The Audio Critic

.... just thought I would take some time this Saturday afternoon to research and answer some questions I have to try to get a direction on some new stuff I'm going to buy.

After plowing through piles of quasi-ads and related - I reflected on The Audio Critic (pre Internet) and what those pages revealed to a much younger audiophile.

The style - was very aggressive and opinionated (sound familiar?),

.... but the opinion / info always was born out to be right by what I actually heard.

I'm taking a chance on getting flamed here - but hopefully there are others out there that (now) will also be willing to be heard too.

Anyone out there that uses a new The Audio Critic with similar accuracy today?

Okay. I think that's long enough.

I work in an industry that sells opinions. Where you have a bad or flawed opinion it CAN bring one to the brink of loosing a business more times than not.

Errors and Omissions insurance is definitely required there. Careful conclusion / directions evolve also as a natural result of trying to survive, This question on Aczel etal (currently) is far less significant certainly in the big picture.

I believe in good Alpha experience based thoughts here. Omegas not so much.

If anyone with integrity of thought has a TAC replacement recommendation - please post it here. I do return occasionally.

Thanks. I remain hopeful.

Peter Aczel was years ahead of his time and told it like he saw it.

Sometimes I despair of reading magazine reviews.

Just the other day I was looking for a new tyre inflator for my car and checked out several magazine reviews.

I thought it was a little strange that different publications all seemed to recommend the same few inflators. Nevertheless I headed over to Amazon UK to check out prices and see reviews there.

The first customer review I read immediately drew attention to the fact that inflators with screw on valves inevitably have the problem of the tyre deflating as you attempt to remove it after inflating.

So naturally I bought one with the lever type connector.

This did leave me wondering how could these different magazine reviews all have failed to spot this elementary design fault with their so called recommended screw on inflators?

Good reviewers see and publish opinions on the perceived needs of normal users.

Some reviewers are driven by their own professional standards that they hold dear.

Some are driven by their own internal spins and Cabal programming.

.... and some are driven to just fit in and not be disagreeable to the monitors.

We can choose which to follow. Challenge is in the choosing.

I try to confirm what is read in reviews by what I heard in use (audio).

@pwkmaven2 

Me too.

Unfortunately, more often than not, the result has been a lasting disdain for much of whats been written on the page. Much, if not all of it, simply boils down to little more than an endless stream of advertising driven flavour of the month empty endorsements.

However, when it comes to the likes of Peter Aczel, Floyd Toole, Amir from ASR, the guys at Audioholics etc I haven't found too much to disagree with.

My biggest eye opener was to read the Harbeth User Group forum.

Nothing else altered my way of thinking as much as reading the words of one Alan Shaw.

It took a fair bit of time and a certain amount of discomfort, but in the end I'm more or less in accord with the great man's opinions on amplifiers, cables, stands, connectors etc.

My only remaining issue is with his belief in the superiority of digital over analogue. He's probably right in theory, but not, at least in my experience, in practice.

There's far too many LPs which sound superior to their digital counterparts for me to fully endorse that.