never even met) gave the Ayre V-3 a nice review around 1996.
And that's it -- nothing more, nada, zip.
If a manufacturer is stupid enough to think that buying HP dinner is going to make a difference in what he writes about, he is probably stupid enough to claim he was "shaken down".
So your posting is just plain wrong. HP is a fascinating guy, extremely perceptive, unbelievably entertaining, and full of integrity.
His main failing was that he has no idea how to run a successful business.
x
(nt)
Wining and dining isn't new. Neither are free review samples, $, etc.HP's favorite is a signed full page ad contract for a year. ($60K?)
Unfortunately, it's like this in every Industry.
You accuse HP of extortion and accepting bribes. Look up one post and I've explained my experience of the "wining and dining".I don't for a second believe any of your other charges -- "free review samples", "money", "full page ad contracts for a year".
So give us some concrete examples. Name some names.
/
I get 300 - 400 spams every day. I have a filter that will sometimes delete legitimate mail. The best way to make sure your e-mail makes it through the filter is to include the word "ayre" somewhere in the subject header.
/
wining and dining isn't new - hell, I'm a doctor and the drug companies pay for that sort of stuff all the time. but they're big companies, and they invite me, I don't demand it of them, and I don't always go. Those companies actually have a budget for such "advertising." Compared to pharmaceuticals, audio companies are very small time - of course, there are a lot more doctors than audio critics, too.
< < HP's favorite is a signed full page ad contract for a year. ($60K?) > >Any evidence for this, or just another nasty rumor? I've spent time with him on many occasions and he *never* even hinted at anything like this.
Any time at restaurants?
< < Any time at restaurants? > >You bet -- some of the best meals of my life! (see link below)
.
Interesting. Not the response I was expecting.....Here's the link to Hi-Fi Reader. I enjoyed it!
Nothing about the front-end of the showcased system is of "Hi-Fidelity"!
. . . when one sees, right up front, phrases such as "Copy's are $4.50."He may be a reader, but . . . well, you know.
nt
to make a possessive out of a plural, yet we even see it on painted signs and in publications. its part of what i call creeping illiteracy.go ahead and criticize my lack of caps and some punctuation but that is a choice on my part, i am not a typist. spelling can be checked and apostrophes can be learned about.
for that sort of faux pas to appear on the COVER of a new magazine makes me wary of its contents.
...regards...tr
A blog with no blog. And I doubt the authenticity of the advertised interview...maybe AD gave one, maybe not. Feels like money down the internet drain to me. Maybe someone (else) will buy the rag and report.
I'm not so much interested in reading about AD trashing HP...but I AM interested to know more about The Hi Fi reader. Can you supply more info?
I have been not reading "Stereophile for many years but I would like more info on "The HiFi Reader" please.
Heres a link to the info on the hifi reader
http://hi-fireader.blogspot.com/
Thad is the guy who does it and I think he did a very good job. He is a friend of mine and actually did a story on my system. My set up sounds good to me, whether it is hi fi or not doesn't matter to me because it plays music well.
There seems to be people trashing his magazine with out even having read it. Thats sad. He put alot of effort into and receives no money for it. I guess his greatest reward was to have Art Dudley give him a great interview. For someone to question wheteher that interview even happened is absurd. Come on.
Buy the magazine (zine) and read it if you want or don't. Thad probably doesn't care. You can flame me now
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