Think Pieces

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Think Pieces
We Don't Get No Respect
Bill Leebens  |  Sep 20, 2013  |  134 comments
There are all sorts of ways of having fun, and just as many ways of spending money. Most of the time, spending money is necessary to have fun; whether it's going to a movie, having dinner out, scrapbooking, playing video games, whatever—nothin's free.
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FeaturesHistoricalThink Pieces
Who Stole The Bass? / No One Stole The Bass
Martin Colloms  |  Apr 29, 1987  |  1 comments
Editor's Introduction: Stereophile's "Recommended Components" feature is, as I am sure you will have guessed, produced by a committee. The reviews are studied, the reviewers polled to verify the continued validity, the merits and demerits of specific pieces of equipment are discussed or, rather, argued over at length by JGH, JA, and LA, and out of the whole business emerges the "truth." But, as with the findings of any committee, what is presented as a consensus will have significant undertows and countercurrents of opinion; if these are very strong, a "Minority Report" is often also produced. Such has been the case this time, concerning loudspeakers.
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Think Pieces
Why Do Any of This At All?
Isaac Markowitz  |  Jan 24, 2019  |  17 comments
I've just returned home from one of the greatest concerts of my life, and felt absolutely compelled to share my thoughts with you. Yo-Yo Ma performed all six of J.S. Bach's Cello Suites, from memory, over a mesmerizing two-and-a-half hours at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, in Morrison, Colorado. It was a truly special experience.
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As We See ItHistoricalJ. Gordon HoltThink Pieces
Why Hi-Fi Experts Disagree
J. Gordon Holt  |  Feb 04, 1997  |  First Published: Feb 01, 1963  |  0 comments
Dateline: late August 1989. The scene: my palatial office in the Stereophile Tower. Present were the magazine's official technowizard Robert Harley, Circulation Kahuna Michael Harvey, and myself. The subject under discussion was the program for the Stereophile Test CD, launched in this issue, and Bob had been dazzling Michael and myself with a description of the sophisticated signal-processing power offered by the Digidesign Sound Tools music editing system with which he had outfitted his Macintosh IIX computer. (He had to fit it with a 600-megabyte hard-disk drive!) "It'll even do edits as crossfades as well as butt joins," enthused Bob. "Let me tell you about the crossfade I once did when editing a drum solo for a CD master that lasted ten seconds..."
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InterviewsThink Pieces
Why John Atkinson Believes Measurements Matter
John Atkinson  |  Mar 13, 2021  |  32 comments
Back in 2013, I took the train to Stamford to give a presentation to the Connecticut Audio Society to help celebrate their 30th anniversary. On March 6 I returned to the CAS, but this time via Zoom. I talked about a subject close to my heart: measurements and their connections with accuracy and/or musical enjoyment. The video is now posted to the CAS YouTube channel—it runs for 2+ hours but I think Stereophile readers will find what I had to say stimulating, perhaps even sometimes controversial.

My presentation takes up the first 21 minutes and is followed by a Q&A with the CAS members. (Great questions, guys!) At 1:18:00 I give a tour of my listening room, where two of my cats decide to make a cameo appearance.

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