The Absurdity of Some Recent Audio Reviews in Stereophile.

I gave up subscribing to both TAS and Stereophile. Everything is wonderful in every review. That is so, completely untrue. I get it that they have to sell ads but come on already, it all can't be wonderful.

My new sites for audio reading are 6 moons, and Tone Audio.

Actually I have learned more, gotten more honest opinions, met some super people, and made some friends, on forums like this.

I can't get that from a magazine.

MC352 said:

I gave up subscribing to both TAS and Stereophile. Everything is wonderful in every review. That is so, completely untrue. I get it that they have to sell ads but come on already, it all can't be wonderful.

My new sites for audio reading are 6 moons, and Tone Audio.

Actually I have learned more, gotten more honest opinions, met some super people, and made some friends, on forums like this.

I can't get that from a magazine.

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Jeez, I don't know Tone Audio, but 6 moons is, IMO, the internet epicenter of audiophile voodoo. I once saw them evaluate a small tube amp through big horn speakers. They loved it, by the way and described its charms in oozing prose. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I actually had one of them here for awhile and it did sound good. The problem was they made the mistake of posting a picture of the room during evaluation. Everything including the speakers, was sitting on an uncovered ceramic tile floor in a corner that was glass on two sides and open to the next room on the other.

They couldn't have possibly had a clue what that little tube amp sounded like...or what they were doing. Not a confidence-builder.

P

Phelonious Ponk said:

Jeez, I don't know Tone Audio, but 6 moons is, IMO, the internet epicenter of audiophile voodoo. I once saw them evaluate a small tube amp through big horn speakers. They loved it, by the way and described its charms in oozing prose. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I actually had one of them here for awhile and it did sound good. The problem was they made the mistake of posting a picture of the room during evaluation. Everything including the speakers, was sitting on an uncovered ceramic tile floor in a corner that was glass on two sides and open to the next room on the other.

They couldn't have possibly had a clue what that little tube amp sounded like...or what they were doing. Not a confidence-builder.

P

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Oh come on P!!! .. They are not .. Before bad mouthing please read THIS REVIEW

Ethan Winer said:

Thanks for finally saying this outright. So why have you never stated that publicly in your own forum?

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I believe I have done so, Ethan. Certainly I did tell you by email on June 2, 2010, which makes it odd for you to now to say that I never said it outright. Here is the exchange in question:

>Ethan Winer stated:
>>and I know you have them (see previous email)

John Atkinson responded:
>More mindreading, Ethan? Have you been to my home?
>Have you taken inventory of the review samples I currently
>have in my possession? Synergistic has yet to supply samples
>of the bowls for review by Stereophile.

You even kicked me out of your forum over that thread.

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Not quite, Ethan. As you well know, the moderator banned you from the forum at www.stereophile.com after many warnings, because of your repeated refusal to obey the forum's rules. See the posting at http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=82939&Main=82939#Post82939 .

And my apologies to the moderators of this forum for having to air this dirty laundry again.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Phelonious Ponk said:

Jeez, I don't know Tone Audio, but 6 moons is, IMO, the internet epicenter of audiophile voodoo.

They couldn't have possibly had a clue what that little tube amp sounded like...or what they were doing. Not a confidence-builder.

P

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I just started reading their stuff regularly, so I may end up having the same opinion you have.

Mr. Atkinson,

Thanks for chiming in here. I think a lot of people here are up in arms over the speaker review. However, what I find "interesting", and many find "controversial", is the review of the Playback Designs CD player earlier this year.

http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/playback_designs_mps-5_sacdcd_player/index6.html

Mr. Fremer - being a vinyl guy, thought this is as good digital gets, maybe just short of the $80K dCS player. However, when you measured it, you found out the measurements stunk, including imbalances in the left and right channels. How surprised were you that this "great" player measured so poorly? Would your magazine have bothered reviewing it if you would have known of the poor measurements in advance? (Interestingly, Robert Harley, the digital godfather at TAS who triages most of the digital gear, "conveniently" passed this player on to Mr. Heilbrunn who is mostly a vinyl guy.)

The Manufacturers comments section implied that this was done purposefully based on the designer's history as a founding father of digital. There was also a rumor that you and the designer were going to meet so he could explain to you his "new" measurements and design considerations. Did this meeting ever happen? Are there new measurements that we should be aware of? Or is this player akin to tube gear that sounds good but measures poorly?

Also, did you ever listen to the player at all or did you just measure it? It seems that people who listen to it absolutely love it, such as Jacob Heilbrunn of TAS, Peter McGrath, and your own Mr. Fremer. I am wondering if you would give it your highest recommendation if you listened to it and loved it, despite the poor measurements.

Is there anything new regarding this review now that a little time has passed since this review was first published?

