J. Gordon Holt

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J. Gordon HoltSolid State Power Amp Reviews
Audio Research D-100 power amplifier
J. Gordon Holt  |  May 14, 2015  |  First Published: Mar 01, 1977  | 
We cannot recall when any new products have generated as much of a stir among perfectionists as the new solid-state equipment from Audio Research. Preceded by rumors of "a new kind of amplifying device—a cross between a tube and a transistor"—the announcement of ARC's new power amp and SP-4 preamplifier elicited very mixed reactions from loyal ARC customers, some of whom gleefully anticipated a virtual revolution in audio electronics, others of whom felt betrayed by the company which, having originally convinced them that "Tubes Are Better," suddenly seemed to be doing an about-face and espousing the views of the Enemy—the "Soiled-State"—forces.
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HistoricalInterviewsJ. Gordon Holt
Meridian's Bob Stuart
J. Gordon Holt  |  May 13, 2015  |  First Published: Mar 01, 1986  | 
Meridian's MCD CD player was perhaps the first audiophile-quality player to be introduced in the high-end market. I met with Bob Stuart of Meridian at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, in January, 1986 (footnote 1). My first question was about the name of the company he runs with industrial designer Alan Boothroyd:

J. Gordon Holt: Meridian in England is called Boothroyd Stuart, right?

Bob Stuart: Yes, the company is called Boothroyd Stuart, Limited, and the trademark is Meridian.

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J. Gordon HoltTonearm Reviews
Transcriptors Vestigal tonearm
J. Gordon Holt  |  May 07, 2015  |  First Published: Apr 01, 1975  | 
Because this is an unusual and controversial tonearm design, and has had astonishing claims made for its performance by the manufacturer, this in-depth report goes deeper and is longer than is usual for Stereophile. We will return to a reasonable balance of reportage in the next issue.

The manufacturer's initial advertisement for their mis-named "Vestigal" arm (footnote 1) was so laced with nonsense that we will admit to having been skeptical about the product from the outset.

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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Who's Right? Accuracy or Musicality
J. Gordon Holt  |  Apr 10, 2015  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1977  | 
Many years ago, the now-defunct Life magazine ran a feature article about science and its sacred cows, in which a cartoon showed a huge inverted pyramid-shaped structure of great complexity, tapering downward to a single support at its base: a toothpick. The toothpick was labeled "basic premise," the inverted pyramid was the entire body of scientific knowledge.

Everything we do or think or know is based upon assumptions, some of which are rather more justified than others. When we set the alarm clock, we assume there will be a tomorrow. When we reach for the car's brake pedal without glancing at it, we assume it will be where it was yesterday, and that it will stop the car. When we scorn a phono cartridge because it is too bright, we assume the brightness is in the cartridge, not in the rest of our system. We have to trust our toothpicks or live in a world totally devoid of security—a world where 2+2 can equal anything from 3 to 11, all the laws change unannounced every few days, and Greenwich Mean Time is determined by a roulette wheel.

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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
The Audio Centennial (+1) Revolution
J. Gordon Holt  |  Apr 02, 2015  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1978  | 
Despite the myriads of technological breakthroughs announced month after month with tedious regularity by manufacturers of pickups, amplifiers and loudspeakers, there are only five developments in the 101-year history of audio reproduction (footnote 1) that we would call truly revolutionary. We will doubtless offend many by stating that Edison's phonograph was not one of them. It was the starting point, it was not a turning point. Emile Berliner's disc was revolutionary, in that it changed the whole format of sound reproduction, and made possible true mass production of recordings (footnote 2).
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Thoughts from the 1980 Winter CES
J. Gordon Holt  |  Mar 10, 2015  |  First Published: Apr 01, 1980  | 
Editor's Note: We are republishing this report from the 1980 CES both because many of the themes strike resonances 35 years later, and because it emphasizes the hard time high-end audio was having at the end of the 1970s. The LP had been eclipsed by the cassette and 8-track cartridge as the primary massmarket media for recorded music and the decade-long hi-fi boom that had been fueled by the entry of Japanese brands was running out of steam. Ironically, it was the launch of Compact Disc three years later that was to reinvigorate the audio business.—John Atkinson

The 1980 Winter CES, held in Las Vegas in January 1980, came on the heels of the worst business year the audio field has seen in almost a decade. So-called high-end audio, in particular, had distressing sales declines during the last year of the 1970s, with some dealers (who had not yet gone out of business) predicting that their books for 1979 would probably show as much as a 30% loss in sales from the previous year. Dealer turnout in the Las Vegas Jockey Club, where most of the high-end manufacturers were showing their wares, was nonetheless surprisingly good, although makers of the highest-priced exotica were not as ecstatic about the turnout as were those exhibiting more-affordable gear. One high-end entrepreneur was heard to say (to one of his associates), "It doesn't look any better for this year than last."

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CD Player/Transport ReviewsJ. Gordon Holt
Sony CDP-520ES CD player
J. Gordon Holt, Steven W. Watkinson  |  Feb 26, 2015  |  First Published: May 01, 1985  | 
Publisher's Note: For the first time since I've published Stereophile, we are running two completely different—and opposed— reports on the same product. Normally, we try to reach some conclusion as to why reviewers come up with opposite views on a product, and resolve the problem prior to publication. In this case, the problem lies in the differing sound systems used for review. Since some readers will have systems like SWW's, and others will have systems more like JGH's, I felt it was valuable to run both reviews.

