August Hifi News
- Thread starter Ptah
- Start date
You only have to listen to the lectures at the AES to hear that there are a lots of really careful committed practitioners of this intersection of science and art. I was given a series of lectures one of which included Rupert Neve (by martin of this parish) and a more charming, eloquent and gently thoughtful and insightful lecture on the current state of the industry in of digital audio one could not hope for. Not pimping his own stuff, not dissing anyone else's, just deep pragmatism and humour garnered from working a lifetime in the industry. Working though them I really don't think its fair to say the industry is full of charlatans. Sure you get the tent sellers at the outside gates... but thats ok you know where not to shop (or where to shop if you like that sort of thing).
It was inspiring and made me be *much* more careful with that DAC eugene.
It was inspiring and made me be *much* more careful with that DAC eugene.
sergeauckland
pfm Member
I suspect that behind that article was Jim guffawing up his sleeve at those who pay large amounts of money for the "tube sound" when they could achieve the same with a £299 SS amp and a 2 ohm resistor.
S.
Actually you can do it with a $30 RTAS or AU plug in. There are several and you can dial in different levels of THD. I use them to grime up over-clean recordings that are just a little too similar to the sounds around them. Sparingly mind, I was taught to only go lo-fi when you have made the HiFi version and the end result feels wanting. Still not found a Tape Saturation plug in quite like a 7.5IPS Revox B77 with slightly off-aligned heads and an old tape. It'll come, some smarts will nail that modelling simulation and pop songs for half a decade will become all organic and earthy. I henceforth dub this movement the New Digital Laptop Folk Re-Revival.
You read it first on PFM.
You read it first on PFM.
When folks use that awful phrase, it usually appears to be in the context "analogue" == "gramophone". Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with good analogue electronics - it has long been so far ahead of the capabilities of human hearing as not to matter i.e. my hearing (and more especially, my listening) is far more likely to vary from day to day than my power amplifiers.Hey))) I'm one of those guys who targets my Digital designs to sound more "analogue-like"!
But vinyl just sucks, in my view. Noisy, telephonic sound quality - limited bandwidth and, within that bandwidth, massive distortion. Ugh!
russel
./_dazed_and_confused
Another way of looking at might be. "Good reviews are available for a discount as I am broke"
Beobloke
pfm Member
I can offer a degree in Electronic Engineering and a previous career in loudspeaker design, if that's any good to you?
Regarding 'Catering Today' - does it cover the process of catering or the end product? If the latter, do you have their contact details? I quite fancy doing a Beef Wellington group test, or discussing the best Hollandaise sauce for my Eggs Benedict....
Stunsworth
pfm Member
Errr, Jimmy Hughes?
I wonder how many people built Graham Holliman's infra-bass design. Schematic here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham_Holliman_Velocity-Coupled_Infra_Bass_speaker_design.jpg
Just a reminder that it was Ken Kessler who started the whole 'anacrophile' thing in Hi Fi News...that has been hughly influential. And. for example, just look at his article recently on the history of SME..even the factory think that pretty definitive.You don't have to like KK (I don't) to see that he has made rather more valuable contributions than some of the flat earthers who inhabit these threads.....
sergeauckland
pfm Member
When I read HFN (which is the only HiFi mag I subscribe to), KK's articles are one of the first things I read. Whist I have no time for his subjective reviews, I do like his writing style, and if he ever wrote a novel, I would most probably buy it.
As something of an anacrophile myself, I do like to read about the great (and sometimes not to great) products of the past, the ones that either influenced my interest in HiFi, or that were technically interesting.
It was mentioned above that Magazines are now very largely reviews driven. That is the least interesting part of a HiFi (or any other) magazine for me, I'm much more interested in the history, the technology and of course the music reviews. Not so much for the reviewers' opinions, I care very little for those, but for making me aware of new releases or just reminding me of the existence of a certain recording. I've bought a fair number of reviewed recordings as the review drew my attention to it, sampled it on Spotify and bought it.
The great reviewers of the past like Angus McKenzie, Percy Wilson, Donald Aldous and the other belong to another era, when HiFi was a technical hobby, and largely objectively studied. The later subjective reviewers, started by Paul Messenger have set the current style. Alan Sircom has commented that people now can't be bothered with the numbers and graphs, and want to know "what it sounds like". I'm sure he's right, and will know what readers want far better than I do.
