The Listening Rooms of Stereophile & TAS

[artto]

I've previously posted a couple of these in another subject thread in another Forum area but have since also come across John Atkinson's listening room, so I'll post them all again along with his.

I really have to wonder what these guys are thinking and who they think they are as to be so pious to charge people subscriptions for their judgements. And since most of these guys have been in the business for decades you would think they would have accomplished more than this.

Kal Rubinson's listening room

[artto]

Robert Greene's Listening Room

[artto]

Robert Greene #2

[artto]

John Atkinson's listening room

[Chris A]

...And since most of these guys have been in the business for decades you would think they would have accomplished more than this...

No arguments here with your assessment.

This brings up a point: how is it that the "experts" haven't caught on about room acoustics? Especially when they are making judgments between such things as the sonic performance of "speaker wire elevators", connectors of different types and materials, elite capacitor brands, speaker feet spikes, record/tape/digital disk recording (i.e., media) quality, recording/mixing/mastering engineer quality, etc.

This is pretty scary but not too much a surprise after trying to consolidate various opinions on hi-fi hardware over the years.

PWK once mentioned in one of his Dope from Hope articles that at least one guy proposed that the reference listening systems should be some particular set of manufacturer's hardware, NOT live performance, and then went on to propose WHO should be able judge reproduction quality. I can relate to PWK's disgust and amazement at the gall of these self-appointed experts.

Then there was the 1985 Bob Carver--Stereophile challenge: that one taught me a lot. Not that I believe that Carver's equipment is the best or that he got everything right, but he raised the issue clearly and cleanly. These hi-fi experts are about as useful as art critics--which is to say they create nothing but judge everything; their judgments usually don't coincide with mine.

I once had a "golden ear" over for a listen whose idea of fine reproduction was, well let's just say, very quiet loudspeakers that take huge amounts of power to drive to concert levels, that cannot actually reproduce without significant distortion products being generated. He proceeded to tell me that my system was bass shy: he was listening at about 75 dB©--never turning up the volume to anything approaching concert level or to flatten out listener Fletcher-Munson effects in-room. He told me the problems with my system and my room, in his opinion.

Then I simply put on a reference recording (such as Sheffield Lab's James Newton Howard and Friends) and cranked it up to 90-95 dBC. His eyes got really big and he got really quiet. You'd've thought that he'd been shot. To this day, I don't know if I insulted him by doing this. But I thought it was the simplest and quickest way to contrast our listening styles - and to remove the barrier of language from the equation.

I now know that many people have compressed and extremely artificial expectations of "hi-fi", so I have learned to simply ignore all the reviews and advice from these "parasitic lifeforms". I instead listen to the thoughts and goals of the folks designing hardware that seems to sound good and that have a bit of a following, and I read certain psychoacoustic studies of human aural performance. However, I've learned that even these articles need more than "a grain of salt" to consume simultaneously.

Edited June 1, 2014 by Chris A

[Rivernuggets]

I'm surprised they let these pictures see the light of day. "Pay no attention....."

[Mallette]

I really have to wonder what these guys are thinking and who they think they are as to be so pious to charge people subscriptions for their judgements.

I don't have time to track it down at the moment, but a few years ago someone brought up a piano recording these guys engineered and were touting. Somebody sent me a copy as they didn't want it and I was curious to see if it was as bad as everyone said.

It was. Just for grins, I put up a piano recording I'd made with my homemade rig...maybe a thousand dollars worth of stuff...and a cut from this disc and ask folks here who weren't familiar with either to download and compare without knowing which was which.

I can't recall the exact results, but I know my piece came out in front and by several WAY in front. They had a huge writeup about their methods and equipment, and I believe thier microphone cables alone cost more than my whole rig...maybe a LOT more.

Dave

[Don Richard]

You guys are missing the point... it's not about giving honest listening evaluations of equipment but rather to help sell said equipment. More than 60% of Stereopile's and TAS's revenue is from sales of advertising, not magazine sales. So where do you think their loyalties lie? With advertisers or readers?

[Cornman]

Very revealing, makes my modest attempts at least seem honest. Also so brings to mind one of our members tags, " If it sounds good to you it must be good".

Cornman

[neo33]

When seeking advice on audio, who would YOU choose? arrto or these guys?

The answer is simple: arrto!

[Chris A]

You guys are missing the point... it's not about giving honest listening evaluations of equipment but rather to help sell said equipment.

Yes, I believe that I know this fact.

What's amazing to me is the gullibility of so many people that think of themselves as "audiophiles"...they don't seem to get it or even want to get it.

Chris

Edited May 7, 2014 by Chris A

[Mallette]

Recently, Art Dudley did an article where he used some bizarre ritual of freezing pictures or so such BS and placing them in the listening room to improve imaging or whatever. Now, you should be able to tell I didn't really pay attention to the "WHAT," but the artistry of his writing where if you were gullible you could believe he was taking this seriously, or if you had half a brain you could interpret it as satire was extraordinary. This runs true in all thier writing and is, indeed, an incredible accomplishment. One who can write about freezing pictures improving sound ambivalently can make a case for a 50,000.00 transistor amplifier being "...a real bargain" and make gullible "audiophiles" drool over it.

Reminds me of our politicians...

