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

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.

hp was certainly a very flawed individual... but he (and jgh) added something significant to the discussion and assessment of high end gear

art dudley was also one of my favorites... rip art

As above, Dudley, Holt and Pearson, all great names in the discussion of High End Audio.

Happy Listening!

mikekuller

Great Book!  Happy Listening!

My introduction into high end gear was hearing my first electrostatic transducer: the RTR tweeters employed in the ESS TranStatic I Loudspeaker (of which I now own a pair). I then in 1971 heard the Infinity Servo-Static I, and saw (but not heard) my first ARC products: the SP-2C pre-amp and D-100 (dual chassis) power amp.

The following year (1972) I assembled my first high end system: Magneplanar Tympani T-I’s, bi-amped with ARC D-50 and D-75 power amps, an SP-3 pre-amp, a Thorens TD-125 Mk.2 fitted with an SME 3009 arm and Decca Blue cartridge. This was the exact same system I heard Bill Johnson demo when he visited and installed the system in the listening room of his newest ARC dealer: Walter Davies in Livermore California (later known for his outstanding line of Last record preservation products).

It was in Stereophile that I read the first reviews of all the above (in issues that reside in my library). Though I time-after-time see Harry Pearson and his TAS Magazine credited with creating "the high end", before the first issue of TAS was published J. Gordon Holt had already reviewed the ARC SP-2C, the Dual 50, the SP-3, the Dual 75, the Magneplanar Tympani T-I, and the Decca Blue.

In the 1960’s JGH had reviewed the QUAD ESL, The KLH 9, Marantz Model 9, and all the other pieces of state-of-the-art gear, before Pearson introduced the rather snobbish-sounding term (to my ears anyway) "high end". I prefer Holt’s term: "perfectionist hi-fi". The former implies higher price ipso facto affords higher sound quality, the latter doesn’t.