The irony, as far as I'm concerned is that today's equipment generally measures well, and the graphs and numbers do indeed look rather boring, as there's nothing much to show other than yet another transparent decent amplifier or CD player or whatever. As a consequence, these will sound pretty much the same, yet the subjective reviewer has to find some flowery prose to describe what is pretty unexciting. SO where does that leave the magazines? Reviewing ever more similar stuff or increasing the number of reviews of loudspeakers, cartridges and valves which at least give some diversity. And to think we all went away from valves in the late 60s and LPs in the early 80s to get away from diversity and have a uniformly better performance.
S.
Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
I can't really disagree with any of that... well put. And I will say that Alan Sircom has garnered a certain respect from me by his very presence on this forum.
However.... The technical standards of the magazines have markedly dropped over the last 30 years or so. I very often see things written in the mags that are technically totally incorrect! Also I seen nostalgia type articles in which plenty of facts are wrong.... Pedantic? Maybe!
The biggest problem for me though is the symbiotic relationship between the industry and the mags that someone mentioned earlier. A large percentage of a magazines profits no doubt come from advertising revenue, ergo they are not likely to give a poor review to a product that has a two page glossy ad in the same magazine...
Nor are they likely (possible vested interest alert! start grinding your axes!!) to give a rave review to a product from a small one man band company such as mine if that product is a rival for a similar product from one of their major advertisers (not that I've personally put that to the test before anyone asks)...
It would probably get something like "fairly competent at the price, may be just the ticket for the tastes of certain people but still has some way to go before this reviewer would put it on a par with the Cyrus xxxx or the Linn xxxx etc".
Of course if the small company can't afford to advertise in the magazine or to take the reviewer out to a swanky restaurant then being damned with feint praise (at best) is an even more likely outcome.... and yes I have seen this kind of thing in the industry.
Another issue is that even some of the most ridiculous snake oil products are unlikely to be slated, and possible purchasers warned off them, if the manufacturers are advertising in the mag... that would be bad for business...
I'm sure most readers of the comics have enough nous to work out all of the above for themselves and to read between the lines.... but not all!!
sergeauckland
pfm Member
I can't really disagree with any of that... well put. And I will say that Alan Sircom has garnered a certain respect from me by his very presence on this forum.
However.... The technical standards of the magazines have markedly dropped over the last 30 years or so. I very often see things written in the mags that are technically totally incorrect! Also I seen nostalgia type articles in which plenty of facts are wrong.... Pedantic? Maybe!
The biggest problem for me though is the symbiotic relationship between the industry and the mags that someone mentioned earlier. A large percentage of a magazines profits no doubt come from advertising revenue, ergo they are not likely to give a poor review to a product that has a two page glossy ad in the same magazine...
Nor are they likely (possible vested interest alert! start grinding your axes!!) to give a rave review to a product from a small one man band company such as mine if that product is a rival for a similar product from one of their major advertisers (not that I've personally put that to the test before anyone asks)...
It would probably get something like "fairly competent at the price, may be just the ticket for the tastes of certain people but still has some way to go before this reviewer would put it on a par with the Cyrus xxxx or the Linn xxxx etc".
Of course if the small company can't afford to advertise in the magazine or to take the reviewer out to a swanky restaurant then being damned with feint praise (at best) is an even more likely outcome.... and yes I have seen this kind of thing in the industry.
Another issue is that even some of the most ridiculous snake oil products are unlikely to be slated, and possible purchasers warned off them, if the manufacturers are advertising in the mag... that would be bad for business...
I'm sure most readers of the comics have enough nous to work out all of the above for themselves and to read between the lines.... but not all!!
I too have aquired respect for Alan Sircom. He contributes very well to the Forum and it's very useful having that side of the Industry openly represented.
To take your comment about small companies further, it's not just small companies, but also large companies that don't play the Audiophile game that are seemingly disadvantaged. For example, in the latest HFN, they reviewed network players from £250 up to £1,300. Why wasn't the Squeezebox Touch included? Might it have anything to do with it at under £200 making the £1000players who do advertise look poor value?
Is Behringer ever included in a review of power amplifiers? They review plenty of amplifiers with far worse technical performance, at far higher prices, so why not Behringer? Anything to do with Behringer not advertising in HiFi mags?
I can't be sure that the absence of Logitech and Behringer advertising in HiFi magazines is directly correlated with their absence in reviews, but the suspicion is there.
Of course, if they did review these products, and the review was honest, then I can see a lot of complaints from those manufacturers that do advertise, so perhaps it shouldn't be any surprise.
S.
