We were taking our morning constitutional around the Interwebs one day last week when we happened upon an article on <I> Timesonline</I> titled <A HREF=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music… Music Really Is Getting Louder"</A>. <I>Oh boy,</I> we thought, <I>a mainstream outlet is catching on to the whole issue of dynamic compression</I>&mdash;a subject we have inveighed against repeatedly over the years. (JA first preached that particular sermon back in <A HREF="http://stereophile.com/asweseeit/177/">1999</A&gt;.)

The October 1982 issue of <I>Stereo Review</I> published what must be hailed (or derided) as the first reasoned assessment of high-end audio ever presented in a mass-circulation hi-fi publication. We disagreed with a few of the author's points, but our main gripe about the piece prompted a letter to <I>Stereo Review</I>. This is what we wrote:

Stuck out here in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/498awsi">desert depths of the Southwest</A>, we look forward to visits from out-of-towners. So when <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/478">David Wilson</A>, one-time audio reviewer but now full-time high-end manufacturer, called to say he was going to be in Santa Fe, there was a flurry of activity. David had agreed to an <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/690wil">interview</A&gt;, so I started going through back issues of <I>The Absolute Sound</I> and <I>Stereophile</I> for background. Vol.6 No.2 of <I>Stereophile</I> from 1983, with its front-cover photograph of David and Sheryl Lee Wilson with their WAMM speaker system, seemed a good place to start&mdash;except that nothing inside the magazine corresponded to the cover picture. It was the <I>next</I> issue that had featured Larry Archibald's write-up on the WAMM, and once I opened its pages, I got trapped into reading the entire issue.

Much of the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/reference/50">descriptive terminology</A> used in subjective reporting describes things we hear in live music, and expect&mdash;or, rather, hope&mdash;to hear from reproduced music, too. I'm referring to terms like <I>width</I>, <I>depth</I>, <I>perspective</I>, <I>spectral balance</I>, and <I>tonal accuracy</I>. If you read our reports, you know these terms as well as I do, and since they are (for most people) self-explanatory, I will devote no more time to them.

I hate all those automobile reviews that go on and on about a car's design aesthetics. C'mon, I can see what it looks like, even if only in the pictures. Just tell me things I can't appreciate without a run on the Autobahn.

I hate all those automobile reviews that go on and on about a car's design aesthetics. C'mon, I can see what it looks like, even if only in the pictures. Just tell me things I can't appreciate without a run on the Autobahn.

I hate all those automobile reviews that go on and on about a car's design aesthetics. C'mon, I can see what it looks like, even if only in the pictures. Just tell me things I can't appreciate without a run on the Autobahn.

I hate all those automobile reviews that go on and on about a car's design aesthetics. C'mon, I can see what it looks like, even if only in the pictures. Just tell me things I can't appreciate without a run on the Autobahn.