Why not horns?

The man had great power, folks followed him blindly like many follow Fremer blindly today for analog stuff, or how they followed Parker and his ridiculous wine ratings system. When one guy, not a do-er, but a reviewer, gains too much influence it can really muck up an industry.

I read TAS religiously from the late 1970's until around the time the world wide web emerged in the mid-1990's. I also read pretty much all of the other major audio-related publications of the time, and a number of the minor ones, representing pretty much all of the points on the spectrum of audiophile ideologies. I found that I could glean useful information from all of them.

As a technically oriented person I certainly had issues with a lot of what I read in TAS, especially when the writers hypothesized technical explanations for their sonic perceptions. However, based on my listening experiences during that period and those of my audiophile friends, I don't think it can be denied that the listening impressions reported by HP and many of his writers tended to be more consistently spot on than those in any other contemporaneous publication. Albeit with matters of degree perhaps being somewhat exaggerated at times.

Concerning Harry's considerable power and influence, it seems to me that ultimately its most significant effect was promulgation of his fundamental underlying philosophy, the use of the sound of acoustic instruments in a real performing space as the ultimate reference. And promulgation of that philosophy was sorely needed at the time, and all to the good, IMO.

If some folks followed his recommendations blindly, and if he had great influence (which he did), that is not his fault. My perception has been that the net result of that influence during the roughly 20 year period in question was more beneficial to the evolution of quality audio reproduction than that of any other audio reviewer or journalist.

And btw, I've found Parker's wine ratings and books to be useful as well.

Regards,
-- Al

I had never heard of Stereophile, TAS, J. Peter goofball, or any of the high end when I went stereo shopping after college. I told the salesperson "I want to hear jazz, classical, pop, but jazz and classical instruments have to sound real". She (yes, she) asked if I ever heard a violin. I said "of course" and she played a string quartet album. Then jazz.

Point is, I wanted to hear music and knew what it sounded like, all without some rag telling me just what to listen for, how to listen, and what albums to listen to.

When I found TAS (which was inevitable) it did not mean a thing to me. The notion of individuals blessing or not blessing equipment based solely on their tastes in their rooms with their listening biases struck me as something that might be entertaining to read but not to take very seriously.

Point is, great equipment existed before any of those cult mags, plenty of folks used the simply logic that good speakers should make an insturment sound like it does in person, and they CERTAINLY did not "found" the industry. SME existed way before them. How about Peter Walker's original Quads? How about the BBC monitor work? All based on good research as well as listening. AR loudspeakers and turntable. We could go on and on. It is completely self-reporting that has HP and others in the press claiming they "founded" high end. Hell, HP even claims he invented the term "high end" - and not just as it applies to audio. That bit of self-reporting is also false.

I appreciate HP's wit, love of music, love of audio, and he certainly had very strong influence in some of the directions it went after he and others in the high end press became powerful, But any thoughts that high end audio would not have flourished without him and his high end reviewing contemporaries is totally false.

Kiddman,
You use live acoustic instruments as your template and I happily do the same and this approach has served me very effectively in choosing audio components. You do need to be familiar with real instrument sound in order to determine how and to what degree components deviate from this standard. HP did recognize and strongly advocate this concept and I'll give him cconsiderable credit for making this an important criteria. I enjoyed TAS quite a bit during my introduction in the late 1980s and this continued for about a 10 year period. I admired his efforts but didn't view him or anyone else as an all knowing infallible guru. I also believed that HP truly loves and respects music just as I do.
Charles,

I read HP, JG Holt and the others, starting ca. 1972 or so. It was fun to read about expensive, esoteric gear at the time a/k/a 'audio porn,' but with hindsight, the lasting value of their contributions was, I think, what to listen for- the so-called 'subjective school' of audio. (I also enjoyed Richard Heyser in Audio Magazine, who was far more engineering grounded).
I doubt that any of this reading influenced what I bought at the time, but as my pocketbook allowed, I was able to listen to, and buy, gear that reproduced the recordings with somewhat more 'life.' (At the time, it was an ARC SP 3 -a-1, which was a revelation to me, compared to other preamps, circa 1974, and a pair of 'old' Quads, a/k/a '57's'). Today, when I read these magazines, I do so largely for entertainment. I like Fremer for keeping the torch lit on vinyl, and a few other reviewers (Roy Gregory when he was at HiFi+).
I had occasion to read an old copy of TAS recently and it was a far more ambitious publication 20 plus years ago.
The intra-web has certainly changed things, to allow users to compare listening experiences and share information (as well as provide a huge inventory of old vinyl from across the globe).