My dad had a subscription back when it was HiFi Stereo Review. If he had a subscription to a prehistoric "HiFi Review," I don't remember seeing one. By the time I was about 11, I was reading them voraciously. Rex Reed wrote for the rag and his record reviews were incisive, clever and just wonderful. Julian Hirsch, on the other hand, was just too measurement oriented. He wasn't bold enough to actually offer subjective opinions. I think it was Harry Pearson who once lampooned a Hirsch-Houck review with the line, "Of all the components I've reviewed, this has definitely been one of them." In any event, my first encounter with an Absolute Sound was a revelation. In short order I was haunting every news stand within 20 miles to find them.
