Hallelujah. Please don't resist the temptation.

On the one bookstore stand here in Kingston, usually the full pile sells, every month. Each month, the number per issue has been ramping up. Originally it was about 5-6 copies. Not all sold. All 10 went last month! We shall see how many go this month.

We need an audio shop in this town again. This, BTW..is in a city with no audio shop! Not a lick of high end audio anywhere.

It's a fucking desert, pardon the language.

I might be forced to open a shop, and work with the public again. Bah. My only problem is that I'll tear apart and modify ANY piece of gear that comes through the door.

When your origins are as a technician..when you open up a piece of gear (even $20k+ amplifiers, preamps, whatever) ..all you see are problems and mistakes, just like a cynical cop who eventually comes to see and only looks for the criminal in everyone.

they need to sell every copy they can. have you noticed how thin the rag is getting. i compared pages last night. the first copy i received was sept 08 which had i think 154 pages. the current copy has like 112 a 30% difference. i then compared the list of advertisers. huge diff. like 96 now and 140 then. this does not bode well. whether you liked the old audio pimp or not, he did take a full page ad. i just renewed, but the $12 probably doesn't even cover the postage. i hope this gets better soon.

Summer issues are always smaller/thinner. Nothing new about that.

RG

i truly hope you are right.

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they need to sell every copy they can. have you noticed how thin the rag is getting.

Sadly, Stereophile is no more immune to the recession than any other business. The first 3 months of this year were possibly the worst for sales of high-end audio equipment since the early 1980s, and as a result, advertising support, not just for Stereophile, but for all audio magazines is down.

As we plan our issue sizes by matching each page of advertising with a page of editorial content, this does result in small issues. (Actually, for the June, July, and August issues, our VP has allowed us to exceed a strict 50:50 ratio, which means that we can still offer what I feel to be a good balance of relevant material to our readers.)

Quote:
i compared pages last night. the first copy i received was sept 08 which had i think 154 pages. the current copy has like 112 a 30% difference. i then compared the list of advertisers. huge diff. like 96 now and 140 then.

Your numbers are all 2 pages too small, as you need to include the back cover. (Page numbering starts with the front cover as "1.") But there is also a very strong seasonal component to the magazine's advertising support, so you need to compare current issues with the same months' issues in 2008. Yes, the issues are smaller, but not by the 30% you quote.

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this does not bode well. whether you liked the old audio pimp or not, he did take a full page ad. i just renewed, but the $12 probably doesn't even cover the postage. i hope this gets better soon.

Me too, but realistically speaking, I think you will be seeing smaller-than-usual issues of Stereophile through to the fall of 2010. We shall endeavor to make the content of those issues as compelling as possible. Thanks for resubscribing.

These are difficult times for high-end audio. While Stereophile is in okay financial shape, it is likely that some other well-known magazines will not see 2010 and others will be sold at a knockdown price. Hachette, for example, just sold Sound & Vision, after 20 years of publishing the magazine and its predecessors Audio and Stereo Review.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

I completely agree Buddha. Anytime I meet an audiophile that doesn't subscribe to Stereophile I think they are a bit crazy. It's easily the best $12 a year that I spend. At that price if a reader only learns a handful of things it's still easily worth it.

Hell, I just bought a copy of the Economist at Costco for nearly 5 bucks! We gotta get crackin'! Come on team, let's prepare to give some more. We could all skip two mocha java triple frappe vente's with chocolate creme, or two packs of smokes, or two desserts, or two gin'n'tonics, or two of any vice of your choice each year to easily pay the extra $$.
How about a Bake Sale at the RAMF?
JA, tell me when and the check will be in the mail!
Mike

The cost of magazine subscriptions is different in the US to other countries. In Europe is the cover price is say $6, you could subscribe for $4-5 an issue, a decent savings but nowhere the US savings.

Ive always assumed that magazines for subscribers in the US are basically given away so that they can have a readership number as high as possible to attract advertisers and that basically the magazine is financed with advertising.

I would be quite happy to pay $40 a year for a magazine if it was written from a 100% independent viewpoint with no regard to advertising revenue, i just dont think this fits the US magazine market

Alan

It's been tried, Alan. It worked, for a while. Only in the 80's when the money was easy. That magazine eventually had to take on advertisers in order to survive.

No advertisers is not a guarantee of lack of bias, rather it can be -and sometimes is- a powerful note on how biased they are! It would kinda be like Nazi eugenicists running a magazine on the rearing of children. makes no sense whatsoever. You can and usually do end up with a group of audio enthusiasts...with a powerful bias against audio manufacturers. It would kinda go like: "Audio manufacturers are scum!! Nice piece of gear you are manufacturing, there!"

However, the mistake is in your seeming assumption that only assholes and thieves work at or are involved in audio magazines.

You may be confusing politics and corporations with audio, here.