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RE: Reviewing the Reviews...

At the end of the day, reviews should provide *guidance* for potential purchase consideration, not be treated as a directive to impulse buy the hottest new audio piece.

That's always been the case with reviewers I've known. Coincidentally, this spring will be the fiftieth anniversary of the first issue of The Absolute Sound. I decided to pick up Vol 1 Number 1 and review the guidelines initially set in 1973. And the role of The Reference System. Here are some excerpts:

"The Reference System is, consequently, our way of telling you what our sonic preferences are so that you may judge accordingly..."



"We are not concerned with the cost of components. We are concerned with its inherent musicality. Cost is sometimes a reliable measure of of how good something is going to sound - just as often, it is not. We can immediately think of several very large, very expensive systems that just aren't worth a damn. We know a few that are..."

"The absence of a particular component from this listing and future ones, is not necessarily significant. The presence of equipment on this listing is, however, significant. It means that our people recommend it to you without undue qualifications, that the component listed is an excellent piece of equipment, although you will have to use your own judgement in determining whether or not it fits your pocketbook, the rest of your system and most important, your sonic requirements in the reproduction of music. The last point is worth stressing one more time: We assume that a perfect music system (given reasonable and honest recordings of the real thing) would be overwhelmingly recognizable as such. We are nowhere near that goal - and perhaps will never be. And so we, as music lovers, have a choice only among imperfect ways of reproducing the sound of music. It really depends upon which imperfections the individual listener can bear."


The question of measurements was also broached:

"We have no brief against measurements and numbers. They are sometimes revealing, but just as often, they are confusing. The ear is an infinitely more subtle and sophisticated measuring device than the entire battery of modern test equipment. Sometimes even the best of the laboratory people aren't certain of how to correlate what they measure with what they hear. All of this is to say that audio measurements are , at this point, rather like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test, which may give you interesting insights into a person (in the same sense that astrology does) but don't come close to giving you the sense of what a person is like."

Both JWC and HP were phenomenally influential to me beginning as a teen in my early years of developing a passion for music reproduction. Did I ever buy something just because of a positive review? No. Did I ever buy something following hearing it (them) at length in one of their systems? Most certainly, yes. My moniker was fashioned after long term listening to Dayton-Wrights in the good doctor's system circa '76. They conveyed a sense of realism to me that even to this day I don't fully find elsewhere than from a full range electrostatic speaker.


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  • RE: Reviewing the Reviews... - E-Stat 12/21/2206:46:33 12/21/22 (0)

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