Do you approve of "How Stereophile Market itself"?

In spite of the many faults that Stereophile has it still represents the strongest voice of "high end audio." In that exalted position they can still represent our viewpoint and command respect from the Sony's and Phillips of the world who care little or nothing about good audio reproduction. A case in point is the new watermarking fiasco that threatens to ruin all future recordings. A loss of Stereophile could well mark the death knell of our hobby as we know it. Our replacement would of course be the black hole called audio/video. That shift of power would distroy any incentive manufacturers might have to produce products for our needs . Stereophile may be a highly flawed publication but it is our last and best hope for survival.

Stereophile has staying power and their classifications do help drive sales for manufacturers. I've seen many ads here where the seller points out the item for sale is "Stereophile Class A". Means nothing at all to me, from what I can tell it's hard not to get some sort of positive rating from Stereophile. There's WAY too many variables to take their opinion with more than a grain of salt. I have a hard time with any of the mags simply because of the nature of the beast; they get a new amp in for audition and have a month or so to write a review. In my experience it takes at least a month (or longer) for a component to burn in and the real character to show through. Synergy is overlooked. A speaker may be fantastic with solid state gear but be considered too warm with tubes. The room plays a big role, far as I know my room is quite different from any reviewers I'v heard about. More often than not they review the products with music I don't listen to. A system that shines with vocals and small-ensemble jazz may not be worth a damn when it come to rock. It goes on and on. Save the money spent on magazines and pick up some new music.

Getting back to the issue at hand, the unfortunate contact that "Clueless" received from NCAC in all likelihood has nothing to do with STEREOPHILE. There are companies that purchase subscription lists (including lists of cancelled subscribers) from third parties or fulfillment houses, and then attempt to represent themselves as being agents of the publisher in an attempt to obtain your renewal. These companies charge more than the publisher, and on occasion take your money and run. (I speak from experience on that one). I subscribe to a lot of magazines (news, sports, special interest, etc.) and I get about 5 or 6 of these phone calls a year; plus another 8 or 9 mailings a year. For example, within the just the past month or so, I have been contacted by alleged "representatives" of NEWSWEEK and THE SPORTING NEWS, who offered me an opportunity to extend my subscription at rates that were 30% to 50% higher than what the publisher charges. For your own protection, the lesson to be learned is to renew a magazine subscription directly and only through the publisher; and pay no attention to any other solicitations you may receive.

Please don't lump Phillips in with Sony; they aren't at all the same. Sony has been a major player in trying to drive down recording quality standards via lossy compression algorithms (in addition to having abysmal quality control in their own electronic products), whereas Phillips has been one of the few big-league defenders of audio quality. I will grant that recently Sony has seen fit to promote SACD, which is excellent but the jury is still out on the fate of this format. It could well be another Beta.

Re Stereophile, I can't stand their marketing people but I still will support them as one of the few audio publications devoted to the high end and to improvement in audio standards. And I disagree strongly with the above statement that measurements don't matter-- Some measurements don't, others definitely do. The challenge is trying to find measurements which correlate with what you hear and are thus useful. Please don't condemn measurement as useless simply because mankind hasn't been able to measure everything yet. That is every bit as ignorant as stating that medicine is useless because we don't yet know how to cure cancer 100% of the time. And Stereophile has been the only mag that is not only willing to perform measurements, but more importantly, is trying on a continuing basis to figure out which measurements are actually useful. This has been the most helpful in the loudspeaker arena, where the biggest problems still exist. Measurements of the step response and spectral decay of a speaker are tremendously useful, because they directly address an issue of tremendous importance, that is, time-domain behavior. And yes, they very convincingly correlate with what you can hear. In addition, even the impedance and phase plots of a loudspeaker are useful indirectly as an indicator of how well the crossover has been refined, cabinet and port resonances, etc. And I am sure that twenty years from now, those efforts will pay off in even better measurements. Just because we're not there yet is no reason to stop trying.

The biggest anchor around the neck of Stereophile is its lack of integrity. If it cherished the position of power and influence it unjustifiably continues to hold in the audiophile industry rather than trying to exploit it with manufacturers, readers and audiophile consumers, the future outlook for Stereophile would look much better than it does. Unfortunately, they have taken the attitude that they can use their market power to unjustifiably hype certain equipment while simply ignoring other equipment which is more worthy, cheaper or both, and that they can require expensive ad campaigns from manufacturers as the price for a good review of the equipment, or for even a review of a manufacturer's equipment at all. Above all, they appear to have the feeling that we, the customers of Stereophile, will not see through their marketing "strategy" and that we will accept that just because they say that $40,000 Krell speaker or Levinson amp is the best that we will accept it without reservation. All I can say is that type of cynical strategy will always ultimately fail. They can't outsmart the marketplace forever and there is evidence that their plan is failing as we speak. I will not renew my subscription when it lapses in May, even though Stereophile is the only one who measures the equipment and, contrary to others, I appreciate having some objectivity put up against the biases of a reviewer whose objectivity is already highly questionable. Now, these stories of high pressure sales tactics which seem to border on fraud utilized in order to pressure you into subscription renewal indicate desperation on the part of Stereophile and even more cynicism directed at their customers. If knowledgable audiophiles continue to vote against Stereophile (with their feet), Stereophile will either wake up and change for the better or the marketplace will eventually ignore them. Sadly, I think they are currently in the process of digging their own grave. When they are no longer an economically viable enterprise, will they understand the role they played in bringing about that inevitable result?