Art Dudley Listening

In that same Recommended Components feature, we listed a total of 41 turntables; four of them are suspended-subchassis designs, and two of those—the Linn LP12 and the Oracle Delphi—were first introduced in the 1970s. Of that I can only declare my belief that there exist good-sounding, musically satisfying examples of virtually every sort of turntable in existence, and that suspended-subchassis designs are no exception. Different examples of suspended-subchassis turntables can excel at very different aspects of musical playback. (The Linn, for example, remains a momentum-and-flow champion.) Looking around, I can only guess that the majority of turntable manufacturers have decided it's much easier to achieve the results they seek, and to ensure consistent and reliable results in the field, via other means.

After Villchur left the domestic audio industry, he focused his efforts on the development of hearing aids. If I understand correctly, he sought not to make a fortune off his work in that field but to make those things available to the greatest possible number of people. That makes him sound like a pretty good guy—and there can be no doubt that Edgar Villchur, who wrote all his own advertising copy, was a pretty smart guy, as well.

Make no mistake: I am hardly an objective observer. I'm an audio enthusiast who, after devoting nearly a half a century to this pastime, has realized that I would much rather listen to that Western Electric 755 on its own in an aperiodic cabinet than one that had been modified and supplemented with extra drivers in an effort to add an extra half-octave of bass at the expense of efficiency. That's just me. Hence my conclusion that acoustic suspension was an interesting and, under certain conditions, useful cul de sac but not a path toward reliably greater things.

III.
If you don't like reading measurements in Stereophile, there are two paths you can take: Avoid reading them or try harder to understand and enjoy them. (The smarter of you will have noticed the key word enjoy, which is something that certain readers should work harder at in any event.)

I say this because, years ago, I didn't care so much for audio-equipment measurements (footnote 2). But then it dawned on me that whenever I read reviews in Car and Driver or Road & Track, I devoured every word (and number: there were lots of numbers) in their tests. And although the point could reasonably be made that car measurements are less abstract—less removed from the purpose for which the product was built—than those performed on hi-fi gear by manufacturers and reviewers, that point goes just so far.

So I worked at it, and I tried harder to understand the measurements. Some continue to confound me, especially when Technical Editor John Atkinson writes things like "When I increased the bit depth from 16 to 24 with a dithered 1kHz tone at –90dBFS, the noise floor dropped by 25dB, meaning that this DAC offers more than 20 bits' worth of resolution." To me, that sounds more or less the same as "When I turned down the air conditioning, my hat fell off, indicating that there is intelligent life on Saturn." (I have asked JA about this at least twice, which is also the number of times he has explained it to me, and I still don't get it. But I persist.) Most of the rest of them are clear to me now.

On one level, I simply enjoy reading everything I can about the things I care for. But there's more to it than that: Since 1986, not only have John Atkinson's measurements been at the core of what we do, but they have also been applied with a degree of consistency intended to ensure that the reviews we publish today can be fairly and usefully compared to the ones we did 30 or more years ago. (Recently, as I write this, one johnny p. commented on stereophile.com that JA "cherry-picks" his testing regimen, which is a bald-faced lie.) Those measurements, alongside the policies we established long ago—including our enduring vow, easily verifiable, that we review products from advertisers and nonadvertisers alike—are the unbroken thread that runs through every issue of Stereophile. And that points to something else:

IV.
The time has come to acknowledge a disconnect between Stereophile's implied mission—relative to both our motivations as editors and yours as readers—and reality.

We writers and editors go above and beyond the call of duty to create reviews that are fair, thorough, relevant, and above all honest, so that they can serve as a guide for the consumer. Yet, our magazine is not an audio-only version of Consumer Reports—not even close.

I believe that most people who read Stereophile do so for entertainment. Domestic audio is their pastime and their passion, and during those un-rare downtimes when they're neither purchasing nor setting up playback gear, they enjoy reading about it. It's a way to maintain their level of excitement, their connection to the hobby. And that's good, because most of what we do (well, maybe not the proofreading) springs from our own enthusiasm for playing our favorite recordings with the highest imaginable fidelity. Like you, we're always curious to see what's new on the horizon, to learn about old gear and technologies that escaped our attention the first time around, and to know which recordings sound the best. We're compelled to provide a consistently good read on those topics, because that's the sort of thing we ourselves enjoy.

I could take that a step further: The higher the level at which the criticism functions—the better the writing, the more thoughtful and informed the editing, the more original and complex the points of view—the farther it strays from the merely consumerist and the closer it hews to pure entertainment. Consider film criticism, which over the years has progressed from the sad point of view whereby films in which things actually happen are automatically regarded as trash, and films in which people sit, drink tea, and share their feelings are automatically regarded as masterpieces. Today there are several interesting film critics, and even when they don't get things right—Armond White, who has made a career selling well-written bad judgment, comes to mind—their stuff is fun to read. People who would rather watch Demons of Demolition than Her Silent Tears, or vice versa, don't have to change their minds one whit.

As I once wrote about modern listeners who compare various conductors' recordings of standard-repertoire pieces in the manner of baseball fans comparing the stats of famous players—Furtwängler in particular would have been horrified—it is a perversion of intent.

V.
A couple of years ago, during a panel discussion at an audio show, I lost my temper when a self-described reader kept raising his hand so he could hijack the conversation and whine about audio reviewers in general and Stereophile in specific. (My response: "Then stop reading us!") I want to take this opportunity to say: I'm not sorry.

VI.
I'm only human: There are people in the industry whom I can't help but respect, and a few for whom my feelings lurch the other way.

The former group contains more people than I can name, but I can't resist noting Robert Stein of the Cable Company and Peter Ledermann of Soundsmith for the charity work they do; Gordon Rankin of Wavelength Audio, the late Don Garber of Fi, and my dear friend and colleague Herb Reichert for donating design schematics and circuit layouts to the DIY community; Nelson Pass of Pass Labs and First Watt for the same, and also for going out of his way to support the people who purchase his products; and countless others who likewise make our hobby more appealing to real human beings.

The latter group is blessedly small, and honesty compels me to note that one or two of them have nevertheless created products that are superb, and that have earned glowing praise from me and other reviewers. (Hey, we're pros!)

But not even professionalism can shade my disdain for equipment suppliers who promote their products by maligning those of their competitors, especially when said insults are shot through with inaccuracies—a practice that remains all too common. Whenever I see this—and it has occasionally appeared in our own pages—I am saddened by the whole sorry mess.

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Footnote 2: I blame Julian Hirsch.