This has been a great post. I learned a lot from my fellow A-Gonners, and feel that everyone of you has hit the target in your own individual way. The problems that "3 Chi" has written about, however, are problems that exist in the magazine business, and will continue to escalate until a big wig with some juice finally goes through the same crap "3 Chi" has, and will do something about it. That aside, I'd like to put my two cents in about Stereophile.
I liked them for quite a while, and respected the way they handled themselves. Certainly, I didn't agree with everything they said, but I felt that they promoted this industry very well, and were good for its growth. Then I began to hear complaints about them only reviewing equipment from manufacturers who advertise with them. That's a hell of a big NO NO.(Remember Stereo Review?) I also really disliked the KR Enterprises Amp debacle, and felt that they never really recovered well from that. But the caper for me was the last show in New York. I attended the "Ask the Editor" meeting, and walked away with a very bad feeling. The subject matter eventually turned to "How do we bring new enthusiasts into our hobby"? and the "Format wars are driving away these possible fledglings" type of dialog when Sam Tellig wished a "Curse on both their houses" in response to the DVD Audio vs. SACD subject and also said in response to newbies that they should remain the "Great Unwashed", meaning....who needs them or wants them? They also made no bones about supporting SACD as opposed to DVD Audio, which at best is premature. Even at this point in the game, a vote of support for one over another is just wrong. How else do you explain the success of upsamplers? Anyway, when they began to pass the mic around, I asked about watermarking. That question was quickly dismissed with some BS that no one understood, and they went on to talk about the virtues of SACD.
Now, tell me these people don't have an agenda that benefits the manufacturers, and ask yourself if this cool.
