As We See It

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As We See It
Letter From Japan
John Darko  |  Jan 27, 2016  |  5 comments
How many advertisements for hi-fi or head-fi hardware do you see on your morning commute? Two? Three? If you live in Los Angeles, Sydney, or Paris, most likely it'll be zero.

Not so in Tokyo, where commuters, tourists, and shoppers moving through the Shinjuku or Shibuya subway stations will find it almost impossible to ignore Sony's latest advertising campaign, which colorfully announces a new range of affordable portable audio players (né Walkmans). Inside, banners suspended from the cars' ceilings promote Panasonic's latest headphones and shoebox-sized stereo system. Many of the bigger Japanese manufacturers treat audio gear as a mainstream concern.

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As We See It
Leveling the Playing Field
Wes Phillips  |  Oct 16, 2005  |  0 comments
Although you're reading this in October, I had to write it in the middle of summer's dog days—what Washington journalists used to call "the silly season," not so much because there's anything inherently funny about August, but because, in pre-AC DC, all the legislators went home then to escape the heat and humidity, leaving the press corps with little to write about other than "man bites dog" stories.
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As We See ItAudiophile Essentials
Life, Love, and The Big Ahh
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jul 15, 2007  |  0 comments
A fellow member of the Bay Area Audiophile Society recently forwarded to me a link to Wikipedia's entry for audiophile. It's a horror. Even before the page defines the word, it begins with a large question mark, circled in green, and the warning, "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please help Wikipedia by adding references."
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As We See It
Live as Canned, Reproduced as True
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Jul 11, 2010  |  0 comments
A funny thing happened at the symphony the other night. A concert by the great Berlin Philharmonic sounded like lousy hi-fi.
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As We See It
Living Sound Meets Living Art
Jason Victor Serinus  |  Aug 21, 2014  |  First Published: Sep 01, 2014  |  21 comments
I've always considered the high end to be industrial art. People who favor a certain brand are saying, in a way, "I like that designer's interpretation. I like his or her art."—David Wilson

Last March, I had a rare experience akin to hearing the same recording through two different systems. I heard Andris Nelsons conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the same program—Haydn's Symphony 90, and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, followed by his Symphony 3—in two very different venues: UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and, 50 miles north, Sonoma State University's Weill Hall.

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As We See ItHistorical
Mark Fisher
Larry Archibald  |  Jul 05, 2009  |  First Published: Dec 05, 1992  |  0 comments
Some time ago I wrote about the need for high-end audio companies to constantly reinvent themselves: You may be receiving accolades for your latest and greatest product, but you'd also better be well along the path to developing its replacement. High-end audio is a field of constant change; no product remains supreme for long.
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As We See It
Marking Their Territory?
Jon Iverson  |  Oct 22, 2000  |  0 comments
It's easy for us audiophiles to feel neglected. Consider that this year witnesses the debuts of not one, but two new audio formats that should answer the prayers of just about every frustrated audiophile out there: SACD and DVD-Audio. Both approaches represent the state of the art of recording and reproducing music, and finally fulfill for serious listeners the promise that CD teased us with more than 15 years ago.
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Matters of Opinion
J. Gordon Holt  |  May 07, 2010  |  First Published: Sep 07, 1982  |  0 comments
Now that audio technology seems to be on the verge of being able to do anything asked of it, it seems only fitting to wonder about what we should be asking it to do. We probably all agree that high fidelity should yield a felicitous reproduction of music, but felicitous to what? Should a system give an accurate replica of what is on the disc, or of the original musical sounds?
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As We See It
Measurements & Sound Quality
John Atkinson  |  Aug 01, 2004  |  First Published: Mar 01, 1998  |  0 comments
"One of the worst-kept secrets in audio engineering is that what we hear does not always correlate with what we measure." So wrote the late Richard Heyser 30 years ago, as quoted in Time Delay Spectrometry, a 1987 anthology of his writings (footnote 1). What do we hear? Music heard live consists of a sound pressure that changes according to the logical demands of two things that have no physical reality: the way in which music is structured in time and pitch, and how that structure is ordered by the composer/musician. Heyser, one of the most perceptive audio engineers I've had the privilege to meet, repeatedly emphasized in his essays and papers that the reproduction of music is a multidimensional event.
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As We See It
Measurements, Maps & Precision
John Atkinson  |  Jan 14, 2008  |  0 comments
As I wrote in this space last month, test-equipment manufacturer Audio Precision has loaned Stereophile a sample of their top-of-the-line SYS2722 system, which has both significantly greater resolution and greater bandwidth than the Audio Precision System One Dual Domain we have been using since 1989. The reviews you can read in this issue include the first measurements I have performed with this impressive piece of gear, though there are still a number of graphs I produced using our System One. In fact, with the equipment I tested using the SYS2722, I performed duplicate sets of measurements using both the System One and the Miller Audio Research QC Suite in order to get a handle on how close the three systems agreed. (They did on the tests where the SYS2722's improved resolution was not a factor.)
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As We See It
Memories: Best of, Vol.1
Robert Schryer  |  Jan 15, 2019  |  22 comments
It happened 30 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday: My best friend's brother's friend showed me his record player—an AR turntable equipped with an SME 3009 Mk.III tonearm and a Shure V15 Type V-MR cartridge—and offered to sell it to me at a price that, until that moment, I would never have considered spending for a complete system. "It's audiophile gear," he said with a knowing smile.

Audiophile? The word sounded exotic—and grown-up.

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As We See ItAudiophile Essentials
Mentors & Audio Shows
Jon Iverson  |  Jun 26, 2002  |  0 comments
Where do audiophiles come from?
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Merry Christmas Indeed
J. Gordon Holt  |  Dec 20, 2016  |  First Published: Apr 01, 1964  |  3 comments
Editor's Note: The editorial leader for the seventh issue of what was then called The Stereophile, cover-dated April 1964, was the first to introduce a recurring theme to the magazine's first 20 years of publication: an apology to subscribers for being late.—John Atkinson

Those of you who have a mind for dates may have noticed that this issue of The Stereophile is very, very late. This, the seventh issue, was supposed to have been a Merry Christmas November–December issue, but as things worked out, it doesn't even deserve the title of January–February issue. So, we think a few words of explanation are in order.

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As We See It
Mikey Bats 302
John Atkinson  |  Sep 15, 2020  |  3 comments
Issue 54 of The Absolute Sound, cover-dated July/August 1988, had arrived in my mailbox. I had been warned that this issue contained a report from Stereophile's third hi-fi show, which had been held in Santa Monica the previous April. Although it wasn't listed in the issue's table of contents, I found the show report on page 186, written by Michael Fremer, who was listed on the magazine's masthead as "Senior Editor: Pop Mix."
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As We See ItAudiophile Essentials
Missing In Action
Barry Willis  |  Jul 19, 2007  |  First Published: Jul 01, 1997  |  0 comments
Dear High-End Dealer,
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