Thank you @cleeds. I too read Bert Whyte in Audio Magazine, as well as Edward Tatnall Canby (think he was of British ancestry? ;-). I suspect the memory of them will die with us.
I started keeping an eye out for Bert’s Everest recordings after learning of them in The Absolute Sound, and now have a handful. Both Gordon Holt and John Atkinson were/are talented recording engineers. Can you imagine the clown reviewers at TAS (or even worse Positive Feedback) even knowing how to plug in a microphone? ;-)
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@terry9: I understand your praising of Sound Systems (the owner’s name was Mike something) for not selling ARC to you, but the truth of the matter is: if Mike wanted to remain an ARC dealer he was prohibited from doing any differently. The ARC dealers were given territories, so as to protect other ARC dealers.
In 1972 I auditioned the Tympani T-I’s (and the ARC electronics) at both Sound Systems in Palo Alto and at Audio Arts in Livermore, and as I lived in San Jose (roughly equidistant from both) could have bought from either. During a conversation between Bill Johnson and one of his dealers I overheard Johnson make some unflattering comments about how Sound Systems had poorly positioned the Tympani’s in their not-so-hot listening room (lots of glass windows, hard floors, etc.), indicating to me their lack of a deep understanding of acoustics and the interaction of a pair of loudspeakers with the room in which they are placed.
Walter Davies at Audio Arts had built a dedicated listening room within his shop, with a sound proof door. Generous dimensions, no windows, carpeted floor, etc. It remains one of the best rooms I’ve heard reproduced music in. And then there was the fact that Walter was obviously an unusually intelligent (and as I came to learn highly educated) man, with a very non-pushy approach to selling hi-fi. The two guys at Sound Systems were just hi-fi salesmen. I of course bought my ARC/Tympani system from Walter, who assembled (the Thorens TD-125 Mk.2/Decca International tonearm/Decca Blue pickup), delivered, and installed it. I was happy with it for two years, until I heard the Fulton Model J loudspeakers, which had the fantastic RTR ESL-6 tweeter array and transmissionline-loaded dynamic woofers. Bye bye Tympani’s, hello Model J’s ;-) .
Years later I visited a new-to-me hi-fi shop in Santa Monica, just around the corner from where Randy Cooley would soon open his Optimal Enchantment shop (now THERE’S a great hi-fi dealer!). The shop was an apartment in an apartment building, with a terrible listening room (again, lots of glass windows). And whose shop was it? The "second banana" employee at Sound Systems! As years earlier, he was a jerk. A real smart ass, very unpleasant to be around for any length of time. See ya!
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Harry Pearson definitely added to the hi-fi lexicon, raising the bar in hi-fi critique. But it irks me when I see him given all the credit for creating "high end" reviewing (Steve Guttenberg does so regularly). As the saying goes "He stood on the shoulders of giants". In this case, those of J.Gordon Holt. But it is my opinion that Art Dudley raised the bar even higher (if I’m allowed to speak his name).
Holt had his shortcomings (for one thing, his musical taste was pretty much exclusively Classical), but I found Pearson more than a little pompous (Dudley felt the same, and in one of his Stereophile reviews comically threw in an expression Pearson was known for, Dudley doing so as an example of the reason for his distain of the man. Dudley quit TAS when he could no longer stand to be around Harry).
As my momma useta say: "Each to her own, said the lady as she kissed the cow."
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@frogman: You entirely missed my point regarding "inappropriate": Of course "the use of the sound of unamplified instruments in a real space" is "the best way to judge accuracy (naturalness) in the sound of a component." I didn’t say otherwise (reread what I wrote if you wish). That is the basis of hi-fi, after all!
What I DID say was that metric can not be used when the source material used in the evaluation of components is not a recording made with the intention of capturing "the sound of unamplified instruments in a real space", but is instead a recording made to merely sound "good". What does "good" mean? In the world of Pop music recording, if you think good means "the sound of unamplified instruments in a real space", well then you obviously haven’t spent much time in a recording studio.
Beside the obvious fact that most instruments in Pop music recordings are not unamplified, they are very rarely recorded in "a real space", and certainly not one that resembles what you hear in most studio recordings. Electric guitars, for instance, are often recorded with the amplifier placed in a small isolation booth. To create the illusion of the sound being produced in a larger space, electronic reverb is then added to the signal. Electric basses are often recorded plugged straight into the board, not an amplifier. Same with electronic keyboards.
Another example: The most commonly-used microphone for recording snare drums in studios in the Shure SM-57. Why the 57? Because the mic has a built-in presence peak; the mic was designed as a vocal mic for use in PA systems. The presence peak helps vocals to "cut through" the sound of loud instruments on stage. In the studio, engineers use it to create a snare sound that "pops" in the mix.
