Holidays coming and spending too much time chatting. One topic that
came up I thought might make an interesting thread (but what do I know
my last one got no responses) and exercise the memory a bit. What was
the first article or review you read that metaphorically punched you on
the nose and made you realise that the mainstream audio press might be
foresaking the path of light and truth and going over to the dark side?

In my case it was a review of a Linn turntable. I cannot remember which
magazine but the reviewer stated being able to hear instruments that
were inaudible on other turntables (i.e. going a bit further than
equivalent reviews today but this would have been one of the first of
this type and I presume it would take a few to get the balance right).
I think he may even have made the mistake of the naming the instrument
(?) and the record (Roberta Flack?). I also recall something about
leaving records on the carpet. Again if I recall correctly, this
perfectly decent turntable had been around for a few years prior to the
review but after it the price rose dramatically and, I assume, so did
demand. Does anyone else remember the review and did a story behind the
review ever come out?

I don't know what the first one was, but more recently in HFN, almost
anything by David Allcock gets me going. It's almost as if he's deliberately
trying to live up to his name......

His latest, page 56 of the January 2006 HFN, when reviewing a passive (note,
passive) preamp (that, in itself, is a misnomer..its a switch and a variable
resistor....) he goes on about how "Stage depth was slightly
foreshortened" Give me a break, it's a resistor! how can it "foreshorten"
anything?

Give me Percy Wilson and Gordon J King anytime.

S.



"andy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Holidays coming and spending too much time chatting. One topic that
came up I thought might make an interesting thread (but what do I know
my last one got no responses) and exercise the memory a bit. What was
the first article or review you read that metaphorically punched you on
the nose and made you realise that the mainstream audio press might be
foresaking the path of light and truth and going over to the dark side?

In my case it was a review of a Linn turntable. I cannot remember which
magazine but the reviewer stated being able to hear instruments that
were inaudible on other turntables (i.e. going a bit further than
equivalent reviews today but this would have been one of the first of
this type and I presume it would take a few to get the balance right).
I think he may even have made the mistake of the naming the instrument
(?) and the record (Roberta Flack?). I also recall something about
leaving records on the carpet. Again if I recall correctly, this
perfectly decent turntable had been around for a few years prior to the
review but after it the price rose dramatically and, I assume, so did
demand. Does anyone else remember the review and did a story behind the
review ever come out?

In article .com,
says...
Holidays coming and spending too much time chatting. One topic that
came up I thought might make an interesting thread (but what do I know
my last one got no responses) and exercise the memory a bit. What was
the first article or review you read that metaphorically punched you on
the nose and made you realise that the mainstream audio press might be
foresaking the path of light and truth and going over to the dark side?


Umm, memory's getting a bit vague about the absolute details but the
one's that stick in the brain include:

A recommendation to someone that their £500 budget in ~1975 be spent
£400 on a Linn, £70 on a NAD amp and £30 on a pair of russian Minimax
speakers. And it wasn't done on the basis of upgradability.

Persuading people that they had to put small ferrite beads on every
electrical cable, light fitting, lamp shade and, for all I know,
armchair in the room.

The final straw that stopped me wasting money on mags was the
instruction to precisely align the screw heads on all light fittings and
mains sockets to the same angle.

All from the early to mid seventies..

T.

Thus spake Serge Auckland:
I don't know what the first one was, but more recently in HFN, almost
anything by David Allcock gets me going. It's almost as if he's
deliberately trying to live up to his name......

His latest, page 56 of the January 2006 HFN, when reviewing a passive
(note, passive) preamp (that, in itself, is a misnomer..its a switch
and a variable resistor....) he goes on about how "Stage depth was
slightly foreshortened" Give me a break, it's a resistor! how can
it "foreshorten" anything?

Give me Percy Wilson and Gordon J King anytime.

"andy" wrote in message
oups.com...
Holidays coming and spending too much time chatting. One topic that
came up I thought might make an interesting thread (but what do I
know my last one got no responses) and exercise the memory a bit.
What was the first article or review you read that metaphorically
punched you on the nose and made you realise that the mainstream
audio press might be foresaking the path of light and truth and
going over to the dark side? In my case it was a review of a Linn
turntable. I cannot remember
which magazine but the reviewer stated being able to hear
instruments that were inaudible on other turntables (i.e. going a
bit further than equivalent reviews today but this would have been
one of the first of this type and I presume it would take a few to
get the balance right). I think he may even have made the mistake of
the naming the instrument (?) and the record (Roberta Flack?). I
also recall something about leaving records on the carpet. Again if
I recall correctly, this perfectly decent turntable had been around
for a few years prior to the review but after it the price rose
dramatically and, I assume, so did demand. Does anyone else remember
the review and did a story behind the review ever come out?

