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Is Stereophile seeking a new reader demographic?

Does anyone else find this as odd, or amusing, as I do? I just received a subscription solicitation for Stereophile magazine offering me a "free MP3 auto adapter" if I subscribe for a year. The promotion includes a picture of a cheap 12-volt adapter intended to provide power to an MP3 player.

Two thoughts came immediately to my mind -- first, if I can afford any of the equipment being promoted (and "promoted" is, in my view, a polite description) in Stereophile, why would a $10.00 adapter be an incentive to subscribe? And second, Stereophile manages, in each and every issue, to say something nasty about compressed audio files. Why would they be pushing an MP3 adapter as a subscription premium?

Methinks the marketing and editorial departments ought to be talking to each other a bit more.
rdavwhitaker
tmsorosk
1,013 posts
 
Stereophile has stated many times that they are trying to attract new and younger readers , and review more low cost equipment . That policy dosn't appeal to me but I guess in this economy you have to do whats needed . I think J.A. will keep a handle on it .
hodu
316 posts
 
Didn't I read somewhere recently -- where could it have been? -- that Stereophile now has a swimsuit issue?
rbrowne
175 posts
 
Didn't I read somewhere recently -- where could it have been? -- that Stereophile now has a swimsuit issue?

Pasty white fat balding guys in Speedos? Where do I sign up for a subscription?
tomcy6's avatar
tomcy6
2,598 posts
 
I wish Stereophile would do more to attract a new demographic. The last time I checked they had about 80,000 subscribers. That is not enough audiophiles to support healthy audiophile hardware and software industries.

I find it sad that there is so much great audio gear made by people who put their hearts and souls into producing it and so few people who are even aware that it exists.

I don't want to start an argument with people who prefer vinyl, I hope that you always have plenty of analog gear and LPs to choose from, but the future of audiophile audio is not vinyl.

Stereophile should be devoting a lot more coverage to server systems and high res downloads. These topics are hardly mentioned in Stereophile and TAS.

You should know exactly what you need to set up any one of a number of server systems and exactly how to do it from reading Stereophile or TAS. Not the case though.

They should also be working with the major record labels to get them to make high res downloads available at reasonable cost. I don't think anyone at Stereophile even knows anyone from the major lablels or what their plans for a high res format are.

So the result is that audio manufacturers and sellers continue to struggle to survive and we keep waiting for a simple server solution and those high res downloads of music we actually listen to that have been right around the corner for years but never get here.

If the audiophile press doesn't wake up the high end has a tough future ahead.
hotmailjbc
571 posts
 
what else could they give away that cost them 50 cents?
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