Magazines that we can trust

[craigsub]

There have been, over the years, a lot of Audio magazines. Some (High Fidelity) are gone.

With the advent of home theatre, these seem to have proliferated.

Here are some magazines that, for years, have had consistently valid, sensible, and accurate portrayals of equipment....

1. Stereophile/Stereophile Guide to home theatre
2. Absolute Sound/Perfect Vision
3. Sensible Sound
4. Audio Critic
5. Widescreen Review
6. Secrets of Home Theatre and High Fidelity

So far Goodsound, Audioenz... and a few others are also writing good stuff.

All of these seem to have one thing in common, they consider all aspects of performance. And in subwoofer terms... how deep, how loud, how loud and deep, how accurate .... etc... They do not dwell on one single item.

Then there are the mass market mags...

1. Sound and Vision
2. Home Theater
3. Audio-Video Interiors

And some others...And very few "newbie" audio guys now ever get from the mass market to the "good stuff"

At one point, back in the 70's, when a guy bought his first system... say... a Technics Receiver with Bose 301's for $400.. He was happy. For a while...

But he may have, a couple years later, instead of picking up another Stereo Review, picked up AUDIO instead... and he read about some of the entry level GOOD stuff....And he remembered that, when he bought those 301's, there was a room in the back. And that room had a NAD integrated, with a pair Infinities with the emit and poly woofer, for $1000. So he sold the old stuff, and upgraded.

And Audio became a passion for him. Good music. Sonding better than he thought possible...

Spin forward 25 years... And the B&M stores seem to be either

1. Circuit City / Best Buy
2. or a snobatorium

I can tell you I LOATHE going into a "high end" store... the attitude... Can you imagine being a guy with $2000 to spend in today's market ?

So where do we come in... in a place (this forum) like this ?

The guy, when he bought the Technics/Bose, was congratulated for his purchase by the store owner/manager/salesman...

Maybe he was even demo'd the NAD/Infinity stuff, when he bought the Bose, just to hear the difference. He likely did not notice much then, but did the 2nd time around, after learning more.

Because nobody laughed at his Bose stuff, he new he was welcome back at the B&M store.

Today, the guy with the Bose stuff (he bought at Best Buy for $1000) wants to spend $2000 on a new surround sound set up. Where can he go for this ? The people on this and other forums can help find some great stuff. But if we alread laughed at him on any of the forums... do you think he will be back ?

Saturday, I happened to stumble onto a guy on another forum, He wanted to do just that... spend around $2000...

I helped him find, for $1400, a NAD/PSB 5 channel set up. He could have purchased a sub with it for $2000... but he is looking at Hsu (and the other guys...lol...I tell then to look at both, sorry) ... This guys is SO excited... And I had fun ! He had heard enough, even had a chip on his shoulder, because of all the "Bose Sucks" ... that kind of behavior. Oh, and if I was talking to him today, He would have a VT-12 system...

My point ? We have the opportunity to bring more people into the "good stuff" community, or we can drive the away. We get them here by talking on other forums... and bringing them here.

The attitude the "newbie" gets will determine, in many cases, what he does.

Personally, I would love to see Dr. Hsu (and others) sell a lot more good stuff to a lot more people...

[mitro]

I came here from one of the Forums.
Home Theater Spot I believe. I ordered my VT-12 + STF-2 last week, after about 1 month of research.

I know what you mean about the "Bose bashing" it's very thick and tends to alienate people who bought Bose, which is a lot of people.

While on the subject of HT forums, which is the better forum in terms of wealth of knowledge+user experience.

I'm aware of:
AVS forums: Horrible color scheme makes it hard to read.
HomeTheaterSpot: Not bad, a bit clique-ish.
HomeTheaterForum: I don't have much experience with this site.
Ecoustics: Wild Frontier?

Any thoughts?

--john--

[Lwang]

Much of the rags have gone down the tube these days.

S'phile has dwindled to the level of mass-market level. With only a few reviews per month and a recommended component that looks more like a directory of equipments reviewed. It should be considered to be today's version of Audio, but w/o the mid-fi to attract J6P.

TAS is yesterday's S'phile. Not surprising given the exodus of S'phile's staffs to it.