Hi Fi reviewers Rulebook:
1 Check to see if product is not made by someone on the magazine's taboo
list, whatever the badge says.
2 Check if the item you are about to review has already been done
elsewhere & read the 1st & last paragraphs.
3 Decide to agree or disagree having consulted with one's editor.
4 Pull from said reviews any catchy observations & rewrite them. Include
a good sprinkling of punning titles.
6 Add phrases using keywords such as slam, height, involvement, tactility
etc. The occasional foreign phrase gives the piece a nice tone.
7 Reinforce the magazine's party line such as integrated amps are better
value or pre/power combo's will guarantee better sound depending, in this
case at least, which type is being reviewed.
8 Make sure that program material mentioned in the review is on the
approved list of obscure music. This will lessen the likelihood that any
potential purchasers will be familiar & therefore cut down on awkward
letters actually sent in by readers. It doesn't matter if said material is
unavailable of course. If feeling particularly self-congratulatory, merely
invent the name of the band or ensemble.
9 If reviewing budget items, make sure that any other item of equipment
mentioned costs ten times more. Doing so will be consistent with Hi Fi shows
& will remove any likelihood that the manufacturers will complain. Make sure
any cable mentioned costs more than the item under review.
10 Do not be tempted under any circumstances to actually turn on the
equipment for review!
11 Graciously accept lunch or other gratuities offered by either the
manufacturer or agent - both if possible & don't forget to compliment them
on their sexist advertising.
12 Remember to recommend removing all even pages from any books in the
listening room & remove any headphones so they don't effect the sound.
Unsoldering the speakers from TVs is naturally a good option for those
purchasers who insist on having such frivolous non-Hi Fi goods near their
stereo.
13 Don't forget to mention all upgrades, bolt-on PSUs etc available from
the manufactures but don't mention prices!

As for going over to the darkside, that presumes they've been somewhere else
1st. The idea that the source equipment was always the most important item
made sure the only item from that Scottish manufacturer that I'd ever buy,
was an HDCD disc.

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...
I don't know what the first one was, but more recently in HFN, almost
anything by David Allcock gets me going. It's almost as if he's
deliberately trying to live up to his name......

His latest, page 56 of the January 2006 HFN, when reviewing a passive
(note, passive) preamp (that, in itself, is a misnomer..its a switch and a
variable resistor....) he goes on about how "Stage depth was slightly
foreshortened" Give me a break, it's a resistor! how can it
"foreshorten" anything?

**Try it yourself. Load down the output of any given source by an
excessively low impedance load and unpredictable results ensue. Passive
controllers are often configured to present a low(ish) impedance load, so
that their source impedance is low enough for successive stages. The whole
issue can be easily and non-intrusively solved by the simple addition of a
buffer stage.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

"Serge Auckland" wrote in
:

he goes on about how "Stage depth was slightly
foreshortened" Give me a break, it's a resistor! how can it
"foreshorten" anything?

Maybe you need to make the next electronic scientific breakthrough, and
find out why this effect is happening. Either that or stop concentrating on
the electronics and take another look at the human mind.

--
Cessna172

Not so, loading a passive controller will reduce only the level, turn it up
a bit more, and it's the same. I agree that if the controller has a silly
value, say 1Kohm, and the output stage of the source is really poor and
can't drive 1K, then yes, unhappy results can occur, (I do not accept
"unpredicatable", as a knowledge of the output stage of the source will
allow you to predict what will happen into a low value load) but this was
not the case in the review. The Alner Hamblin passive controller has a 10k
pot, and the following power amp has an input impedance of 20K, so the
source should see a worse-case input impedance of 6.7K at maximum volume or
around 8-9K at normal volumes. If the source used (not stated in the review)
was of any sort of competence, it should drive this load correctly.

S.




"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
...

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...
I don't know what the first one was, but more recently in HFN, almost
anything by David Allcock gets me going. It's almost as if he's
deliberately trying to live up to his name......

His latest, page 56 of the January 2006 HFN, when reviewing a passive
(note, passive) preamp (that, in itself, is a misnomer..its a switch and
a variable resistor....) he goes on about how "Stage depth was slightly
foreshortened" Give me a break, it's a resistor! how can it
"foreshorten" anything?

