Think Pieces

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AXPONA 2022NewsThink Pieces
It's a Wrap: AXPONA Reflections
Jason Victor Serinus  |  May 01, 2022  |  18 comments

Exciting. Engrossing. Exhausting. Enjoyable. Nothing but e-words from me. I could go on, but not without breaking out the thesaurus. —Rogier van Bakel, Stereophile's newest Contributing Editor

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NewsThink Pieces
Just How "Absolute" Is Recorded Sound?
John Atkinson  |  Apr 23, 2013  |  7 comments
John Atkinson at the 2012 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest

Since I gave this presentation at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in October 2012, based on one of the topics in my Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture and mentioned in my March 2013 "As We See It," I have repeated it at Music Matters evenings at Definitive Audio in Seattle and Listen-Up in Denver, and at audiophile society meetings in Minneapolis, California's Central Coast, and Connecticut. I will be repeating the presentation at a Music Matters event at Georgia retailer Audio Alternative, Wednesday April 24, at 6pm, at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach, at 12 noon, May 31, and at The Audiophile Society in Brooklyn, NY on June 22.

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My Back PagesThink Pieces
Keeping the Audiophile Faith
Carl Thomas Hriczak  |  Jan 02, 2020  |  6 comments
It's 9:45 on a mid-September weeknight in Greater Toronto. Having spent the evening reveling in the glory of her 9th birthday—candles blown out, presents open, pleasantly full of Wegmans' Ultimate Chocolate Cake—Our Birthday Girl has one additional request:

"Can we please play 'Happy Birthday Polka'?!"

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Re-TalesThink Pieces
Legitimate Dealers Speak Out!
Evelyn & Neil Sinclair  |  Mar 01, 1986  |  0 comments
In his April 16, 2001 website essay "Where's Our Freedom of Audio Choice?" reader Jim Tavegia railed against the ubiquitous policy of manufacturers only allowing their products to be available through selected retailers. "If I'm willing to pay the UPS costs, it should be my prerogative to buy equipment anywhere I please," he wrote. This echoes a controversy that appeared in the print magazine 15 years ago. The affair started with some innocent-looking text written by Audio Cheapskate Sam Tellig in the December 1985 Stereophile (Vol.8 No.8):
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Think Pieces
Let Freedom Ring
Bob Katz  |  Dec 22, 2014  |  23 comments
In the 2014 November issue, my good friend Steve Guttenberg ("Communication Breakdown") got his facts mostly right: It's true that most listeners (including myself) accept far more distortion today than we did years ago. Many people have never heard a great stereo system—all they've heard are overdriven boom boxes, cheap stereos, and portable systems, and that's what they expect systems and music to sound like. And distortion is part of the sonic language of such musical genres as hip-hop, rap, and alternative rock.
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FeaturesJ. Gordon HoltThink Pieces
Lights in a Box?
Steve Guttenberg, J. Gordon Holt  |  Jan 03, 1996  |  0 comments
"Without content, television is nothing more than lights in a box."
---Edward R. Murrow.
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Art Dudley ListeningThink Pieces
Listening #44
Art Dudley  |  Aug 27, 2006  |  0 comments
"Happy is he who gets to know the reasons for things." —Virgil
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Art Dudley ListeningThink Pieces
Listening #83
Art Dudley  |  Nov 20, 2009  |  1 comments
"Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's."—E.M. Forster, "The Raison d'Être of Criticism in the Arts," 1947 (footnote 1)
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Think Pieces
Listening Sessions and Hyperlinks
George Reisch  |  Sep 01, 2004  |  First Published: May 01, 1997  |  0 comments
I'm starting to hate computers. They take up all my time. Whether I'm writing, preparing classes to teach, toying with computer-generated music, managing finances, or (too often) upgrading hardware, I'm spending too much time in the computer chair, not enough in the listening chair.
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Think Pieces
Living with the Lamms
Jim Austin  |  Dec 06, 2016  |  33 comments
Although I've never tried one, I think "lifestyle" audio systems are a bit of a joke. My in-laws' decade-old Bose Wave Radio sounds good for what it is, although its obvious flaws—boomy, undefined lower mids masquerading as bass, a frustrating lack of sonic and musical resolution, etc.—become grating fairly quickly. These days, there are far more accomplished and expensive lifestyle systems out there, but because I haven't tried them I won't comment on them, except to say that I'm not really interested.
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InterviewsThink Pieces
Music Matters 2013—John Atkinson at ListenUp, Denver
Stereophile Staff  |  Aug 09, 2013  |  6 comments

In April 2013, Stereophile editor John Atkinson took part in two Music Matters evenings held by Colorado retailer ListenUp. JA took time off from the formal presentations to talk to ListenUp's George McClure about how we perceive music and about what matters most when we record and playback music.

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Music and Recording FeaturesThink Pieces
Musical Voices
Barry Willis  |  Jun 06, 2010  |  First Published: Feb 06, 1995  |  0 comments
Wandering through Tower Records the other night, I was struck by the amazing diversity of music available to us. There's music from every part of the globe, for every taste and interest, from "show-me-the-good-parts" compilations of classical highlights to obscure releases by unknown artists. There's music for the ecstatic, music for the angry, music for the straight, the gay, the bent, and the twisted. The subcategories replicate like rabbits, as if in a demographer's nightmare. Genus spawn species, which quickly mutates into subspecies, race, tribe: cult begets subcult.
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My Back PagesThink Pieces
My Journey to Jazz
Ken Micallef  |  Sep 05, 2019  |  21 comments
Like most older teens growing up in the South in the late 1970s, I had two poles of rock and roll heroes: The Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top on one side, Yes and King Crimson on the other.
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My Back PagesThink Pieces
Notes to a New Audiophile
Robert Schryer  |  Jul 23, 2019  |  32 comments
Dear Newbie: Welcome to the wonderful world of hi-fi! If you're besotted with a desire for audio gear that can make your recorded music sound better than you've ever heard it, you've come to the right place.

And at just the right time: Not only is there an unprecedented amount of sanely priced, excellent-sounding audio gear on the market; there's this thing happening between us right here and now—the fact that you're reading a letter I wrote especially for you.

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Think Pieces
Nothing is Too Wonderful to be True
John Atkinson  |  Aug 08, 2013  |  First Published: Mar 01, 2005  |  9 comments
"Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature . . ."—Michael Faraday

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."—Jonathan Swift

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