Why not horns?

Ah, history is so easy to swing to your position when you are doing the reporting.

Harry claimed he pioneered the use of many words as related to audio and they certainly were not all true.

"High end" is the most ridiculous one.

As for "soundstage", I have used, and heard others use, words like "placement", "positioning", "3d" before we ever read HP or Holt. Many of us identified the lack of 3 dimensionality of CD before HP ever reported on a CD player.

To really believe we (the industry) would not care about such things without his specific words is ludicrous. Before HP or Holt ever took pen to paper stereo was long since out there....gee, how did they get the placement so correct on records pressed in 1959 without having Harry tell them that there was such a concept as center, left, right, or a sense of depth possible? How did they ever get a soundstage before HP "invented" the word? Do you think that the fabulous mic placement on RCAs that HP so lauded years after they came out was just luck? That the placement just happened to serendipitously be there to be discovered by HP?

All the greats that MADE it happen, who knew what they were putting out long before HP came on the scene, are shortchanged by the revisionist history that says HP taught everyone about such matters as imaging, depth, etcetera.

HP and many reviewers are great at taking credit for what they are critiquing, as if they were the cause of the advances. That's just not reality.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Kiddman, I don't recall ever reading copies of the Absolute Kiddman or of Kiddmanfile. Let's assume for a moment that you are correct about the use of a similar descriptive language before Holt or HP did. So what? The point is that it was they that took the leap and made the investment to found their magazines and introduce me and countless others to it. Isn't that alone deserving of credit? You seem hell bent on not giving them any credit. I am truly curious as to why that is. Perhaps a clue lies in your hint that you are in the industry. BTW, no one has said anything like:

****To really believe we (the industry) would not care about such things without his specific words.****

****gee, how did they get the placement so correct on records pressed in 1959 without having Harry tell them that there was such a concept as center, left, right, or a sense of depth possible? How did they ever get a soundstage before HP "invented" the word? Do you think that the fabulous mic placement on RCAs that HP so lauded years after they came out was just luck? That the placement just happened to serendipitously be there to be discovered by HP?****

HP revered the great engineers like Layton and Wilkinson and gave them their due many times over in his reviews of their recordings as well as discussing their techniques.

It seems obvious to me that there is something going on here beyond a simple wish to set the record straight. I for one would be interested in knowing what that is.

Setting the record straight is all. Folks so often give HP credit for "founding the industry", "inventing the language that allowed us to talk about what we hear", and implying the industry would not have flourished without him. I am offering an alternative take, the reality that although the exact same words might not have been used, the phenomena were recognized and discussion and awareness of great equipment would have occurred without HP. Great journalists do not create industries, they report on them. That they often take credit for products, or "discovering" certain products, or even an entire industry, more reflects on the type of individual drawn to telling folks "how it is" than the reality of the situation.

No more, no less, no agenda.

I doubt anyone would argue that HP wasn't one of the pioneers of subjective audio journalism. As for creating the language of describing what is heard, I'd really give just a bit more credit to J. Gordon Holt. Without either of them I suspect that many of us might still not quite understand what many of us were describing. I think that in itself begs for some respect and gratitude.

Mapman, I remember there was an Ohm model that got good reviews back in the early 80's in Stereophile and maybe TAS too. I can't remember the model, but I want to say it was about a $750.00 speaker at the time. I still have all my old copies in storage. One day I'll try to dig them up.

I've got every single TAS from about issue 2 or 3 through around 1997 or so and when I was a kid, I memorized them cover to cover. Regarding horns, my recollection was (and I could be remembering wrong) that HP kind of dismissing them, but at the same time, every once in awhile, he'd unexpectedly say a nice thing about a trait of Klipschorns. I seem to remember thinking that he'd occasionaly contradict himself on them.