Dear Paul,
Sorry for the late reply but I had to think about this one for a while.
High end audio has turned into a fiasco in the sense of "what have you
done for me lately" and the answer is: absolutely nothing. There is much
truth to what you said. There is a lot of idiotic nonsense propagated by
dilettantes such as "the brick". Remember that one? I threw up my hands
a long time ago. You can talk 'til you're blue in the face, but the wall
is still there. One of the biggest problems in our industry is "ego". No
one wants to admit that they don't know. This is akin to what
psychologists call "protection on one's belief system". Well, you can
believe all you want but it doesn't make it right.
The truth is, Audio is a big paradox. It's a phony. Stereo itself is an
awful format to begin with. You MUST know that all sounds in nature are
created in MONO, not stereo. Therefore, stereo is an ILLUSION, and a
fairly poor one at that. Until this industry gets its collective act
together and realizes that this format has nowhere to go but sideways,
there will be NO improvements. Period.
You suggest that Stereophile should get ahold of a Thaedra for
comparison. What a fiasco that would be. You can't possibly believe that
they would ever conceive of doing something like this let alone be
scientifically fair and correct as to the evalutation. Talk about the
"halo" effect--Big time. Could you imagine that aboslute slap in the
face that would be created if by some chance that my preamp would outdo
those megabuck insanities that are produced today. What an uproar in the
marketplace. The magazine would never go along with this and even on the
mere remote possibility that they would, do you honestly think that they
would do it right.
Since they are absolutely against any form of A-B testing, there would
be no way to eliminate the "haloes". Not possible. Another term for this
is right-brain, left-brain syndrome. Of course, Stereophile should not
be singled out as I'm positive that every other magazine would have the
same identical responses. This is a battle that cannot be won. Out with
the old, and in with the new.
The biggest problem of all however, is trying to teach people "HOW TO
LISTEN" properly. Since we are dealing with a phony illusion to start
with, our ear-brain link instantly compares everything with real world
situations. Not only do we need to listen correctly, but people need to
learn how to set up loudspeakers correctly. This is another disaster
area. I don't think that one person in fifty truly knows the proper way
to set up speakers. It ain't easy. I would refer interested parties to
an older issue of the Audio Critic for a list of the evils of audio.
Peter Azcel may be a bit sarcastic and cantankerous but he knows what
he's talking about in this particular instance.
I could write a novel about this whole situation however, I've got to
get back to work so that's all for now.
James Bongiorno
