Here Comes The Audio Critic: A Statement of Our Point of View (Vol. 1, No. 1, Jan/Feb 1977)

Before you get involved in our equipment reviews or anything else in our first issue, read this introduction to our philosophy. And keep it in mind as the plot thickens in future issues.

 This publication intends to be a new voice and a new force in audio equipment reviewing.

That resolve is, of course, founded on a number of premises, promises, principles and policies, which should be set forth at the start. Here they are, not necessarily in the order of their importance.

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1. People who buy high-priced, "exotic" audio equipment are more than ever in need of advice and protection. The high-end market has be come a jungle, where rip-offs are possibly even more frequent than they used to be on the low end of the business years ago, in the primitive days of the hi-fi boom. Today, a $1500 power amplifier is more likely to be an overpriced piece of junk than a $300 receiver, which generally delivers decent value for the money. Price is no longer a meaningful indication of quality; it has become a marketing gimmick.

The best source of advice and protection is probably still one of the few knowledgeable and ethical dealers catering to a sophisticated audiophile trade. Unfortunately, in many parts of the country there isn't even one of these to be found. And when there is, you can't expect him to be unbiased about the brands he doesn't carry. Can you imagine even the saintliest of them saying, "Yes, the Mark Levinson JC-2 is better than any preamp I can sell you here, but dammit, they won't give me the franchise."

2. The commercial, mass-circulation hi-fi magazines are of very limited use to the audio purist. Reviews of high-end equipment are few and far between, and when there is one it's usually a worshipful verification of the manufacturer's specs and confirmation that "the XYZ-1000 is indeed, to all intents and purposes, a straight wire with gain." Then you turn to page 29 and there's the XYZ-1000 ad.

Only Audio is an occasional exception, and only in the case of two of its reviewers.

One is the utterly brilliant Richard C. Heyser, of whom we stand in awe and whose loud speaker test reports would cause mass suicide among manufacturers (not to mention ad cancellations) if he were allowed to spell out in plain language what those esoteric measurements really signify. We wouldn't cross swords with Dick Heyser any more than with Zorro.

The other reviewer is Bascom H. King, who occasionally gets away with hiding comparative evaluations between the lines of his extremely thorough and competent reviews of amplifiers and preamps.

3. The relatively most informative and honest critiques of high-end equipment are to be found in the new breed of underground audiophile reviews carrying no advertising by manufacturers. These have also turned out to be of limited use, however, for a number of reasons.

First of all, though they all started out with the intention of being periodicals, they ended up as yearbooks or, occasionally, semi annuals. Secondly, their expertise in subjective listening evaluations is rarely, if ever, backed up by even a fraction of the technical knowledge that a Dick Heyser or a Bascom King brings to an equipment report. (One of them, for ex ample, recently reported a peak at 16 kHz in a power amplifier. Not knowing the difference between frequency response and transient distortion can cause problems even in nontechnical reviewing.) Thirdly, by accepting advertising from retail stores, some of whom are very strongly identified with specific manufacturers, they raise the same issue of credibility as the commercial magazines, though of course to a lesser degree.

Nonetheless, the mere fact that some deeply involved and at least aurally experienced aficionados are reviewing high-end equipment at their leisure (and without the most brutal commercial pressures) has become a great plus on the audio scene.

4. In view of all the above, a totally non commercial publication or subscription service that reviews high-end audio equipment with both a "golden ear" and a modicum of technical sophistication, and does so with some frequency, is a clear and present need.

Enter The Audio Critic, published six times a year, available by subscription only, deriving all its income from subscriptions, carrying no advertising by anyone (except classified ads placed by its own subscribers), and devoted both to comparative auditioning in depth and to intensive laboratory testing.

5. Since the lack of an even vaguely predict able publishing schedule in the case of every single underground audiophile review has resulted in an exacerbated credibility problem on this subject, it must be spelled out what we mean by a six-times-a-year publishing schedule.

We mean that, by the end of 1977, when the champagne corks are popping and the sweet strains of Guy Lombardo playing "Auld Lang Syne" are heard on the Sequerra tuner, you will have received six issues. We don't mean that you can look in your mailbox on the same day of every second month and find The Audio Critic there. We aren't a slick magazine. (We aren't even a magazine.) There will be inevitable delays, and some flexibility will be required. But by hook or by crook, we'll publish six issues in 1977, at approximately two month intervals.

The availability of The Audio Critic by subscription only means exactly that. There will be no single copies on sale anywhere, nor will any be obtainable from us. Anyone who wishes to know what our findings and recommendations are, even in a single product category, will have to put up $28. (Or $33 if he lives overseas.) Those who are disappointed with their first issue may have the unused portion of their subscription refunded on request.

(No questions asked.) Back issues will be avail able to subscribers only.

6. Publishing a new issue every other month or so will enable us to treat our tests, conclusions and recommendations as work-in-progress. When we're reasonably certain of a particular evaluation, we won't have to hold it back for fear that it would become carved in marble for the coming six or nine months. We'll be able to offer it as the best available opinion as of press time, subject to unembarrassed re vision two months later. This way our subscribers will know what we know at all times and will be able to make use of that knowledge on a continuing basis. There are no eternal truths in equipment selection.