Thanks in advance for your reply

caesar said:

what I find "interesting", and many find "controversial", is the review of the Playback Designs CD player earlier this year.

http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/playback_designs_mps-5_sacdcd_player/index6.html

Mr. Fremer - being a vinyl guy, thought this is as good digital gets, maybe just short of the $80K dCS player. However, when you measured it, you found out the measurements stunk, including imbalances in the left and right channels. How surprised were you that this "great" player measured so poorly?

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Very surprised.

Would your magazine have bothered reviewing it if you would have known of the poor measurements in advance?

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Why not? The player had a great rep before we reviewed it.

The Manufacturers comments section implied that this was done purposefully based on the designer's history as a founding father of digital. There was also a rumor that you and the designer were going to meet so he could explain to you his "new" measurements and design considerations. Did this meeting ever happen?

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Yes, we talked about the review findings at the 2010 CES, but I was none the wiser at the end of that conversation.

Are there new measurements that we should be aware of? Or is this player akin to tube gear that sounds good but measures poorly?

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No new measurements and I think it possible that the Playback player sounds the way it does because of the way it measures.

Also, did you ever listen to the player at all or did you just measure it?

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I did listen to it in Mikey's system where it sounded as he described, but not in my own. I had to return the sample to Mikey after I had measured it.

It seems that people who listen to it absolutely love it, such as Jacob Heilbrunn of TAS, Peter McGrath, and your own Mr. Fremer. I am wondering if you would give it your highest recommendation if you listened to it and loved it, despite the poor measurements.

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Possibly. Like the Acapella speaker that was one of the subjects of this thread, I still loved the sound after I had measured it, though I did know from listening that the tweeter as set-up by the distributor was too "hot."

Is there anything new regarding this review now that a little time has passed since this review was first published?

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No, the review sample has long since been returned to the manufacturer.

Thanks in advance for your reply

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Hope I satisfied your inquisition

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

audioguy said:

Slightly OT but I subscribed to HiFi+ for a long time (not sure why I quit but probably had to do with them not reminding me to re-subscribe). I thought ( and still do) they had the very best equipment photographs of any audio periodical, including the manufacturers own marketing material.

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Yeah. Unfortunately, the photos had to go. Something to do with 'crippling costs'. It's an interesting task, taking over a magazine and then having to cut out one of its main USPs. I suppose we could have kept the pictures and lost the words instead...

Alan Sircom said:

I suppose we could have kept the pictures and lost the words instead...

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OK by me !!

FrantzM said:

Oh come on P!!! .. They are not .. Before bad mouthing please read THIS REVIEW

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WOW!! The crap seems to get piled higher and higher.

While it is sometimes a daunting task to wade through one of Mr. Fremer's reviews and find any modifiers that are actually relavant to audio reproduction instead of musical performance, I did find a sufficiently clear example of what I was looking for: He praised the Playback Designs cd player's "Image specificity." Yet Mr. Atkinson's measurements found significant imbalances between the left and right channels.

Someone needs to explain to me how the latter condition can exist in the source signal and the former can result from that signal's playback through any system, in any room.

P

Stereoeditor said:

Certainly I did tell you by email on June 2, 2010, which makes it odd for you to now to say that I never said it outright.

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I agree that this is not the best place to air "dirty laundry," but this particular issue has deeper ramifications. Yes, you told me by email that Ted Denney never sent you a set of ART bowls for review. But you never stated that publicly in your forum or anywhere else. There must be a thousand posts in your forum about testing the ART bowls! The current thread goes on for 52 pages (!) asking why the bowls have not been tested yet. And you never once said it's because Ted hasn't sent you a set for review.

You said many times that a review would be forthcoming, and when you were asked why it hasn't happened yet you said 1) a special room must be built, and 2) the professional you hired to test them backed out because he was intimidated by rude forum posters. As if there's only one professional acoustician in the world who knows how to measure acoustic devices that claim to damp room modes.

the moderator banned you from the forum at www.stereophile.com after many warnings, because of your repeated refusal to obey the forum's rules.

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That's ridiculous. I was banned because of my pro-science stance on audio. If you banned people for violating your rules, you'd have banned Steve too. He was far more abrasive and insulting toward a fellow industry person than I ever was.

Regardless, I'm done. I've proven my case and feel no need to continue this here. You can have the last word if you'd like.

--Ethan

Gentlemen,

This thread is for discussion of Stereophile reviews, please. Take other discussion to Private Message or email, please. Just my opinion.

Lee

I agree Lee. Ethan, both Lee and I are now posting as moderator and admin. Kindly take it off line or by PM

Ethan Winer said:

You said many times that a review would be forthcoming...

