As We See It

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
As We See It
I Say It's Television...
John Atkinson  |  May 08, 2005  |  First Published: Mar 08, 1993  |  0 comments
"When it comes to video, most audiophiles are insufferable snobs."—J. Gordon Holt, 1984
Continue Reading »
As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
I Say It's Video!
J. Gordon Holt  |  May 08, 2005  |  First Published: Jun 08, 1993  |  0 comments
A couple of months back (March 1993, p.7), I wrote that as far as I was concerned, video was television dressed up in fancy dress, thus there was no place for coverage of the medium in Stereophile. As the magazine's founder, J. Gordon Holt, has been a committed videophile for many years, I sat back and awaited a reaction from him. One was not long coming. I am running his response as this month's "As We See It" feature.—John Atkinson
Continue Reading »
As We See It
I'd Love to Turn You On
Colleen Murphy  |  Jul 23, 2013  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2013  |  8 comments
For over three decades, I have felt compelled to turn people on to music. Throughout my career as a DJ, all of my endeavors have been linked by the desire to spread the joy of listening to records, in the hope that people would feel something like the emotional resonance I feel. My Classic Album Sundays adventure—see www.stereophile.com/content/classic-album-sundays-bellwether— was born from this lifelong dedication to musical curating, and propelled by a eureka hi-fi moment.
Continue Reading »
As We See It
If Either of These Amplifiers is RIGHT . . .
John Atkinson  |  Dec 18, 2018  |  34 comments
It was January 1986. Stereophile's then publisher, Larry Archibald, and I were driving in his diesel 'Benz sedan from Las Vegas to Santa Fe. We had shaken hands at the just-concluded Consumer Electronics Show on my replacing J. Gordon Holt as the magazine's editor, and now, during the 750-mile drive, we mapped out the strategy to take what was then an "underground," digest-format, somewhat irregularly published magazine to the position of dominance in audio publishing it still enjoys.
Continue Reading »
As We See It
In Defense of the CD
Robert Harley  |  Jun 26, 2005  |  First Published: May 01, 1997  |  0 comments
Attacking the compact disc has lately become almost a blood sport among audiophiles and audio writers. Not a month goes by that I don't read—often in Stereophile—some vehement statement about how CDs are a musical abomination.
Continue Reading »
As We See It
In My Room
Jim Austin  |  Aug 12, 2020  |  21 comments
Listening rooms are real, imperfect places. Their character arises from their defects. I like real, imperfect things (footnote 1).

Not that there's such a thing as a perfect listening room. Every domestic listening room shares the same basic problem: Its most fundamental nature—its size and shape, the amount of space it carves out—results in resonances that can profoundly alter the sound of reproduced music, especially in the bass.

