"The Audio Critic" B.S. or what?

I just checked out this magazine. My measure of an audio magazine is how much I agree with it. For example, I tend to agree with TAS or Stereophile magazine descriptions of 'transparent', 'warm', or has 'digital haze'. I read Peter Azcels 'lies' articles and found that virtually everything he said contradicted what I had learned by my own experiments and experiences. His dogmatic, vehemently argued theorems and axioms pertaining to audio were completely devoid of both empirical facts and inductive or deductive reasoning. I also noticed he used a lot of caps.

John_l: Vehement and dogmatic Aczel certainly is, and the "Lies" article was Peter at his worst. He was trying to cover a lot of ground in very little space, and wound up with a summary, rather than an argument. But judging a magazine by your agreement with it seems to me to be a good way to avoid learning anything new. As for your own "experiments and experiences," their exact meaning depends on how they were conducted, a subject on which Aczel has had a lot to say in the past. You might try checking out a few more issues, or ordering some back numbers.

John 1: Respectfully, I suggest that it's difficult to grow when we limit ourselves to those in agreement with us. There is occasional emotion within the pages of TAC. Much of it, I believe, is engendered by frustration with the deception which is perpetuated by many of the predominately subjective enthusiasts periodicals (you know of which I mean). I do understand how unappealing criticism of personal belief systems can be. It took several years in the past for some of mine to fall. But, if a claim cannot be reliably demonstrated to others, then that claim must be considered untenable.

Heck sakes! Don't go a smashin my Beatles albums ! I buy used equipment to do my own comparisons and come to my own conclusions. I don't use retail dealers, so I need another resource of good advisors. I find these advisors by finding those magazines whose interpretations of sonic characteristics match my interpretations as related to a specific component. 'I agree with them'. I'm just learning what things like 'soundstage', 'transparent', 'midrange' and 'loud mouthed idiot' mean. A mutual understanding of these terms allows me to more accurately pick a component. I do read most of the audio magazines and find it interesting to see the differing value systems. We have everything from the milliwatt tubelet set to the megawatt make-it-go boom(!) home theater crowd. TAC appears to seek distinction by making contrarian STATEMENTS. That is why I put them in with the bottom feeders. Yeah Yeah Yeah ! Yeah Yeah Yeah! YeeaaaH!

John 1: Sounds like you're having fun. Great! I don't think that I'd characterize TAC as being uniquely contrarian. E.g., search out issues of the AES journal or the erstwhile AUDIO magazine. In Audio you will find occasional forays into serious audio objectivism as is usually the case in the AES journal. Articles such as these are distinctive in that they are written by people who actually know what they are talking about...beyond simple opinion. I'm talking about credibility. TAC has credibility. We all have opinions which are, at the very least, valid for ourselves. Whether or not opinion (subjective) can be meaningfully tranferred to another is questionable since we're dealing with aurally subjective observations involving variables which are unique to each of us. I'm suggesting that if you give at least equal weight to what you read in TAC and fairly test out any claims from where-ever they might come, you will ultimately benefit. It seems that we share certain approaches to this hobby in that I also have a large collection of hardware which covers the full spectrum. As near as I can figure, I have about 70 years of audio technology represented and I have quite as good a time listening to old tube gear as with recent solid state. BTW, I wouldn't think of smashing your Beatles albums. You might check out the CD issue of their complete BBC recordings, if still available.