I Guess I Missed It

Looking as silly as ever, our high end audio’s leading publication rags are rushing to review the exact same products like Time Magazine and Newsweek rushed to get Bruce Springsteen on the cover.

I just cannot figure out why they tip their hand so readily? It has become increasingly obvious that if you advertise and spend the cash, you can get Washington style lobbying sweets such as your product on the cover, favorable reviews, and kudos from multiple reviewers. Since I still manage to remain a capitalist in this Jimmy Carter redo era, I am all for these publications making money. But they have to know, as we know, that sooner or later, placing your ethics in jeopardy, places your business in jeopardy.

High end audio magazines, since I know you read this, I am here to help. All you have to do is listening. Well, not to me, to this thing called the internet. Outside of your realm of in-the-pocket distributors, high end rip offs and product companies that you have been supporting and eating candy with since the ‘70s , lies a cadre of great audio products just waiting for a great reviewer to discover them. You see guys, this is where the rest of us are hanging out and this is what we read. As you become increasingly irrelevant, I suggest that you could circumvent your certain fate by opening up your web browser.

The Internet board, Audio Asylum maybe a good place to start. They have product names that you are familiar with so you won’t get too alienated. Walk over to the ‘Tubes Asylum’ and check out what they are saying about the latest Shuguang tubes. While they will probably never advertise in your magazine, you may at least want to mention them while you are listening to your new tube amp that you are about to write favorable review for.

After Audio Asylum, venture a little deeper to Audio Circle where you may find equipment that you never ever heard of, but dollar for dollar are probably the best values in audio. There is even a section for manufacturers where you may want to give them a mention or two. Now I know you don’t want to hurt your advertising dollars, so be sure not to mention how good they really are, as you will certainly scare your high mark up constituents.

If you are feeling really daring, go over to head fi, where I prefer to hang out. Head fi is so much more than headphone listening and has really grown. There are people there that are truly brilliant audiophiles that I can’t even hold an EL84 candle to. Hey, they even sometimes don’t agree with the products we carry or our viewpoints, but heck, they are as honest as tubes are hot. At head fi you will take a dare as they sometimes don’t even care how the product looks, and are truly helping to grow some great audio companies. Take a look at some of the great stuff that Audio gd is doing, audition the Beresford DAC, find out why they like NOS DACs so much, watch them get carried away on a product and take it to the Nth degree of audio nirvana. Come back a few days later and witness their O’Hare like flights as they just took off on another product where the board looks completely different that it did a few days ago.

You see, Mr. Audio Reviewer, this is where audio is really taking place, and you need to get a hold of this really quickly lest you become the Boston Globe of paper once been. So please, let me vent:

You never mention the joys of ripping a CD using EAC and playing it back using Media Monkey. You give no ink time to discussing over sampling, non-oversampling or upsampling. You never bat an eyebrow at the difference between a 2A3, 300B or 845 - these are not Pontiacs Mr. Audio Reviewer, they are tubes, FYI. You never toast the fading of SACD, and the birth of high rez formats like 96K or 192, or for that matter, how they will really catch on to replace SACD because we already have DACs that have this capability. Heck, you never tell anybody what these sampling rates really do.

Our audio rags claim they are advancing the hobby and helping to support the audio business in general. They claim that they have products that sound the best. I guessed I missed it.

Time Magazines "Man of the Year"


Become increasing irrelevant with accelerated colossal arrogance, Time magazine launched Ben Bernake as the “Man of the Year”. While nobody really cares, expect for their few readers, I think that they really missed the boat on this one. The one that I would like to see win did not even make their “short list”. My nominee will not rub shoulders with likes of Nancy Pelosi, the Chinese Worker or the mesianic Obama. But, my nominee is just as bold, brash and tenacious as the prices he has on deck. My nominee, just like Time, has colossal arrogance out the wa-zoo-bee. Akin to only a carnie swindler, my nominee convinces suckers in a down economy to plunk down their hard earned cash for items that cost 10 times of what they should. My nominee has also shown tremendous resilience to change as he is aided and abetted by an industry that is slowly eroding beneath him. My nominee has single handedly disinfranchised an entire generation of music lovers who, thanks to my nominee, think that IPOD is high end.

Congratulations high end audio salon owner, I nominate you for Time Magazines “Man of the Year”.

You deserve the nomination because you actually still believe that this distribution model is still “happening” and you deny the fact that most of high end audio commerce is being done over the net. Your manufacturers and their crony publications still believe in this high cost , low volume distribution model. Yet you hang on, albeit with your finger nails into the wall, but you still hang on.

Kudos to you, you “Man of the Year”, and hang in there, as long as you can.