Were you an audiophile in the 1980s and 1990s?

i agree @frogman

as much as we appreciated what hp brought to the party, in the later years i feel the success and respect gained led him to become harder and harder to take (your word 'blowhard' is well chosen imo), i remember reading his later reviews and writings, remember many eye-roll moments

jgh, otoh, stayed solid with both feet planted on the ground and brought in the next gen of writers and reviewer which i grew to like and respect - i remember the early corey greenberg writings on nht and audio alchemy... ground breaking real hifi for us at the time starting out with small budgets, but loving music and hifi

@jjss49 I really enjoyed reading Corey Greenberg.  I wish he had stayed writing longer.

Tony Cordesman (AHC) was another one of my favorites.

Excellent comments, all.

Pearson did indeed go much further than Holt in describing the purely "sound effects" contained in recordings (including the infamous sound of subway trains running under the streets in recordings made in NYC, for instance). But Holt, being a recording engineer, knew far better than Pearson that the sound contained in a recording is not necessarily what the music sounded like when performed live. And for studio recordings, Pearson’s "rule" is completely and utterly inappropriate. Capturing the natural sound of acoustic instruments in real space is not at all what the vast majority of studio engineers are attempting to achieve.

The reason I value Art Dudley’s reviews above all others is that he was listening for how the piece of gear under review affected not just the sound of the music, but the music itself (plus, he had great musical taste, including a love of Bluegrass, which he also performed). Yes, PRAT and all the other musical concerns. Gordon Holt was definitely from the original generation of audiophiles (WWII generation), which considered the freedom from "vowel coloration" (a term coined by Holt) in the reproduction of instrumental and vocal timbres the first priority of a hi-fi system. I, having a very low tolerance for such coloration, shared with him that point of view. Loudspeakers in the 1950’s and ’60’s were plagued by it (easily heard in the sound of vocals, with which we are all very familiar), which is why I was knocked out when I heard music reproduced by an electrostatic loudspeaker. Far more transparent than non-ESL’s, but more importantly far less colored. Horns? Way, way, WAY too colored for me.

Rode an elevator with Holt once at a Show in LA in the mid 80's.  I didn't say anything mainly because a person on the car asked question after question and Gordon was getting slightly irritated.  Me, I thought the guy was gonna bend over and kiss his hand. When we reach our floor and the doors open he looked my way and smiled and raised in eyebrows. 

Holt sure was a tiny little guy, wasn’t he? Sharp dresser, too ;-) .