Another example: The better studio engineers apply compression to the overhead mics employed to capture the sound of drumset cymbals. The compression makes the drumstick tip hitting the cymbal have a more pronounced percussive "click" sound. The first time I recorded at Flora Recording & Playback Studio in Portland Oregon (where Bill Frisell has recorded a lot---a great studio), I played on the house set---a nice DW kit with Zildjian A cymbals. After the first take we listened to the playback, and I was startled by how different was the in person sound of the cymbals compared to how they sounded on tape. I instantly recognized the sound of compression, and verified it’s use with the engineer. When mixing all the tracks, he then added electronic reverb and considerable amounts of equalization. While the results sounded "good", you can’t really consider it "the sound of unamplified instruments in a real space", now can you?
As for the use of the term "sound effects": the quotation marks were intended to convey the subtle employment (apparently too subtle ;-) of humour. I’ve seen the term used in hi-fi critique before, by writers better than myself (perhaps even by Art Dudley. Oops, there I go again ;). I guess I should have used the much less subtle ;-) to convey my intent. But the idea does raise a valid concern: TAS reviewers quantified the ability of a component to reveal low-level detail as an indicator of the components’ degree of resolution. Okay, fine. But what if that ability comes at the expensive of other, more musically relevant characteristics? I mean, I want to hear the sound of Tony Rice’s fingers sliding across the strings of his Martin D-28 acoustic guitar, but what if that sound is being exaggerated by a component? How does a listener know how "much" of that sound is contained in the recording, versus what the component is doing to the signal?
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Holt sure was a tiny little guy, wasn’t he? Sharp dresser, too ;-) .
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Excellent comments, all.
Pearson did indeed go much further than Holt in describing the purely "sound effects" contained in recordings (including the infamous sound of subway trains running under the streets in recordings made in NYC, for instance). But Holt, being a recording engineer, knew far better than Pearson that the sound contained in a recording is not necessarily what the music sounded like when performed live. And for studio recordings, Pearson’s "rule" is completely and utterly inappropriate. Capturing the natural sound of acoustic instruments in real space is not at all what the vast majority of studio engineers are attempting to achieve.
The reason I value Art Dudley’s reviews above all others is that he was listening for how the piece of gear under review affected not just the sound of the music, but the music itself (plus, he had great musical taste, including a love of Bluegrass, which he also performed). Yes, PRAT and all the other musical concerns. Gordon Holt was definitely from the original generation of audiophiles (WWII generation), which considered the freedom from "vowel coloration" (a term coined by Holt) in the reproduction of instrumental and vocal timbres the first priority of a hi-fi system. I, having a very low tolerance for such coloration, shared with him that point of view. Loudspeakers in the 1950’s and ’60’s were plagued by it (easily heard in the sound of vocals, with which we are all very familiar), which is why I was knocked out when I heard music reproduced by an electrostatic loudspeaker. Far more transparent than non-ESL’s, but more importantly far less colored. Horns? Way, way, WAY too colored for me.
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It’s informative to compare the writing styles of JGH and HP. The former’s reviews were very to-the-point, the latter’s verrryyy long, and rather "flowery". One might even characterize them as turgid (I do). When reading them I couldn’t help but think "Geez, this guy really likes the sound of his own voice."
Harry’s other writers also weren’t audio professionals, but rather dentists and lawyers with deep pockets. Just audiophiles, like you and I (except for their deeper pockets ;-). I don’t care if a review is "well written", I care about what it says, and who is saying it. Yes, I’m strongly opinionated. Is that a bad thing? ;-)
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Oh yeah Mike, your book is already in my Amazon cart. ;-)
Before I visited Walt’s Livermore shop, I went up to Berkeley to investigate a newly-opened storefront. I can’t remember what he called his place, but it was the 1-man operation of David Fletcher, later known for the Sumiko MDS-800 tonearm and SOTA turntable. The shop was a mess, like the desk of the mad genius he was!
I also visited Sound Systems In Palo Alto, where I heard the Infinity Servo-Statics. But the owner and his one employee were such a-holes I continued my search for a great high end dealer. I found him in Walter Davies, who was not only an experienced listener, but also a trained technician. A good thing, too, as when I turned on my brand new ARC SP-3 it made a loud "POP", and I smelled smoke. Yes, the pre-amp blew a resistor the first time electricity was applied to it. Welcome to ARC ;-) .
Roger Modjeski of Music Reference fixed a lot of broken ARC amps in his lifetime, so when building his amps used parts rated for ten times the voltage they would see in the circuits in which they were employed. Bill Johnson said he built his amps to last 20 years; Modjeski said 100 years. My Music Reference amps will outlive me. ;-) TAS reviewer Dick Osher thinks very highly of the MR RM-9 Mk.2, newly-returned-to-TAS writer Mike Fremer the same of the RM-200 Mk.2. If I'm not mistaken (@clio09, you there? ;-), Roger’s favorite of his amps was the RM-10.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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High End critique was started by J. Gordon Holt, not Harry Pearson. And it was in the early-60's, a full decade before Pearson imitated Holt.
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