I wouldn't put Secrets into the same catagory. They might have various insightful articles in which you don't have to google all over the internet to piece that info together, but their review are so wildly varying. Some with purely subjective listening, other with a bunch of measurement but minimal audition. They probably don't have strong editorial control. Plus their measurement methodlogy are random, little in description and makes no attempt correlate it with what is heard. I may be more critical of this e-rag because it seem to have become the reference for forum members (I remember talking about disavantage of multiple xo freq in bass management a while ago, but it elicited no response. But once the e-rag mentions it in their article, it gets reference to all the time.)


I know how some snobatoriums are, I've been to places where I got no service (and all the audio rooms are locked) because I didn't have a Patek Phillippe on my wrist (I'm stuck to looking at the used rack and the only open room, which is their lowest-fi). But Bose is probably everywhere now, even in many of those snobatorium. I know the ones here that carries Bose, Krell, Martin Logan, Runco, McIntosh

I wouldn't even say forums are a good place to find out what is good, since there is a big herd mentality, and dissenters are frequently shouted out and/or kicked off.



I don't know where all this Bose bashing came about? I knew they were junk, but people who bought them were ignorant people with money to burn. Its like the B&O and McIntosh people, who were the same guys, but just on a different price scale.

Usually with these people, if you let them see the light, they will find out that there is a whole realm of audio world besides the stuff they were sold and quite easily jump ship.

If there were any animosity to be had, it would have to be toward brands like Carver/Sunfire and Polk. Those are the ones that touts so much hoopla about their small bucket feeding a giant bucket power supply, "I claim it to be the best blah blah in existence" or listening to your speakers as if you are listening to headphones technology. And when the people who got sold on those propaganda, they actually think those gimmicks makes it superior to guys who makes a more purist product.

The current Bose bashing probably came about because of these newbies that felt that they were suckered into buying it and now hate them. Look at how many forum members were former Bose AccousticMass owners who now says their current XYZ subwoofer is super awsome and blows the Bose away. What did they know about sound before getting the XYZ sub? And we have a load of people floating around forums who thinks XYZ sub's sound is the way it should be. If you go to "Audio" forums, Bose is not even on the radar screen.


I'm not going to mention which forum is good or not, for the fear of having myself or this forum get sued.

[Active Speaker]

I think that you simply have to read all of them. Gone are the days when Audio, Stereophile, and the Absolute Sound were booming. With the advent of home theater (and Dolby Digital & DTS), and multichannel speaker systems, along with the computerization of front end components (dvd players and receivers), and the lowering of prices, I'm afraid that many high end companies have gone out of business.

What has really declined IMO is the art of reviewing. If you pick up an old Audio magazine from say 1998 and look at the speaker reviews (even reviews of Hsu subs), you'll find that the reviewer was much more in-depth with many charts, graphs, etc... Now, you get "high points" & "low points" etc... It's pretty depressing at the moment. Apparently, there aren't enough people needing these kind of reviews to justify a publication staying in business.

I think that you should do most of your reading and research on Audiogon & AVGuide.

[Active Speaker]

BTW,

Bose DOES suck! (Sorry!)

[craigsub]

If Bose is what got a guy into this hobby, and now he is purchasing and new STF-3... do you think Dr. Hsu thinks they suck ? That just happened, the guy who bought the NAD gear is buying an STF. A newbie is now one of us...

[Lwang]

He's not one of us until he gets a magnepan. I know 4 of my friends who got maggies after hearing mine (plus 1 who went with Apogee, but he cared more about looks, buying Carver amps and later on my NAD 2200PE amp), but only 1 who got Hsu subs.

People usually notice the maggies, not the subs, and with music, they are not going to be bowled over by the bass unless I throw in some organ grinding music. Even if I do play some internal organ grinding DVDs, it will usually be a bit higher than what those HT guys are willing to spend. The music first guys that I know generally are the bigger spenders. Probably more $$ allocated to each component. HT people just wants a big screen.

[craigsub]

Active.... Now, if you want to talk privately about how Bose sounds...:p ... There I would not argue with you...

What I am trying to say... if somone tells you that you, or something you own, sucks... your first reaction is not positive... true ? And I am using Bose as a metaphor... we also get Circuit city, Best Buy... etc....

Somehow we have to help them to "our side" ... because getting new people involved is the only way to keep the high end going...

