TAS new look-the end is near?

Do you mean that TAS is beginning to lose continuousness? Perhaps it will then lose pompositiousness, as well.

Well they have to try to change as we all do and make improvements (hopefully). Keeping balance and staying in business is nowadays a tricky form of art.....
The best of this issue mentioned for me is the big record review section, that´s very refreshing in the heavy equipment tendency of the magazines in general.

Good for the music!!!!!!!!

I'm a new subscriber to TAS, and have to say I really
enjoyed my first two issues. Prior to this I had been a
subscriber to Audio before it folded; and have been a
Stereophile subscriber since mid-1995.
Quite frankly, I was delighted to see a negative review
of a Cambridge Soundworks speaker in the last issue. When
was the last time you saw that in Stereophile? But mostly
I read both publications for information about new CDs and
equipment coming into the market.
As several people have already mentioned in their posts,
magazine publishing is a business - and TAS is no exception
if they plan to stay afloat. And I feel it should be
mentioned that the current business climate for magazines of
all types is quite difficult. Page counts and advertising
dollars are way down in virtually all types of publications.
I receive at least ten trade magazines each month - I'm in
the television industry - and the number of pages and ads
is a tiny fraction of what it was 12 to 15 months ago. This
is deffinately a time when good business sense is essential
for any magazine to stay alive.

Unless I missed it among the numerous posts here, there is no direct reference to a comparison between what happened (somewhat gradually) to J. Gordon Holt at Stereophile after Larry Archibald bought it and what appears to be happening (somewhat more rapidly) to Harry Pearson. Each of these gentlemen founded their publications with a particular and personal point of view and over a period of time were forced to make compromises-advertising for one!-but even then they were unable to maintain the financial viability of these enterprises. I subscribed to and/or purchased both magazines over many years largely because of those personal, if sometimes irritating (especially Mr. Pearson) visions and quirks. I gave up on Stereophile as a subscriber at least 5 years ago (Probably about the time Jonathan Scull began to loom large-no pun intended-in the scheme of things there) and on TAS perhaps 3 years ago when its appearance became sporadic. I currently don't buy the former at all, but have probably purchased at the newsstand every TAS issue since its resurgence. In fact I was about to subscribe to the latter again until Robert Harley emerged as Editor-in-Chief. And now the new look! These events, and my (purely personal) speculation that HP is, by whomever's choice, on his way out, have put that plan on hold.

And, yes, I know I referred above to Mr. Pearson as irritating, but, in spite of his verbosity, pomposity, arrogance, and at times outright meanspirited-ness,(Although he has clearly been operating under some restraints since he was forced to give up control.), but the man is entertaining and often thought-provoking. I for one will hate to see him go if that is indeed what is going to happen.

Suretyguy, I couldn't agree with you more. Pearson is a personality in the tue old sense of the world, not one of those run of the mill types, who though intelligent, will adroitly adapt themselves to anything and call it political correctness out of pure lack of guts. If he is still true to his character, I doubt that he will take to the restraints imposed on him for very long. I will be sad to see him go, because we all owe him much, last not least the language we use to describe what we hear.