All the old issues of Stereo Review are online!!

I subscribed to Stereo Review for many years. In the mid 70' after owning a Sherwood receiver, I went with separates, a Mac C-26 and a Crown DC-300A. I couldn't afford the extra $100 or so for the matching Mac C2105 amp, so I got the Crown. 
I just looked up J. Hirsch's review on the Crown. The entire text is devoted to measurements, not a word on how it sounds. He was really focused on inaudible distortion. Interesting. 
To be fair, it was early in terms of audio reviews. I enjoyed reading the magazine back then. 
I still have the C-26 and Crown amp, I use them in my office system at low volumes. I had both of them serviced a few years ago, they still sound decent. 

Never said Julian Hirsch was a fraud. Seriously wrong, sure. Together with Stereo Review did serious damage to countless audiophiles? Without a doubt. Even today many so-called audiophiles persist with their same counterproductive measurement matters more approach. Its pure crapola and not even like many of them know this is where it comes from but there it is.

And yeah the ads and cartoons are fun. But Stereophile had those too, and without all the self-defeating rhetoric in between.

Now if you want something worth celebrating that by the way would be it. J Gordon Holt came along with the revolutionary proposition that even something as simple as wire might not sound all the same, and that the way to find out was not to measure it but to listen to it.

In doing this J Gordon Holt’s Stereophile created a whole new lexicon, industry, and indeed a movement. J Gordon Holt and Stereophile, probably more than anything else, invented the audiophile. That is history. That is something worthy of being archived for posterity.

Stereo Review died 20 years ago, and good riddance. Not that measurement doesn’t have its uses, but Hirsch and Stereo Review took it way too far, to the detriment of the hobby. J Gordon Holt and Stereophile have utterly discredited that approach. Yet remnants linger on, the ghost of Hirsch and Stereo Review haunting audiophiles to this day.

Stereo Review, RIP. Long live Stereophile!

Not in the mags but if you ever want a laugh, check out the letters between Mikey Fremer and Arthur Salvatore. Enough insults and f-bombs to sink a ship.

Thanks for the link
Yet i fear i may lose too much time in there having fun
Its a good thing im off this week..

So from the 1st issue i looked at

THE JEFF BECK GROUP: Beck-Ola Cosa Nostra. Jeff Beck (guitar) ; Rod Stewart THE BLUE VELVET If ND: Aim Gooney, (vocals); Ron Wood (bass); Tony Newman (drums) ; Nicky Hopkins (piano). All Shook Up: Spanish Boots; Girl from Mill Valley; ailhouse Rock; and three others. EPIC BN 26478 54.98, ® HN 668 (33/4) $6.95,® N14 10220 $5.95, C) NMS 10220 $6.95.

Performance: Dismal Recording: Loud Stereo Quality: Okay

Jeff Beck must be the most over -rated rock guitarist around. He has based an entire style on elements --feedback, distortion, jumbled fingering, and bent notes-that better players use for purposes of dynamic contrast and the building of emotional tension. Why he has such a large following is hard to understand. His group is not much better. The vocals are handled by Rod Stewart, a pedestrian singer, at best; the rhythm team is adequate but dull. Only pianist Nicky Hopkins, presumably not a regular in the Beck group, shines fbrth-as he almost always does-with touches of genuine originality. His performance of his own piece, Girl from Mill Valley., a gentle, gospel -based song, is one of the album's few high points. But not high enough to warrant paying the overall price of admission. D. H.