WTH TAS?!

I just watched on YouTube the first in a proposed series of videos The Absolute Sound has initiated, entitled "Learning From Audio History". The man on screen in this video is Tom Martin, Executive Publisher of the company that puts out TAS and two other hi-fi magazines.

The subject of this video is the AR-4x and KLH Seventeen acoustic suspension loudspeakers, both introduced in the 1960’s. The AR-4x just happens to be the first speaker I bought, way back in 1969. I don’t know why being a Publishing Executive would necessarily make one a hi-fi authority, and this video provides ample evidence that it in fact does not.

Mr. Martin begins the video by giving a very amateurish and confused explanation of what an acoustic suspension loudspeaker is, and how it differs from the non-as designs that were the norm before the invention of as. He makes matters worse by attributing that invention to The Acoustic Research Corporation itself, giving no credit to the engineer who did the actual inventing: Edgar Villchur.

He continues with this statement: "The AR was an 8" 2-way, and I think the KLH was an 8 or 10" 2-way." You think? You’re making a video entitled "Learning From Audio History", and you don’t know (and can’t be bothered to find out) whether the loudspeaker you are describing has an 8" or a 10" woofer? And the viewer is supposed to be learning from YOU?!

But far more troubling is Mr. Martin’s statement after his rather inelegant (and ultimately inaccurate---read on) description of the basis concept of the acoustic suspension bass design: "The spring effect (my note: of the air trapped inside the sealed enclosure of an as loudspeaker) lowered the resonant point of the bass system." WRONG! First of all: resonant "point"? You mean resonant frequency, obviously. But more importantly, the resonant frequency of the woofer in an acoustic suspension loudspeaker is not lowered, it is raised. The truth is the exact opposite of what Mr. Martin understands to be true!

The Absolute Sound and technical knowledge have long had a very weak relationship. TAS founder Harry Pearson was a professional photographer, with no education or self-taught knowledge of electronics. Stereophile founder J. Gordon Holt, on the other hand, was Technical Editor of High Fidelity Magazine, quitting that position after his unfavorable reviews of hi-fi products were deemed unsuitable for publication (the companies making those products threatened to pull advertising from the mag if the bad reviews were published). But Holt had not just technical knowledge, he was an excellent recording engineer, and an expert listener and product evaluator. In 1962 to invented "subjective" reviewing, starting Stereophile and serving as it’s only equipment reviewer for many years. I and many other older audiophiles miss him greatly. I see red when I hear Harry Pearson credited with being the founder of audiophile critique, i.e subjective reviewing. TAS followed Stereophile by over a decade.

I attended a hi-fi shop seminar where the guest was Bill Johnson of Audio Research Corporation, sometime in the late-80’s I believe it was. Mr Johnson---who can and should be credited with single-handedly creating the high end audiophile market as we now know it---related an amusing story about Pearson. ARC had sent a new pre-amp to him for review, and after a few weeks Harry called Bill, telling him the pre-amp was defective. Bill had Harry return the pre to ARC, whereupon he checked it out, accessing there was not a thing wrong with it. Johnson called Pearson to get to the bottom of the mystery, and after a few questions had his answer: Pearson had installed shorting plugs---used to block noise from entering a pre-amp through its unused input jacks---into the pre-amps OUTPUT jacks! Is a person that ignorant really entitled to be considered qualified to be a hi-fi critic/reviewer? That’s up to each of us to decide.

As for Mr. Martin: no, he is not.