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RE: Let's have our hearing tested and see who wins that one

Hi Sue,

Thanks for responding. I've no doubts whatsoever that your tested hearing acuity exceeds mine - probably by a long way.

> > That Ayre CD player I reviewed was a little rough around the edges, and that's being kind. Remember? I'm pretty sure you agreed with me. < <

Apologies, my memory is not so great these days. I do remember you reviewing the entry-level Ayre products while you were at TAS. I tried to look up the reviews online (the actual print collection is at the factory) and I have to say that Stereophile has a far superior online back-catalog than does TAS. I couldn't find anything older than 2008 and even that was disappointing. Take a look at this article:

www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/the-past-present-and-future-of-digital

I was completely confused as it had three different dates on it. The byline says "November 6, 2008", then the article begins with the date "May 31", and finally the text refers to the "September issue", which is typically published in late August. To make it even worse, it was pretty much of a teaser, with no links to the articles of interest RH mentioned. Clearly JA and (as he used to call him, his "web monkey") Jon Iverson, have been much more rigorous and methodical about publishing old content on the internet. Huge kudos to JA for ensuring the legacy of Stereophile!

In contrast, TAS seems intent on "disappearing" the past, with no mentiona whatsoever about the magazine under HP's guidance. Oh well, I've pretty much given up on TAS altogether. Just take a look at the reader comments at the bottom of last year's "2016 Buyer's Guide: DACs $1,000 - $5,000":

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2016-buyers-guide-dacs-1000-5000/

Pretty much tells the whole story there, including the clear shill at the end from "Lone Ranger".

I *was* able to find your follow-up review on the CX-7e, which was quite complimentary and I think accurate. I agree that the icons for the input selection buttons on the AX-7(e) was a mistake, and not one that we repeated. I don't recall the speakers or cables you used for your original review, but have a vague memory of Magnepans. The follow-up on the "e" version refersto B&W 800D's but not the cables. (Another place where Stereophile consistently bests TAS - listing the "Associated Equipment" used.) You compared the upgraded "e" version to both the over 4x expensive Meridian 808 as well as the 25% more expensive Meridian G-08. That generation of B&W used the "woven Kevlar impregnated with damping goo" diaphragm that had highly damped diaphragm resonances throughout the critical midrange - from about 800Hz all the way up to the crossover to the diamond tweeter - around 4kHz. Much of the musical detail in this critical midband is muffled and obscured by those damped resonances, making it much more difficult to hear the deleterious effects of the high-feedback IC op-amps used in both of the Meridian designs.

While your prior review of the then-flagship 808 was effusive in its praise, Harley clearly felt the need to add his "stamp of authority" to your well-written review - which in my opinion needed nothing of the sort:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/meridian-808-signature-reference-cd-player-1/

One can only speculate as to his motivation in adding his own commentary, but it was definitely out of the norm.

> > And the second review, when you sent your marketing guy to my house. He was nice and all, but hooked up my speakers out of phase, then raved about how good they sounded. < <

If you left TAS shortly after the follow-up review (as claimed by a poster in the TAS article "2016 Buyer's Guide: DACs $1,000 - $5,000"), the marketing guy would have been Steve Silberman, later of AudioQuest, and currently with Roon.

To be perfectly honest, I have never met any sales/marketing person with highly trained listening skills. My inference is that there is some sort of conflict between the personality types required for sales success and and critical listening. But I do have a funny out-of-phase story:

The very first tradeshow at which I exhibited as a manufacturer was with Avalon, and we were co-exhibiting with Rowland Research. You can imagine a young man, overly excited to be in "the big leagues" with the major players in the industry. We carefully set the system up with the Avalon Ascent speakers, the Rowland Model 5 power amplifier, and the Rowland Coherence preamp (with phono stage - digital was not yet socially acceptable). Jeff Rowland had been using MIT cables, as Transparent used to distribute both his amps and their cables. Everything was all set up and sounding great. Jeff had built a pink-noise generator to burn-in the system overnight before the show opened, and as I walked past the speakers to exit the room I went "Whoa! Something's wrong." It was mono pink noise, and as I passed the center spot, the sound went completely wacky.

We spent another hour double-checking everything. It turned out that the culprit was the speaker cables. We had connected them as marked, but one set had been manufactured incorrectly, with the conductors labeled oppositely at each end. He and I both laughed at how what was then likely the most expensive cables in the world (probably $2000/pr) could leave the factory without being properly tested.

As noted before, we are all imperfect humans, prone to error.

> > I think you really need to be a little nicer to John Atkinson. < <

Yes, you are 100% correct. He is is a treasure and a great man. He has set the standard for the industry, and it hurts to see him slip.

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