stereo review magazine

I read this magazine from the late 80's until the end.

Happy Listening!

stereo review -- we all read it back then

we were innocent naive and stupid

"...Of all the components I've reviewed, this has definitely been one of them..."

or

If you are looking for a 45-50 wpc receiver with a silver face plate and wood side panels this is one of your choices.

Better off with IAR.  
No advertsing/plugging.

My dad had a subscription back when it was HiFi Stereo Review. If he had a subscription to a prehistoric "HiFi Review," I don't remember seeing one. By the time I was about 11, I was reading them voraciously. Rex Reed wrote for the rag and his record reviews were incisive, clever and just wonderful.  Julian Hirsch, on the other hand, was just too measurement oriented. He wasn't bold enough to actually offer subjective opinions.  I think it was Harry Pearson who once lampooned a Hirsch-Houck review with the line, "Of all the components I've reviewed, this has definitely been one of them." In any event, my first encounter with an Absolute Sound was a revelation. In short order I was haunting every news stand within 20 miles to find them.

I grew up reading Stereo Review all through the 1970's and 80's. Learned a lot reading Stereo Review. Learned a lot about amps, speakers, all the different components. Thought the world of them. Really looked up to some of them like Julian Hirsch. 

It wasn't until well into the 1990's building my first real high end system in my dream room, now reading Stereophile, that I began to understand what a disservice Stereo Review had been. They taught us all that wire was wire, and if it measured good it was good. Looking around today I see just how much harm these ideas are doing even now. 

So sad to say in the long run it was a very mixed bag.