I'm sure you could get the same wattage by stacking cheaper amps, but I wonder if you get the same musicality and the same fidelity. I like VTL stuff. They know what they're doing. Their stuff is consistently on the money.

The other magazine try to impress us, to amaze us regardless of the quality, affordability and practicality of the product. There is no edition where Robert Harley doesn't say that this is the best product he has ever listen to. In many ways their Perfect Vision, the PV before they started to review toasters, was a better magazine. Their movie reviews were outstanding.

It is possible..to..every month, hear something new..and have it be the best thing you've ever heard. Especially when folks keep doing their best to push high end product in front of you,and it is your duty to pick among those items that can possibly recieve a rave review. That is, in all honesty, the real contract with the readers.

So Yeah, it's just Bob Doin' his job.

Dup,IMHO,TAS was the best magazine when HP was aboard.Ever since he left,the mag went to hell.

Yiangos, Are you in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca? Do you dance the sirtakis? What kind of music do you listen to over there?

Hi GF . I'm in Limassol and i doubt anyone dance the sirtaki anymore,well,except for tourists lol
I listen to all kinds of music,except metal and rap.Mostly classical and 70's progressive rock. How about you.Are you Greek or Greek herritage?

The other Audio Magazine has only subjective reviews, no measurements. But it is more diverse having a female reviewer.

TAS is a nice audio photography magazine. It's a good thing, too, 'cause
they are sorely hurting for good writers and their reviews strike me as
pandering by slackers.

I do like their round table discussions, though. It's always helpful
to get a glimpse into the thought processes of people whose opinions
are supposed to hold weight. When you are in the trust business, transparency
is a step in the right direction.

Stereophile's worst issue still smokes TAS' best issue by a large enough
margin to put TAS to shame. I subscribe to TAS, but it's because I dig
all things audio related.

Hi Yiangos. No, I am of French "heritage" but my family spent time in Nicosia.

Quote:
But it is more diverse having a female reviewer.

In a blog entry, I once commented on our lack of female reviewers, saying I thought it was a crying shame that we didn't have any. JA responded to this comment with something that made a lot of sense -- he said he would never hire a female writer simply for the sake of having a woman's name on the masthead. If we ever were to have a female writer -- we have had some in the past -- it would have to be for better reasons than gender diversity. She would have to be intelligent, careful, and thorough, she would have to be very experienced in hi-fi, an excellent listener, she would have to know how to write. JA would have to be able to trust her...

I think we have a very diverse team of writers, as it is. That said, I'd love to have a woman contributing, too. In my time here, the only female writer we've had was Lisa Astor. Her column was fun.

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... she would have to know how to write....

Robert Harley doesn't write very well. Tom Norton, one of the very few best writer in the industry doesn't write much any more. Then there are/were the clowns like J10. Corey Greenberg was really fun to read.

Agree, Corey G. was an excellent writer, hilarious, and knew his stuff. He really helped hook me on Stereophile. He's long gone but I'm still subscribing...

Quote:

Quote:
But it is more diverse having a female reviewer.

In a blog entry, I once commented on our lack of female reviewers, saying I thought it was a crying shame that we didn't have any. JA responded to this comment with something that made a lot of sense -- he said he would never hire a female writer simply for the sake of having a woman's name on the masthead. If we ever were to have a female writer -- we have had some in the past -- it would have to be for better reasons than gender diversity. She would have to be intelligent, careful, and thorough, she would have to be very experienced in hi-fi, an excellent listener, she would have to know how to write. JA would have to be able to trust her...

I think we have a very diverse team of writers, as it is. That said, I'd love to have a woman contributing, too. In my time here, the only female writer we've had was Lisa Astor. Her column was fun.

Exactly the philosophy that causes me to read Stereophile.
Do the right thing and let the chips fall were they may.

What would a woman writer bring to the table that the current writers do not? I'd look there for the novelty and usefulness of any written contribution.

Each of us males have run up against the WAF (wife acceptance factor). Where's the HAF (husband acceptance factor) when the woman is the audiophile? How many women audiophiles are there? I bring this up because I would be looking for a woman's perspective to what appears to be primarily a man's hobby of being an audiophile, for whatever it may be worth or helpful to the rest of us.

It's been said somewhere before, that the hearing of women is different from men. They are more sensitive to high frequency distortions, it's also been said. That would make it interesting when speaker evaluations are involved, what women reviewers may hear that, if true, men may not.

Any tangible data supporting any of the foregoing or other speculations and its relation to needing a women writer/reviewer on staff?

Lisa Astor was a way cool writer. She was coming from the perspective that
she was engulfed in her neurotic, audiophile husband's addiction to all things
audio. And, Myles was not your average audio nerd. He was your average audio
nerd on steroids.