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I hate to retreat into semantics, Ethan, but I never promised a "review" of the Synergistic bowls in Stereophile. What I said was that I would commission a study of what, if anything, the bowls did, following my experience at the 2009 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest: http://blog.stereophile.com/rmaf2009/i_hate_when_that_happens/ . As you raised this purported "review" in this thread as a supposed example of Stereophile not following its own policy, I think it fair to continue the discussion.

and when you were asked why it hasn't happened yet you said 1) a special room must be built...

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This again is not correct. As the consultant was building a new house with a dedicated listening room, we felt that starting with a completely bare room would be the ideal starting point for the investigation. Measuring the effect, if any, of the bowls was never going to be straightforward. You are looking for a very small change that to a microphone that is not hooked up to a brain, might well be be obscured by the usual measurement artefacts. That is why both the engineer and I felt that the starting point should be a bare room that could be completely characterized, acoustically, before introducing the bowls. Otherwise, we could well up chasing ghosts. There was nothing special about the room otherwise.

2) the professional you hired to test them backed out because he was intimidated by rude forum posters.

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They felt that given the furore over these devices, they would be on to a hiding to nothing if they went ahead. If you and others poison the well, Ethan, you can then hardly complain when someone refuses to drink the water.

As if there's only one professional acoustician in the world who knows how to measure acoustic devices that claim to damp room modes.

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I only found one who was prepared to take the professional risk and embark on this quest. See JJ's postings on the subject on the Stereophile forum.

I was banned because of my pro-science stance on audio.

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I am not going to ask our moderator to post the emails to you giving you the warnings, but that's just not true, Ethan. JJ and other "objectivists" continue to post to our forum. The difference is that they follow our posting rules.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

John,

What percentage of gear sent to Stereophile for review does not function properly out of the box, or measures so poorly that something is obviously wrong?

Lee

Anyone suggesting that Stereophile has never said anything negative about a manufacturers product is just wrong. As a long time intermittent subscriber, I refer you to the Letters to the Editor Section and the Manufacturers Comment section. I assure you the discussions are quite heated regarding the content of reviews.

Gregadd said:

Anyone suggesting that Stereophile has never said anything negative about a manufacturers product is just wrong. As a long time intermittent subscriber, I refer you to the Letters to the Editor Section and the Manufacturers Comment section. I assure you the discussions are quite heated regarding the content of reviews.

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Might I also add this as a long time industry insider: What a reader perceives as a great review isn't always seen in the same light by the manufacturer.

I can also tell you that you don't want to deal with some [not all] manufacturers after a negative review. They will never forgive you and given the opportunity, still harp on the review when you see them at shows, years later.

Gregadd said:

Anyone suggesting that Stereophile has never said anything negative about a manufacturers product is just wrong. As a long time intermittent subscriber, I refer you to the Letters to the Editor Section and the Manufacturers Comment section. I assure you the discussions are quite heated regarding the content of reviews.

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Heh just look at the action taken by Totem due to mention of a possible fault and a reasonable review (was not glowing though), was quite surprising at the action and manufacturer response.
Other negatives include certain pro/audiophile amps such as Bryston and Chord Electronics recentish by MF, I am sure I can find others quite easily and lets not forget that JA's measurements in a way is a review looking at performance-behaviour and here JA is candid about products where we see several having questionable responses to specific test measurements.


Touching more in general, I think most need to realise that a reviewer has to walk a fine line between two different aspects; entertainment as the magazines need to sell every month and analytical review for those who are looking for specific type of information to assist with purchasing decisions.
I subscribe to five publications that include Hifi+/Stereophile and for me it is primarily about enjoyment, entertainment, and interest in anything audio but I am not looking to change my equipment anytime soon.
So for me I am rather more agnostic when it comes to being a critic regarding publications, that said how many who feel very strongly against reviews are committed long term subscribers to multiple audio magazines?
Without following what is happening in various publications and pondering their scope/focus I feel it may diminish some of those critical posts, and I feel pretty confident in saying that when I see generalised comments on this subject from various forum boards, that said there are pertinent points made as well.
Last point, it is worth remembering these publications are made for the majority (their subscribers) who may want more than a sterile and purely analytical review done like a whitepaper.
This does not dinimish an individuals feeling towards reviews, just that maybe this should also be balanced against their critique that should possibly consider other factors such as majority readers/subscribers, entertainment and enjoyment value.
To stress, I am not arguing against any points that make the case against fraudalent/blatant factual errors/justification made by a reviewer without it being emphasised as hypothesis on some technical products and what they feel they hear/etc.
This is the purpose of the editor IMO, it is them that safeguard against this, or should anyway

Apologies if there are many mistakes, I just found the advanced post button and spent the time typing this mostly in the smaller quick response window doh
Cheers
Orb