Continue Reading »
As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
In Praise of Imported LPs
J. Gordon Holt  |  Aug 09, 2016  |  First Published: Dec 12, 1963  |  4 comments
By the time you read this in late 1963 (probably a month after it is written, judging by the speed with which the US mails speed second-class matter on its appointed rounds), Capitol Records will have announced the first bit of really good news for the high-fidelity perfectionist in years: the release of imported disc pressings—taped, cut, and stamped in Europe. London has been importing for years—all the Londons you buy are pressed by Decca in England. But this will be the first opportunity we will have of sampling the products of some of London's overseas competitors.
Continue Reading »
As We See It
Inhumanly Perfect Performances?
Erick Lichte  |  Apr 16, 2008  |  0 comments
"Modern recordings, for all their glory . . . have conditioned audiences to expect an inhuman degree of performance accuracy, comparable to what a recording studio's editing team can produce by patching together the best moments from multiple takes."—James F. Penrose, Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2008
Continue Reading »
As We See ItAudiophile Essentials
Intoxication, Art, & the Audio Hobby
Jim Austin  |  May 13, 2007  |  0 comments
For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.—Friedrich Nietzsche
Continue Reading »
As We See It
iPad Daze
John Atkinson  |  Jun 10, 2010  |  0 comments
"Reviewed in the box!" is what Stereophile's founder, the late J. Gordon Holt, used to call it. You might think you're reading a review, but the realization slowly dawns that there's nothing in the text that could not have been gleaned from the manufacturer's brochure, nothing to indicate that the writer had even opened the box the product came in. When I read a review in another publication or online, I judge it by doing what I recommend Stereophile's readers do when they read this magazine: I look for the nugget I didn't already know, the facet I wasn't expecting, the concluding jewel I couldn't have predicted without ever having tried the component myself. Sadly, all too often too many of what are promoted as "reviews" on the Web are merely descriptions.
Continue Reading »
As We See It
Is Ambisonics the Future of Sound Reproduction?
John Atkinson  |  Feb 24, 2008  |  First Published: Nov 05, 1987  |  0 comments
Scene the First. You are sitting in a concert hall, dead center, row M; the cellist walks on to the stage, sits down and starts to play the prelude to the first of Bach's solo cello suites, that intricate unfolding of a rhapsodic melodic line within the tight framework of an implied chordal structure. Melody, harmony, rhythm—none exist at any one point of time in this most exquisite of Bach's solo instrumental writing, yet the skill of the composer, coupled with the artistry of the musician, allow you to perceive the abstract as reality.
Continue Reading »
As We See ItHistorical
Is Analog Dead?
John Atkinson  |  Mar 03, 2009  |  First Published: Jun 03, 1990  |  0 comments
1950: "The ultimate in disc recording is to make the reproduced sound as near as possible to the original..." (The founder of Audio magazine, C.G. McProud, in "Recording Characteristics," Audio Engineering, January 1950, reprinted in The 2nd Audio Anthology, p.67, Radio Magazines, 1954.)
Continue Reading »
As We See It
Is it Live? Or is it . . .
John Atkinson  |  Nov 24, 1995  |  0 comments
As someone who started out as a classically trained musician but who then stepped sideways into rock, I'm fascinated by the one music I've never played: jazz. It seems to me that the essential difference between a performance of a classical work and a jazz performance is that in the former, the musicians use their technique to breathe life into dead notes on a page, while in good jazz, the performer not only applies a similar level of technical expertise, but also has simultaneously to have all of music theory at the fingertips in order to decide what the next note should be. It is a rare musician---Keith Jarrett, for example---who can excel in both arenas.
Continue Reading »
As We See It
Is It Real? Or Is It...
John Atkinson  |  Jan 27, 2008  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1987  |  0 comments
Enid Lumley accosted me in the corridors of Santa Monica's BayView Plaza Hotel in March: "That doesn't sound like a real piano!" I was taken aback. The sound to which the redoubtable Ms. Lumley was referring emanated from a 7' Steinway we had hired for James Boyk to play at the Stereophile show. Jim was conducting a series of tutorials on how the sound of a real piano is constituted, so Enid's criticism, on the face of things, seemed absurd. As my face obviously showed this conclusion, she hastily explained that, of course it was a real piano, but the fact that it overloaded the 40-seat room in which it was being played caused it to sound different from the sound of a real piano played in a concert hall. To lead visitors to the show to expect piano records to sound similar to what Jim was producing was dishonest.
Continue Reading »
As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Is Music in Danger?
J. Gordon Holt  |  Sep 24, 2009  |  First Published: Jan 24, 1988  |  0 comments
When I attended the Audio Engineering Society convention in October 1987 (my first time in over eight years; full report in this issue), I was impressed by the incredible technology now available to composers of music. I was also dismayed, however, by the extent to which so-called purist audio, as well as "acoustical" music, have been consigned to oblivion by the pro audio community. It was clear, both from the exhibits and the many conversations on which I eavesdropped, that audio professionals are no longer concerned about fidelity, in the sense of trying to reproduce sounds accurately. A "real" sound has become to them merely raw material of no value except as something to be processed, manipulated, folded, bent, and spindled to produce any sonic effect except the original one. About a third of the products displayed at the 83rd AES convention were tools for doing that.
Continue Reading »

Pages

X