As We See It

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As We See It
Communication Breakdown
Steve Guttenberg  |  Oct 27, 2014  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2014  |  27 comments
Classical and jazz notwithstanding, an awful lot of new music is highly compressed, processed, and harsh, and it's about time we got used to it. Musicians, producers, and engineers are, in large part, on board with the sound, and any suggestion of making less-compressed recordings, with a wider dynamic range, is met with confused stares, or worse. One superstar producer didn't take kindly to my suggestion that he make two mixes for his new project: the standard compressed one, and another, less-crushed version. That didn't fly; he said there could be only one, the mix approved by him and the band, and that to them, a less-compressed mix wouldn't sound better. This producer is an audiophile, but he's not the least bit interested in making music for audiophiles. Harshness, it seems, isn't just a byproduct of compression; it's an integral part of the sound of today's music.
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As We See It
Communities
John Atkinson  |  Mar 13, 2009  |  0 comments
I was having breakfast in my hotel room on December 13, 2008, finally getting down to preparing the presentation I was to give at the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society scant hours later (footnote 1). I procrastinated a little more by checking my e-mail one more time. The message from Ivor Humphreys, once my deputy editor at the UK's Hi-Fi News & Record Review magazine (now just plain Hi-Fi News), and for many years technical editor at Gramophone magazine, was typically terse: "John Crabbe has died. He had a fall on the wintry ice a few days ago and broke an arm. He died at home yesterday. He was 79."
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As We See It
Complicated
Jim Austin  |  Nov 16, 2021  |  45 comments
Even though I'm the editor of Stereophile, I sometimes struggle to get my audio system to play. It's a little bit embarrassing. Just last night, I put on a record and there was no sound. I figured out the problem immediately: I'd forgotten to turn on the amplifiers. But the reason isn't always so obvious.
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As We See It
Complicated Stories
Jim Austin  |  Jan 14, 2021  |  19 comments
In my As We See It column in the January 2021 Stereophile, I wrote about stories we tell ourselves to make our lives and music better—personal stories like the one about my relationship to my Thorens TD-124 turntable, or about hanging out with your dad (or mom) listening to records. Also hi-fi stories like the ones about the types of audio components we prefer—analog, digital, tubed, solid state—and how they sound. "Stories deepen our relationships," I wrote, "including our relationships with our audio systems and the music they make."
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Components, Unite!
J. Gordon Holt  |  Oct 30, 2009  |  First Published: Sep 30, 1984  |  0 comments
Ever since Stereophile took up the cudgels for subjectivity, and had the temerity to insist that even the best products have certain colorations, we have stressed compatibility in choosing components. By compatibility we do not mean merely matching impedances and signal levels, but mating components whose sonic peculiarities tended to offset one another.
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As We See It
Conspicuous Consumption?
John Atkinson  |  Oct 16, 2018  |  64 comments
"At what price does a high-end product cease to exist for the 'normal' audiophile?" This question, which I asked in the February 2017 issue, was a follow-up to one I'd asked in our April 2011 issue: "If all someone is offered is a $150,000 pair of speakers . . . that person will walk away from this hobby, or build his or her system by buying only used equipment. Either consumer choice turns the price spiral into a death spiral for manufacturers."
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As We See It
Conventional Wisdoms & Recommended Components
John Atkinson  |  Dec 05, 2007  |  First Published: Apr 05, 1995  |  0 comments
Conventional wisdom has it that the perfect sculpture is present, but hidden within the raw material. And the same conventional wisdom similarly applies to magazine editing: all it needs is careful chipping away at the extraneous material in the raw text files we receive from our authors—sometimes the barest degree of reshaping, repointing, and restructuring—and you have a finished product that both maximally communicates the writer's message and makes the anonymous artisan-editor proud of a job well done.
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As We See It
Convergence...not just for breakfast!