Dave

[Quiet_Hollow]

Art Dudley did an article where he used some bizarre ritual of freezing pictures or so such BS and placing them in the listening room to improve imaging or whatever

[Guest srobak]

Thank god the only thing I trust for my reviews are my own damn ears.

[artto]

So as not to plug the thread up with a bunch of my own posts,
I’ll just post them as one.

Carl, interesting experience with your “golden ear” friend
and the Sheffield Lab James Newton Howard LP.

I had a similar experience with the Sony regional sales rep
when he dropped off the then new Sony CDP-101 CD player (circa 1983?) for the
Stereo Review photo session of my room. Naturally he was very enthusiastic
about the first Sony CD player which was soon to be released. After a few CDs
(which sounded like ****) he says, “Hey man, I haven’t heard a system like this
in a long time. Do you have the Sheffield Lab Tower of Power recording?” (Yes).
“I’d sure like to hear Squibcakes. Turn it up. I’d like to hear this system
stretch its legs!” I’m thinking (Dude, if you thought that CD player sounded good, you ain’t never heard a good system) I
kind of felt like Captain Kirk in The Wrath of Khan where he says to Khan “Here
it comes......” I just stood back and watched. You should have seen the
astonishment on his face! His mouth literally just hung open, head turning side
to side as various voices and instruments came into play. And then there came
the funky bass solo where it sounds like Vito San Filippo used an expander or
maybe just turned volume way up, and it sounded like the walls of room had just
blown away. When the poor guy left he was carrying his jaw in his hands and looked
like a disheveled puppy dog with its tail between its legs.

Rivernuggets, yes I’ve wondered the same thing. Although I
must admit it sometimes takes the right search components. And I always copy
and save them because many times they are no where to be found sometime later. For
Kal Rubinson’s room you can thank Ethan Winer. Robert Greene’s room I coped
from a Stereophile Forum by a member’s post referring to a TAS Harbeth speaker
review. Needless to say it now gets a “server can’t be found” error. John
Atkinson’s I surprisingly got from a somewhat recent post on diyaudio.com which
I suspect will soon be giving the same “can’t be found” error as well.

Dave, yeah, I remember that shoot out with your recording
and, I believe was it Fremer’s piano recording? Pretty funny.

Don, yes, true. I’m sure most everybody here realize that.
But just like Jim Cramer on CNBC there’s apparently an outstanding number of
idiots out there who are so desperate that they’ll take anyone’s advice, and
even pay for it, to get what they then believe is outstanding performance when
they don’t even know what outstanding performance is.

Neo. You are too kind. I believe it was you who turned me on
to the Epik Empires. And I think I even argued with you about it at first.
Eight fifteens later I’m a happy camper.

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Alrighty then.

[Mallette]

So, located the "Challenge" thread and enjoyed revisiting it. I'd forgotten just how ignorant these guys were. I summed it up with the single statement about how they mentioned "tilting down" an OMNIDIRECTIONAL microphone! Crikey, 'nuff said about thier understanding of microphones.

For those interested in a pretty good read:

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/117470.aspx?PageIndex=4

If you prefer only a summation:

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/118195.aspx

Dave

[DrWho]

Unfortunately, isn't that what the typical room of most people here on this forum have? And pretty much everyone else into audio?

[artto]

Unfortunately, isn't that what the typical room of most people here on this forum have? And pretty much everyone else into audio?

So I guess that makes it "right" (OK) that they should be the self anoited pious experts of audio opinion and then charge people for the sham? If they're getting most of their revenue from the advertisers that support their pubications, then why charge for it at all? That's really the scum bag part of it. Makes it look legitimate (only to dummies).

My point is, since you obviously haven't "gotten it" (or maybe its just your preponderance to argue with me on nearly every post for some unbeknownst reason) is that these people make claims about the performance of a lot of very expensive and supposedly state of the art audio equipment and yet much, if not all of their listening tests take place in a very substandard listening enviromnent. An environment which in fact can never bring out the best in any of these components. And on top of that, how many people do you think that can afford that kind of price tag for audio equipment, or anything for that matter, live in a room like that? Yeah, right.

[Chris A]

Unfortunately, isn't that what the typical room of most people here on this forum have?

Well, yes and no. I don't believe that's what artto has. I'd like to think that I've also tried to address room acoustics issues, as well as mikebse2a3, rigma, rudy81, and just about anyone else with a dedicated room HT that posts here.

And pretty much everyone else into audio?

Well, there are a lot of folks with dedicated home theaters and good 2-channel rooms out there nowadays that are "into audio". If that weren't true then the multiplicity of acoustic treatments vendors/manufacturers wouldn't exist online.

I believe that the issue is that these magazine-based critics shouldn't have "typical rooms" since they don't have "typical hardware" in their rooms (usually, the high-priced hardware is provided on a trial basis by the manufacturers at no cost). If they are trying to squeeze usually stated performance out of their hardware to "hear the difference", then they have a pretty serious credibility problem, IMHO. Artto I think has shown that these guys probably CAN'T hear what they are writing about since their rooms are clearly saddled with issues that you can see in his pictures. They may be writing about their room acoustics issues instead and the small changes that they are making to already poor listening environments.

Just my perspective and $0.02

Chris

P.S. Apparently, artto slipped in there to post before I got a chance to complete this post... [:$]

Edited May 7, 2014 by Chris A