Our evaluations will always have two simultaneous thrusts. We will want to know what's the best, most accurate reproducer in a given component category regardless of price, size, convenience or any other consideration.

At the same time, we will want to find out, whenever our top choice is extremely expensive, whether something for considerably less money comes respectably close to it. From the audio purist's point of view, these are really the only two selections that matter. Once they are specified, all other components become rather uninteresting. Until something new comes along.

7. Our methodology will be at all times pragmatic. We're committed to no fixed dogma concerning either our manner of obtaining equipment for review or our methods of aural and electronic testing. We will let the circum stances dictate the method according to our best judgment.

For example, we may either buy the equipment to be tested in a store (a la Consumers Union) or borrow it from a friend or obtain it from a manufacturer on memo. In the latter case, we trust our ability to determine whether or not the equipment has been tweaked for performance above and beyond production samples. (In high-priced equipment, that's not as easy as is commonly supposed.) In general, we lean toward large-scale, comparative tests, since the availability of each different model at the same time, under the same roof, and in the same test setup unquestionably results in more precise evaluations than single-model testing against a reference standard. The latter, however, is sometimes the only feasible method.

Our rationale for the particular listening format used in a test will be given in the actual report on that test. Obviously, you can't audition headphones, for example, the way you do phono cartridges.

In our laboratory tests, we intend to eschew the repetition of work that has already been done by reliable practitioners. That includes the manufacturer. Thus, unless we have reason to doubt that an amplifier has a power output of 180 watts per channel, we won't measure it, except possibly as the incidental fallout of some other test. We'd rather measure it for TIM, for example, or other characteristics that may throw light on its listening quality. We consider the role of laboratory testing to be mainly investigation rather than verification.

8. Our laboratory is exceptionally well equipped for testing audio equipment, being far superior to many we have seen in the production facilities of high-end component manufacturers. We already have nine top-notch instruments by Hewlett-Packard, Bruel & Kjaer, General Radio and other leading makers, and we're adding others as we expand our test program.

We flatly refuse, however, to run look Ma-I’ve-got-a-spectrum-analyzer photographs of tone-control curves or similar Mickey Mouse stuff. That's for the hi-fi slicks. We don't intend to involve our subscribers in our laboratory hardware unless there's some meaningful bearing on the subject under discussion. You will see charts, graphs, oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer displays in The Audio Critic from time to time, but not for the purpose of cosmetically enhancing the "scientific" image of our pages.

9. Despite our technical leanings, we firmly believe that the ear takes precedence over the laboratory in the evaluation of audio equipment. But not every ear is qualified. Specifically, an intense interest in audio equipment is insufficient qualification.

We know a number of people who be came interested in transistors at the age of, say, ten but in music only at the age of twenty two. Their involvement with the sound of music stems from their involvement with audio electronics or electroacoustics. Such people are generally unreliable judges of the quality of sound reproduction.

The ability to evaluate the realism, the quality, the you-are-thereness of reproduced music is founded on early exposure to live performances at home and in the concert hall. If you've lived with the live sound of strings, woodwinds, brasses, the guitar, or the piano as a child and as an adolescent, their sound is permanently engraved in your gut. You know when they sound like that (or almost like that) on a stereo system. Records and amplified rock concerts can't provide the same kind of aural conditioning. Nor can a soldering iron.

The staff and consultants of The Audio Critic were music people long before they became audio people. We wouldn't dare to ask money for our opinions any other way.

10. Unlike other audio publications (and that includes the undergrounds), we believe that a maker of audio equipment isn't entitled to any more tender consideration by a critic than a maker of movies or a recording artist. Like a movie or a record, an amplifier or a speaker is an entertainment product, offered by its maker as a means to the ultimate end of aesthetic delight and/or emotional arousal. For that reason, we would no more submit an equipment review to a manufacturer in advance of publication that John Simon submitted his un favorable New York magazine review of Barry Lyndon to Warner Brothers and Stanley Kubrick. The fact that even the noncommercial audiophile publications feel obligated to do this shows just how inbred and conservative the whole audio business remains. As in George Orwell's 1984, even the Underground is an extension of the Party.

Nor do we believe in letting manufacturers have the run of our pages to say anything they wish in print. We'll let them do that at their own expense in their advertising and their product literature. If a manufacturer has any factual information, however tenuous, to add to our reviews, we'll print his letter at the earliest possible opportunity. If we make a factual error in a review, or commit any objectively verifiable indiscretion of judgment, we'll print the letter (or the part of the letter) that points it out, along with a retraction and an apology to the manufacturer. Under no circumstances, however, will we print a vituperative letter whose sole purpose is to denounce our staff or impugn our integrity or assail our competence. Nor a letter whose sole purpose is to get extra mileage out of a favorable review by touting a few overlooked features.

In other words-and in conclusion-our pages belong to our subscribers. Not to the industry. The only boss we have, the only authority figure, is you.

By Peter Aczel, Editor and Publisher

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[adapted from TAC, Vol.1, No.1 ]

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Also see:

Records and Recording: Why Does It Sound Like That? By Max Wilcox

Various audio and high-fidelity magazines