Jonathan Scull  |  Nov 19, 2000  |  0 comments
Not too long ago, the word "convergence" had everyone in the High End ready to duck'n'cover. Asia was on the ropes, and a shakeout was thinning the ranks of high-end audio manufacturers. Some US companies were marketing and selling most of their output to the Pacific Rim. The writing was on the wall: High-end was dead, and we'd all just better get used to listening to music on our computers.
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As We See It
Copy Rites: Stereophile and the Web
John Atkinson  |  Nov 29, 2004  |  First Published: Sep 27, 1995  |  0 comments
"The idea that intellectual property in a Net-based economy can lose its value horrifies most owners and creators. They'd better get over it."—Esther Dyson, "Intellectual Value" Wired, July 1995, p.136
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As We See ItJ. Gordon HoltHistorical
Copycode & the Future of DAT
J. Gordon Holt, Various  |  Mar 02, 2010  |  First Published: Feb 02, 1988  |  0 comments
Now that Sony has bought CBS's records division, and the infamous Copycode bill seems to be dying in Congress, the way may be clearing at last for the US introduction of the new Digital Audio Tape system. This has sparked renewed speculation in the industry about the impact DAT will have on existing formats, particularly the fledgling CD. Some are convinced DAT will kill CD, because of its ability to record as well as play digital recordings. Others believe DAT won't even gain a foothold in the market, for the same reason quadraphonic sound laid an egg back in the '70s: The public can't handle more than one "standard" format. I feel that both views are wrong, and that—as is usually the case with extreme views—the truth lies in between. I believe DAT will catch on in the marketplace, but never in a big way, and certainly not the way CD has. Here's why.
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As We See ItJ. Gordon HoltHistorical
Copycode: Diminishing DAT
J. Gordon Holt, Alvin Gold  |  Mar 02, 2010  |  First Published: Aug 02, 1987  |  0 comments
How can you tell when a politician is lying? His lips move. How can you tell when a recording system is perfect? CBS tries to outlaw it.
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As We See It
Cotton Balls & Delicate Precision Instruments
Peter W. Mitchell  |  Jun 25, 2009  |  First Published: May 25, 1992  |  0 comments
My topic today is not the hardware that we use to reproduce sound, but the delicate precision instruments we use to detect it: our ears. Our enjoyment of musical sound is important enough to justify spending thousands of dollars on recordings, electronics, loudspeakers, and concert tickets. What is it worth to preserve your hearing so that you can continue enjoying great sound 10 or 20 years from now? I've been conducting an experiment for the last 30 years, at a cost of less than a penny a day. It began when I was 17.
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Credibility Gap
J. Gordon Holt  |  Nov 19, 2014  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1981  |  29 comments
To audiophiles who are aware that their household line voltage changes under varying loads, and have observed the absolutely fantastic differences in the sound of their system when the next-door neighbor turns on Junior's night light, it may come as a surprise to learn that there are folks out there who think you're full of crap. That's right, Virginia, they don't think you can really hear all those things you pretend to hear. (You are only pretending, aren't you?) They can't hear all those things, so how can you? Well, sometimes they can. They'll even admit that. But those tiny little differences are so trivial that they don't matter no more than a fruitfly's fart. That's the word in scientific circles these days. Or haven't you been following the "establishment" audio press lately?
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As We See It
Current Events
Jim Austin  |  Jan 14, 2020  |  4 comments
My first exposure to current-mode phono preamplification was maybe a dozen years ago, when such products were new. The one I received, though nicely packaged, was not ready for prime time. I never smelled smoke, but I never heard sound, either: If it wasn't DOA, it was at a minimum DSAA—Dead Soon After Arrival.
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As We See It
Data Density Eats Tweaks for Breakfast
John Marks  |  Aug 09, 2010  |  2 comments
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), the Prime Minister of Prussia who brought about the unification of Germany, was not a nice man. But he was no dummy, either. One of his most prophetic remarks was in response to a journalist's question about what Bismarck thought to be the single most decisive factor in modern history: "The fact that the North Americans speak English."
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