Lisa wrote about his disease with a light hearted, humorous account as his
disease progressed into full blown audio nervosa.

She gave us a chance to laugh at ourselves as she documented the things Myles
did that most of us have done to some degree as we pursued our addiction.

I really miss her column. But, I also miss many of the writers who have moved
on to other things, like J10, sniff-sniff. Now, he was a guy that approached
this stuff in exactly the same way I do. Enthusiastically willing to try damn
near anything and writing with every bit of as much disregard for what others
might think about what sort of results he observed. He also did a lot of interviews
with industry professionals and asked good questions. I learned a lot of stuff
from that guy.

Her columns were great. Empathetic insight.

I think the politically correct phrase is "life partner embracing factor".

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Each of us males have run up against the WAF (wife acceptance factor). Where's the HAF (husband acceptance factor) when the woman is the audiophile?

Some of us married/partnered males run up against the husband acceptance factor. Spouse acceptance factor (SAF) is the more inclusive term.

jason victor serinus
Bringing yet another perspective to the discussion

Yeah, but at least the odds of your significant other appreciating electronic
gizmos is greater than the female population. I'll bet he and you can really
fight over the remote control! Not to mention, the odds of NOT fighting over
the setting on the thermostat has to increase when you have two guys living
together.

Quote:
Yeah, but at least the odds of your significant other appreciating electronic
gizmos is greater than the female population. I'll bet he and you can really
fight over the remote control! Not to mention, the odds of NOT fighting over
the setting on the thermostat has to increase when you have two guys living
together.

Dream on. You are so, so wrong. ;-)

jason

I thought J10 was one of the greats.

He contributed mightily to my enjoyment of the hobby.

His series of reviews of high end amplifiers was a great tour of the state of the art. I forget the name of the amp, but one of the all time Sterophile highlights, for me, was one amp review where he experimented with unscrewing screws from the top, and proceeded to describe the definitive screw removal pattern for the best possible sound. Then, Stereophile printed a letter from a reader pointing out the astronomically high number of screw in/out combinations that would be required to audition before a definitive statement about which screws to take out or leave in could be laid claim

Are you guys discussing, The Absolute Sound, rag? If so, what is up with all the Scientology secrecy about the real identity of the other magazine?

Quote:

Quote:
Yeah, but at least the odds of your significant other appreciating electronic
gizmos is greater than the female population. I'll bet he and you can really
fight over the remote control! Not to mention, the odds of NOT fighting over
the setting on the thermostat has to increase when you have two guys living
together.

Dream on. You are so, so wrong. ;-)

jason

LOL!

Insights that I never expected to garner here.

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(I think, among all the lost greats of the hobby, Lars

Quote:
Who here doesn

Quote:
I thought J10 was one of the greats...

I totally desagree with that. Lot of his pieces were gratuitous, style for style, pompous, nasty, the work of a mama's boy. He was no Corey Greenberg and he was no Tom Norton. Several manufacturers ressented his reviews and cancelled their advertising as a result. He had to shine at all cost, dragging some manufacturers needlessly through the mud, for fun, like a pervert. His reviews were about himself, not about audio.

Quote:

Quote:
I thought J10 was one of the greats...

I totally desagree with that. Lot of his pieces were gratuitous, style for style, pompous, nasty, the work of a mama's boy. He was no Corey Greenberg and he was no Tom Norton. Several manufacturers ressented his reviews and cancelled their advertising as a result. He needed to shine at all cost.

Thanks, considering the source, I feel validated!

Corey Greenberg? I guess that makes sense, given your French name. Corey was kind of the Jerry Lewis of Hi Fi reviewing.

hihi, just like J10 in his reviews you are fully stretched on this one. Don't stretch yourself to the limits! It is an art to be good at repartee. It is an art to be really funny.

Quote:
Some of us married/partnered males run up against the husband acceptance factor. Spouse acceptance factor (SAF) is the more inclusive term.

Understand your point. I've been lucky. I have been able to get nearly whatever I wanted, SAF or WAF notwithstanding. She was very appreciative too of the nice audio system, not so much the equipment, but the beautiful music that comes out.

I hide it, disguise it and then lie about it when caught. She thinks all
audio components cost a "couple of hundred" dollars on Ebay.

Lying is good for a relationship.

I didn't have to circumvent any ethics. She knew how much it cost before I bought it. At first it's like "how could you spend so much on that?" until she heard it play music. Then things get real quiet - no comment necessary.

"Understand your point. I've been lucky. I have been able to get nearly whatever I wanted, SAF or WAF notwithstanding. She was very appreciative too of the nice audio system, not so much the equipment, but the beautiful music that comes out."

Yeah- me too. Took me a while to find her, but it was well worth the wait (and not just for the audio support obviously!) Half my equipment was actually bought by my wife as gifts. A true keeper!