[craigsub]

Lwang - He did go with PSB... a nice 2nd step. Maybe next time he spends $5000... and goes two channel... because he felt he was a part of the community, and stayed to learn...

[Active Speaker]

Just because I think that Bose sucks doesn't mean that other people don't disagree with me; and just because someone owns Bose doesn't make them an idiot, or it doesn't mean that THEY suck.

The real problem is that most people are not interested in sound quality beyond what they hear through a car stereo or at a movie theater. Another issue is that many people also want speakers that "disappear", physically not sonically.

[craigsub]

Active, You are right about what a lot of people want. Especially the disappearing speakers... etc...

What I was referring to was the guy who has mass market stuff now, and is already intimidated by getting into even entry level high-end.

I am also not pointing fingers at individuals, but anyone looking at the world of high end home theatre/audio should knows it is not doing nearly what it could.

I actually sold equipment from 1976 to 1981... then got into the auto business, and own three dealerships today. I have a fairly large dose of experience with what does and does not work with consumers.

How one handles customers is important.

I am not trying to say anyone should say Bose makes great stuff.

What I am trying to say is that, when the "audiophile community" as a whole makes fun of "newbies", that newbie will stick with Best Buy, and men like Dr. Hsu will lose a customer. So will Magnepan, PSB, VMPS, etc.....

If someone does not care about this, and enjoys being the smartest audio guy, instead of trying to "bring in" more people to our hobby, that is fine. I personally get a kick out of seeing (or hearing from) a guy who got a lot better system than he would have without my help.

[Ajax]

Great Posts, Craigsub. Bravo! Negativity, bashing, insulting only serve to alienate. There is a huge difference between saying "Bose sucks," and saying "There are other products, superior to Bose, available in your price range." Courtesy, compassion, and understanding. Pretty basic stuff.

[Active Speaker]

Bose sucks!

[Ajax]

"Pearls before swine." Should've known better. :)

[Active Speaker]

Should've!

[Ajax]

Glad you agree.

[craigsub]

Active, For What is is worth, you do crack me up with your replies...

And I am in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl...life is GOOD !

Ajax... Thanks, someone has to make me feel normal...lol

[tdekany]

Originally posted by craigsub
And I am in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl...life is GOOD !


I hate to dissapoint you, but the super bowl is in Houston.
Maybe you can catch a flight in time for the game. Just a thought.

BTW, I am in Fairfax for the Super Bowl

thomas

[Ajax]

Craigsub,

Define "normal." :p

[craigsub]

Thomas so THAT is why the stadium was empty...:D

Vegas was a total zoo, as usual. It is a lot like Fairfax, except for the hookers, gambling, organized crime, and the 1000's of guys that hang out with thrie nieces...

Ajax - Normal is someone who thinks the same way you do at least 51% of the time....:p

[Ajax]

So true! So true! :D

[tdekany]

Originally posted by craigsub
Thomas so THAT is why the stadium was empty...:D

Vegas was a total zoo, as usual. It is a lot like Fairfax, except for the hookers, gambling, organized crime, and the 1000's of guys that hang out with thrie nieces...

Ajax - Normal is someone who thinks the same way you do at least 51% of the time....:p

thanks for the comperison - although I have been to vegas, I know what it's like. NY however is still the greatest city ( I lived there for 8 years) LA is ok too but too Holywoody for me.

Favorite city? Phoenix AZ!!!!

[Syzygy]

Originally posted by mitro
I'm aware of... AVS forums: Horrible color scheme makes it hard to read... Any thoughts?I'm a "senior" member at AVSForum (and also in the TiVo Community, where I started) and I was hooked by your "color scheme" remark. ;) You've got two choices once you've joined AVSForum, and the alternate color scheme is very pleasant, I think. (I gotta agree with you about the plum-intensive default scheme; it looks ugly to me too.)

Also, AVSForum has more members and more activity than the other forums that I know of. Post a question there (in the appropriate subforum) and you'll get an answer in a day or two.

[mitro]

So that's the enticement to grow membership:
"Become a member and you can pick a more pleasing color scheme" ;)

It does harken back to the BBS days with the yellow text over a dark background, though.
I feel like I should maintain a certain Question to Answer ratio to maintain access. :p

--john--