Were you an audiophile in the 1980s and 1990s?

One thing Holt and Pearson shared was coming to disapprove of the direction their creations took after each lost control of them, both leaving in disgust.

Art Dudley was for a time Pearson's right-hand man at TAS, and in his Stereophile reviews sprinkled hilarious (and unflattering) comments about Harry. Art's own magazine Listener was fantastic; I'll never sell my complete collection of them.

IMHO,   both Gordon and Harry played a valuable role in contributing to the betterment of audio products and most certainly the creation of the Hi-End audio industry that exists today.  I think we can also thank Julian Hirsch of Hirsch Houck Labs for his contributions as well.  This is in addition to many of the Hi-End audio reviewers who've written about this hobby and its related equipment for the past sixty years.  Far too many to mention here.  

@bdp24 spot on. I don't have a complete collection, sadly, but what I do have I treat like the dead sea scrolls and enjoy re-reading them from time to time. Long live Wilmer!

@bdp24 is correct about Holt starting Stereophile 10 years before Pearson started TAS.  But which was more influential?  Or fun to read?

Do you recall The Audio Critic or International Audio Review (IAR)?

They all played a part in my audio journey I discuss in my book.

What equipment brought you into High End audio?  I bought a pair of Dahlquist DQ-10s in 1977 and it changed my life. 

JGH brought in a couple of other good reviewers to Stereophile: Dick Olsher and Steven Stone, both now at TAS (occasionally). The current TAS has a coupla reviewers I like: Robert E. Greene and Paul Seydor. The rest of them are merely professional audiophiles. Of most interest to me in the current Stereophile reviews are John Atkinson’s test bench measurements. TAS performs and publishes no technical measurements. Ridiculous! The long-term influence of TAS is the over-use in hi-fi reviews of "flowery" language in the description of sound. Art Dudley got it just right. IMO, of course.

The original TAS crew had no education in hi-fi/audio electronics (including Harry Pearson), and could provide no insight into the design of the products they reviewed. They were kinda the Garage Band of reviewers ;-) . "Inspired amateurs". Hi-fi shops are full of ’em.

In the late-80’s I attended an in-store appearance of ARC’s Bill Johnson. He laughingly told a story about Harry Pearson that said a lot:

Johnson sent Pearson the new ARC pre-amp (I don’t recall which model) to review, and soon afterwards received a call from him. Pearson told Johnson the pre-amp was defective, so Johnson had him return the unit. When it arrived back at ARC the unit was checked out, and all was fine: the pre-amp was performing perfectly.

Bill called Harry and asked him some questions, and soon had the answer to the mystery: Pearson had inserted shorting plugs into not the unused pre-amp inputs, but instead to it’s unused outputs!!! Should a person so ignorant of basic electronic design really be considered a professional reviewer? Not in my book. THAT requires more than "great ears".

I had subscriptions to both The Audio Critic (both "versions" ;-) and International Audio Review. And to Hi-Fi News & Record Review, Audio Magazine, Positive Feedback, Hi-Fi +, and a few others. That’s a lot of reading. I now am more interested in reading biographies of musicians, singers, songwriters, and composers.