Beobloke
pfm Member
Absolute rubbish (well, certainly from the perspective of the magazine I write for - I can't speak for others). In fact I have been very frustrated in the past by something from a small company arriving in my listening room, turning in a great performance and me saying so, and then no-one buying any! Very often it's the customers who like the reassurance of a well-known manufacturer's logo on the front panel of the products they buy, no matter how much we try and persuade them to consider widening their horizons a bit.
Equally however,(and please be sure that I am NOT referring to you here) we receive many 'bloke in a shed' type products that are truly dreadful, with the designers being, at best, enthusiastically misguided and, at worst, plain deluded.
Finally, and I realise that you and many others will probably not believe it but here goes anyway - advertising generally follows a good review. It does not precede it.
sq225917
Bit of this, bit of that
The Touch had a full HFN review on it's launch, but like the Behringer gear it is largely stymied because they are not available in hifi retailers, only department stores and pro-shops respectively. So exactly the same reason you don't see Krell's latest cd player reviewed in Sound On Sound, it simply isn't the target audience.
sergeauckland
pfm Member
In my days in the Audio industry, both as a HiFi dealer in the 1980s, and more recently as a distributor of Broadcast Equipment, I can definitely sympathise with the "man in a shed" issue. In some cases it was even many men in large sheds, but the result was the same, products that didn't work, poorly documented, overpriced and under specified, no infrastructure for support and so on, and yet the designers were so committed, so enthusiastic and so deluded that the product could sell. We always tried to support new start-ups, or small companies wanting to expand their distribution as those that we could help to became successful would help make us succesful, a mutually beneficial arrangement, but had to turn away more than we took on. Sometimes the products were superb, ADAM for instance, but we were the wrong distributor, and helped them or encouraged them to find somebody more suited. Other times, well let's not go there.
As to the final paragraph, I recall offers of great reviews in exchange for later advertising by some publications, so indeed, the advertising might have followed the review, but the booking and writing of the review was definitely with advertising in mind....of course a lot was made of the separation between editorial and advertising, that editorial space wasn't conditional on advertising, but I didn't believe it then and don't know if it's any better now.
S.
Darth Vader
From the Dark Side
Assuming that that comment is not meant to be tongue-in-cheek I think that you owe it to yourself to try and get a listen to a high quality vinyl playing system. I think you'll be amazed of what vinyl is capable.
Cheers,
DV
PS my fave HiFi mags were TFR and HFR both gone to that great pulper in the sky.
daytona600
Registered User
gave up reading hifi mags & visiting dealers many many years ago
they just want your dosh
my ears must be diiferent as all my kit never gets a review anyway
spend your money on music instead
they just want your dosh
my ears must be diiferent as all my kit never gets a review anyway
spend your money on music instead
337alant
Negatively Biased
Well I still do like to read the hifi mags HFN and HFW it keeps me up to speed with new products and I like the reviews of vintage kit in HFN.
I dont buy stuff based on their review but it gives you an idea what to shortlist or whats available if you are looking for a certain type of product.
Anyway most of my hifi is DIY anyway of which I have learned more by being a member of PFM DIY than reading any magazine, but it was an audio conversions magazine that started me off bodging
Alan
I dont buy stuff based on their review but it gives you an idea what to shortlist or whats available if you are looking for a certain type of product.
Anyway most of my hifi is DIY anyway of which I have learned more by being a member of PFM DIY than reading any magazine, but it was an audio conversions magazine that started me off bodging
Alan
Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
I carry on buying HiFi Plus, though increasingly I wonder why, as it always seems to review products from the same manufacturers (eg there's a Conrad-Johnson review in almost every issue) and the music pages aren't what they were. Better than the rest by a country mile though.
sergeauckland
pfm Member
Given how much business is done on-line these days, does it matter where physically an SBT or Behringer product is sold? I bought my SBT from the on-line department of a HiFi shop, I bought all my Behringer kit on-line from various MI dealers, Either way, I haven't walked into a bricks & mortar dealer of any sort for 20+ years.
Whilst the Krell CD player may not be of interest to a SoS reader, the SBT is certainly of interest to HiFi mag readers as so many of us here have them. There's also a fair amount of interest on here of "pro" sector products, especially active 'speakers and amplifiers, so I find it hard to understand why HiFi magazines don't give them more prominence if it's not anything to do with advertising and upsetting existing advertisers.
PS, can you remember when HFN reviewed the SBT? I have HFN going back some 13 years and don't recall it.
S.