For the record, SWW's reference system consists of Dayton Wright XG-lO speakers, BEL 1001 amplifiers, a Klyne preamp, a SOTA Star Sapphire turntable, the Well-Tempered Arm (or Sumiko Arm), and a Talisman S cartridge. The sound on analog disc is far preferable to that from CD, being much more alive and present, and with a tendency to exaggerate sibilants. The low end of the system is awesome, the high end extended, and transients are rendered with a great feeling of immediacy and quickness.

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J. Gordon HoltRecording of the Month
Recording of October 1982: The Sheffield Track Record
J. Gordon Holt  |  Feb 24, 2015  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1982  | 
The Sheffield Track Record
Robbie Buchanan and James Newton Howard, keyboards; Lennie Castro, percussion; Nathan East, bass guitar; Mike Landau, guitar; Carlos Vega, drums. Ron Tutt, and Jim Keltner, drum solos. TT: 22:13.
Sheffield LAB-20.

What, a recording of rock backup tracks? Who could care less? Me, is who. Quibble over the program if you will (actually, it isn't all that dull, and two of the numbers are fun to listen to), but this wasn't released for the program material. You might call it a tantalizing sample of where a lot of rock sound begins, before it is fuzzed, reverbed, and cross-dubbed God knows how many times before the final mess is released for the edification of the peons. This has to be one of the most astonishing rock recordings ever issued! The Absolute Sound's Harry Pearson (who obviously got his before we got ours, as you are reading this 9 weeks after our copy arrived) is quoted on the jacket as declaring this to be "Absolutely the best-sounding rock record ever made." He's right.

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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
A Change of Schedule (from 1980)
J. Gordon Holt  |  Feb 24, 2015  |  First Published: Aug 01, 1980  | 
Recently, we've been asking a representative sample of Stereophile subscribers for suggestions as to how the magazine could be improved. We got 'em, in droves. And the one thing that led every list of suggestions we received was: "Publish more often!" Second in importance was: "Do more reports on affordable components, and let's have more suggestions for cheap ways of improving existing systems."
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InterviewsJ. Gordon Holt
Keith O. Johnson: Reference Recordings
J. Gordon Holt  |  Feb 17, 2015  |  First Published: Aug 01, 1984  | 
Keith Johnson is the man responsible for the records issued by Reference Recordings, from Professor Johnson's Astounding Sound Show through Tafelmusik—not to mention upcoming releases of Your Friendly Neighborhood Big Band and Respighi's Church Windows. As is frequently the case, Johnson's astounding recordings result from his intimate (molecular-level) knowledge of the process with which he deals and his ingenious adaptations to squeeze the most out of available (and not so available) technology. He is also one of the few critics of digital recording who has actually used a digital recorder, who has run tests to specifically identify digital's problems, and who would welcome a digital format that works as perfectly as the claims would have us believe the current system works.—Larry Archibald
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
Credibility Gap
J. Gordon Holt  |  Nov 19, 2014  |  First Published: Jun 01, 1981  | 
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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J. Gordon HoltReference
Absolute Phase: Fact or Fallacy?
J. Gordon Holt  |  Nov 19, 2014  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1980  | 
Natural sounds produce different waveshapes during their positive and negative phases, and playback-system polarity reversal often changes the reproduced sound. Does this mean our ears are phase-responsive, or is there something else here we've been overlooking?

There has been much discussion recently among perfectionists about the importance of what is called "absolute phase" in sound reproduction. Basically, the contention has been that, since many musical sounds are asymmetrical (having different waveforms during positive and negative phases), it is important that a system make the proper distinctions between positive (compression) and negative (rarefaction) phases in playback.

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As We See ItHistoricalJ. Gordon Holt
Plain Talk About the Unmentionable
J. Gordon Holt  |  Nov 05, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 01, 1981  | 
Editor's Note: On the 52nd anniversary of Stereophile's founding in 1962 by J. Gordon Holt, we are publishing this mea culpa "As We See it" essay from 1981, in which he explains why Vol.4 No.10 was almost six months late in mailing to subscribers. Gordon had relocated from the Philadephia suburbs to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1978, and as he had explained in the April 1978 issue, the move had not gone well. "Much of the equipment necessary for testing got damaged or destroyed in transit," he wrote, adding that "What had promised to be a superb listening room turned out to have some sticky acoustical idiosyncrasies."
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As We See ItJ. Gordon Holt
It's the Real Thing!
J. Gordon Holt  |  Oct 22, 2014  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1980  | 
We are aware that much of what we have to say about reproduced sound in these pages goes completely over the heads of a lot of our readers, simply because they have not heard live, un-amplified music recently enough (if ever) to relate their own listening experiences to our observations. These are the people who tend to have developed a strong mental image of what hi-fi ought to sound like, and it is not surprising that that image should bear little if any resemblance to reality. In most cases, this image of hypothetical perfection involves a broadly sweeping sense of spaciousness, awesome power, floor-shaking low end and silky, velvety highs—rather similar, one might say, to the sound of a Magnificent Magnavox with a couple of extra octaves at each end.
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J. Gordon HoltRecording of the Month
Recording of October 1983: The Stranger
J. Gordon Holt  |  Oct 21, 2014  |  First Published: Oct 01, 1983  | 
Billy Joel: The Stranger
CBS CD 35DP2 (CD) and JC34987 (digitally mastered, CX-encoded LP).

This is one of four recordings we now have on hand in both the CD and digital-mastered LP formats, and all reviews of these will be parallel reviews. In the case of the CBS discs, there is no "conventional" version, as all of their recent LP releases are CX-encoded. Thus, I will be comparing decoded CXed CBS LPs (footnote 1) with their CD equivalents.

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