Yes I do think the various forums provide the earliest announcements of upcoming products. And members offer some very candid assessments too -- much better than reviewers provide
and you can ask members questions and (usually) get unvarnished answers. Mikey F. likes
everything over $100K whatever it is; and Jeff D. (Tone) says he won't review anything he doesn't really like. Oh that's just great! He most likely didn't set it up properly and can't figure out why it doesn't sound right
Always love having you tell me how I run my business.
So, lets try and set the record straight. I can't speak for Stereophile or TAS because I don't work there (any more)
What every magazine editor that actually earns a living at what they do struggles with constantly is serving two masters, the readers and the advertisers. It's tough but not impossible.
We currently have a ratio in our reviews of about 60% components from advertisers to 40% non advertisers. It used to be about 20% advertisers in the old days, but that's changed.
As for the comment about not writing about gear I don't like, I hate to come off as "argumentative" about this, but it's always put up in such a hostile manner by Neil, I don't really have much choice but to come back at it equally hard.
I've got over 30 years of hifi experience, owning it, selling it and repairing it (though I am not an EE). Our tech editor does have an EEE and a PhD in Physics though and has done consulting for almost every major manufacturer in the high end. We also have two recording engineers and a board certified audiologist on staff.
I've owned MILLIONS of dollars worth of hifi gear over that 30 year period, as has most of my staff. That's why we started TONE, we've had a lot of seat time with this stuff and with a lot of different gear too.
Another thing that adds to our familiarity is that EVERYONE on the TONE staff OWNS their reference system. Look at the recommended components list of any of the reviewers at any of the other magazines. Other than Mikey Fremer owning his stuff, most of these guys' systems are made up of whatever loaned gear they have at any given time.
In addition to the two reference systems in my studio, I have a smaller one in the house and own a few extra turntables, arms, cartridges and other electronics. I listen to them on a regular basis and always have them for comparison as additional references.
As for the comment about not being able to set up or understand a particular piece of gear, that's just kind of silly. If I came across a piece of gear that I couldn't set up, I would enlist our tech editors help or we'd call the mfr. So far, there hasn't been anything that's been beyond our scope, except maybe the Continuum, but we had that set up by the factory guy (which every Continuum owner gets) and then I had a whole day of the same factory training that a dealer would get, so I feel pretty comfortable about that table now too.
I've hand picked the people on my staff for their expertise in set up, their love of music and their diversity of the kind of sound we all prefer. Dan likes Avalons, Marc likes mini monitors and his DeVore 9's, Randy likes his Magnepans and I of course love my Martin Logan Summits. And we have just had another of our writers step up to making his reference speakers Summits after spending the weekend at our house.
I've had enough people from the hifi and the music industry over at our studio to listen what I've put together tell me I've got some of the best sound they've ever heard to be pretty confident of my abilities or any of the other people on my staff.
I've also had my room and my ears tested and know that I don't have any glitches to worry about or work around. When the folks from SonicWeld were here in November of last year, they told me it normally takes them 2-3 days to dial that system in with room correction but it only took 3 hours because my room had no major anomalies.
But back to the reasons we review...
What we can only hope to do on the best day is to relay an experience that we've had with a component in a compelling enough way, (without being too gushy like some of the others do) that YOU will want to investigate it for yourself.
No matter how much we like a component, if it doesn't work in your home/system or budget it will not be a fit.
Typically, when we get something in for review that one of us really does not like, it goes to at least a couple of the other people for a second or third opinion. As we all have somewhat different rooms and setups, if no one can make it produce what we feel is good sound, we send it back whether it costs us ad dollars or not.
I haven't had a component in thirty years "that I couldn't set up".
There is no one advertising in TONE at this point in time that I or someone on my staff hasn't done business with. There is no one in the magazine that I've accepted ad dollars from that will shaft you if you buy one of their products. You may not like Naim, or Conrad Johnson or Cardas (insert name here..) but I know that those people stand behind what they sell and that is very important to me. The last thing I want any of you to do is spend your hard earned money on something and take it in the shorts.
Which leads us to the awards thing.
Our first year, we didn't even do any. The second year, we started our exceptional value awards of which we awarded six or seven and last year I think we gave out nine and a "product of the year" award.
This year we will probably stick to nine or ten and give out a product of the year in a few categories.
We have not chosen to grade things A,B,C etc because I don't see it as valid and it's my magazine. Seriously how much confidence do you have when Stereophile gives a 1500 dollar pair of speakers a Class B rating and right next to it a 20 thousand dollar pair of speakers a Class B as well? But that's the way they do it and it's John Atkinson's magazine.
And this is why I don't waste my time with gear that I don't like. There is enough great gear out there, I don't need the ego gratification of telling you something that is perfectly good is junk.
Let's take a perfect example. I've been listening to Neil harp on me here and at the McIntosh forum every chance he gets because I don't think a McIntosh 275 sounds good with a pair of Summits. I still don't.
If anyone would have the advertising agenda to suggest this combination, it would be me. Both companies advertise in my magazine, I've gotten to know both companies personally, and I own BOTH pieces of gear.
In the end that's beside the point. If that's the combination you want in your system, it's fine with me, but I have a very hard time being constantly dissed because I don't like this one combination, nor do I see it as the path to audio nirvana. My suggestion to anyone wanting this combination has always been to test drive it first because it's not my cup of tea.
Honestly, I really don't care what anyones system is. What I do care about is that you have a smile on your face when you listen to it.
I've had big amps, small amps, tubes, solid state, class D, you name it, one of us has probably owned it or lived with it at one point in time. That's why we do what we do.
I wouldn't spend 50-80 hours a week doing this if it wasn't my lifelong passion.
When you take a magazine like TAS that typically runs about 90 pages of ads in an issue of about 170 pages, and then subtract the six pages of letters, couple pages of directories, six or eight pages of industry news, there isn't much left for content, so it's very hard for them to ever get to gear that isn't made by advertisers. By the time you cut out the fluff pages, there is rarely even 50 pages of actual content in a typical issue of TAS.
Stereophile does a lot better, they usually get close to 50/50, sometimes even a bit better.
We have it much easier being a PDF, so that we can expand and contract as we need to, but it's also been a primary goal since day one to never become even 50% advertising. Our last few issues have been over 150 pages with about 45 pages of advertising.
And to end this all, please tell me how you expect all of us to devote the time necessary to really evaluate all this gear without it being a business and a full time job? Especially in our case, where we give the content away.
The Absolute Sound and Stereophile both started out without ads, but Harry Pearson couldn't run a business and neither could J. Gordon Holt. They were great guys and huge enthusiasts that shaped the industry, but once both of those mags got bigger than little tabloids, they had to get ad dollars to stay afloat.
Again, I'd like to underscore that a hifi review is only the beginning. It's all opinion. But I get enough letters and emails every single day from all over the world (we are currently read by 112 thousand readers in 93 countries) that people enjoy what we are doing and most importantly have heard what we've heard. They have read our reviews, went out and bought the gear and enjoy it. That's all I can do.
That's why I spend time at this forum. While there is the obvious love for Martin Logan, a lot of it is to see what our readers have to say and to try to help answer setup questions, or what I think about a component with the idea that it will help someone make a purchase decision, so they can get some hifi they will enjoy as much as I like mine.
If you want my help or opinion, I'm always happy to give it. If you want to continue with the conspiracy theories, carry on. I have to believe that all of you are way too intelligent than to just go buy a component only because a hifi reviewer (myself included) says so.
That's the long version straight from the horses mouth.