**Try it yourself. Load down the output of any given source by an
excessively low impedance load and unpredictable results ensue. Passive
controllers are often configured to present a low(ish) impedance load, so
that their source impedance is low enough for successive stages. The whole
issue can be easily and non-intrusively solved by the simple addition of a
buffer stage.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

But the review was about electronics, and if you're suggesting that every
listener will hear something different, then what's the point of subjective
reviews? That's a question I've often asked myself.

In my opinion, as the technical performance of competing audio equipment is
now so close (arguably indistinguishable), technical reviews will not make
interesting reading, so reviewers have to write personal pieces, based on
nothing other than will it be an interesting read?

Paul's post, albeit wonderfully cynical, I don't think is too far out from
what I've read in Hi-Fi magazines in the last 10 years.

S.

"Cessna172" wrote in message
.205...
"Serge Auckland" wrote in
:

he goes on about how "Stage depth was slightly
foreshortened" Give me a break, it's a resistor! how can it
"foreshorten" anything?

Maybe you need to make the next electronic scientific breakthrough, and
find out why this effect is happening. Either that or stop concentrating
on
the electronics and take another look at the human mind.

--
Cessna172

"Tony Gartshore" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
says...
Holidays coming and spending too much time chatting. One topic that
came up I thought might make an interesting thread (but what do I know
my last one got no responses) and exercise the memory a bit. What was
the first article or review you read that metaphorically punched you on
the nose and made you realise that the mainstream audio press might be
foresaking the path of light and truth and going over to the dark side?


Umm, memory's getting a bit vague about the absolute details but the
one's that stick in the brain include:

A recommendation to someone that their £500 budget in ~1975 be spent
£400 on a Linn, £70 on a NAD amp and £30 on a pair of russian Minimax
speakers. And it wasn't done on the basis of upgradability.

Persuading people that they had to put small ferrite beads on every
electrical cable, light fitting, lamp shade and, for all I know,
armchair in the room.

The final straw that stopped me wasting money on mags was the
instruction to precisely align the screw heads on all light fittings and
mains sockets to the same angle.

All from the early to mid seventies..

Your points are IMO well-taken. There can be strong social and
psychological influences on subjective equipment evaluation. Unfortunately,
social and psychological influences are not reliable in the same sense that
digital recording media reliably has higher resolution than analog recording
media.

In article , Cessna172
wrote:
"Serge Auckland" wrote in
:

he goes on about how "Stage depth was slightly foreshortened" Give
me a break, it's a resistor! how can it "foreshorten" anything?

Maybe you need to make the next electronic scientific breakthrough, and
find out why this effect is happening.

Indeed. And the first step would be to see if we could determine if the
assertion by the reviewer was produced by any actual change in the sounds
coming from the audio system - or was either produced by some other cause,
or was simply a delusion.

To do that, the reviewer would need to engage in a suitable test. Yet they
never do....

Either that or stop concentrating on the electronics and take another
look at the human mind.

The "human mind" may well be a factor. What is less clear is if the actual
sounds produced by the audio system are... :-)

The above is yet another example of the "faith based" approach which often
appears in magazines. They try something, decide they hear a 'difference'
then *assume* (indeed *know*) that the item is changing the sound.

Then they do no test with would check to determine if they are either:

A) making a mistake and thinking the sound altered, when it might be their
imagination *or a change in their hearing*.

B) that the sounds changed, but for a reason that had nothing to do with
the actual item or mechanism they think is the 'cause'.

Given this, why accept what they say?

The failure to test their assumption/idea makes it a 'belief' and the
insistance that no test or check of the above possibilities should be done
or is needed makes it a 'faith'. They then expect readers to accept what
they say on the basis of "It is so because I say so. I am a reviewer. I
have golden years. Believe!". This is the basis of 'faith' as used in
religions, etc.

Yet the scientific method exists, and can be applied to test their belief
to see if it actually is supportable, or is wrong. i.e. we could check to
see if they are mistaken. We could also check to see if any change they
think was due to the resistor was actually due to something else.

But these tests/checks can't be applied because they refuse to put their
'faith' to a test... As true belevers, they know they are right. Thus the
rest of us have no real idea if they are correct, or if they are talking
drivel.

You may be prepared to accept whatever you read in magazines simply 'on
faith' that the reviwer/writer must be correct.

I do not share this view. Indeed, I have often found that a statement in a
magazine is either factually incorrect, or mis-states the relevant physics
or engineering. I have also often found that my opinions about things
differ from those printed. I would be suprised if this has never happened
to you.

Given this, why would you accept what they say?

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html