Stereophile's Standards and Principles

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Stereophile's Standards and Principles | Stereophile.com

Jim Austin (left) succeeded John Atkinson (right) as Stereophile's editor in April 2019 and has preserved the magazine's Great Wall between editorial and advertising. In an information vacuum, people tend to make stuff up, especially on the internet. We try to remain above the fray, but...
www.stereophile.com www.stereophile.com

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I love the part of "We try to remain above the Fray..."

Literally no one believes them except themselves.

And to be fair they give a bad name to the few in their industry who do things the right way (MEP for instance with how he handles reviews).

EDITED: guys - this was a genuine compliment to MEP - not meant to be sarcastic.
 
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Guys- I edited my response to be clear this was a genuine compliment to MEP - it was not meant to be sarcastic.
 
I can vouch that Mark indeed buys his own gear…even gear he’s reviewed and wants to buy. And his speakers are so old, he would have had to get them on loan from Gordon Holt or maybe even George Washington.
 
Mike said:
I can vouch that Mark indeed buys his own gear…even gear he’s reviewed and wants to buy. And his speakers are so old, he would have had to get them on loan from Gordon Holt or maybe even George Washington.
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Thanks Mike. I love my JBL 4345s. They are very hard to come by. Kenrick in Japan ran out of them years ago and could no longer buy them, refurbish them, and offer them for sale. As a result, Kenrick started making 4345 clones to sell.

The 4345s are the best speakers I have ever owned and a reason why I'm not motivated to review speakers. The dynamics are thrilling and startling. I've never heard the sound of drums and piano sound so incredibly real and that's just the beginning of their capabilities.

I was approached by a speaker manufacturer who shall remain anonymous unless he wants to join this thread. He asked me if I would review a pair of his speakers and I politely declined his offer. And it wasn't because I didn't find his speaker designs interesting.

The ideal situation when you review speakers is that you don't have another pair of speakers in your room during the review so they "sing" along with the review speakers. I explained to the speaker manufacturer that it took me and two of my neighbors to carry the 4345s up the stairs and into my dedicated stereo room and they won't be leaving my room.
 
mep said:
Thanks Mike. I love my JBL 4345s. They are very hard to come by. Kenrick in Japan ran out of them years ago and could no longer buy them, refurbish them, and offer them for sale. As a result, Kenrick started making 4345 clones to sell.

The 4345s are the best speakers I have ever owned and a reason why I'm not motivated to review speakers. The dynamics are thrilling and startling. I've never heard the sound of drums and piano sound so incredibly real and that's just the beginning of their capabilities.

I was approached by a speaker manufacturer who shall remain anonymous unless he wants to join this thread. He asked me if I would review a pair of his speakers and I politely declined his offer. And it wasn't because I didn't find his speaker designs interesting.

The ideal situation when you review speakers is that you don't have another pair of speakers in your room during the review so they "sing" along with the review speakers. I explained to the speaker manufacturer that it took me and two of my neighbors to carry the 4345s up the stairs and into my dedicated stereo room and they won't be leaving my room.
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They are beautiful and you have such a nice room for them too.
 
The Absolute Sound also had a very similar article, accept theirs was on the front page not the back. This begs me to ask, why are both of these mags publishing an article almost verbatim on the same subject, during the same month. I didn't think this was an issue, until I read both articles :).
 
Randy Myers said:
The Absolute Sound also had a very similar article, accept theirs was on the front page not the back. This begs me to ask, why are both of these mags publishing an article almost verbatim on the same subject, during the same month. I didn't think this was an issue, until I read both articles :).
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Because they are responding to the videos and public discussion about everyone knowing how dishonestly they operate.

Here's the funny thing: if they were just honest and said "yes we get free and discounted stuff. Like everything else we share our simple opinion and we don't think we should work for free" I bet virtually no one would have a problem with that. Same with YouTubers. Just be honest.

Does anyone really believe Steve Huff every month when he says "thesis my new reference the best I've ever heard" and then the next month it's all over again with something new? He's doing it for the gear.

They just need to be honest and stop pretending what we all know to be factual they claim isn't. Just talk to the companies and distributors - they have detailed story and literally the receipts of what they buy reviewers to get the awards.

Again - it unfortunately is so pervasive it casts a net over even the good legacy reviewers.
 
Honestly, that is pretty much what both articles stated. The only other point they were making is that reviews are not bought and paid for, but yes, their reviewers most of the time have long term loaned gear.
 
Randy Myers said:
Honestly, that is pretty much what both articles stated. The only other point they were making is that reviews are not bought and paid for, but yes, their reviewers most of the time have long term loaned gear.
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Huh. So RH didn't call this all fake news and created by people jealous of him as a response to Jay and Elliots video? I seem to remember watching videos where they went over his farcical chest-beating diatribe line by line. Maybe I dreamt it.
 
Some of our friends here deserve credit for putting a little daylight on this issue. I'd never thought about it deeply, but when you analyze the circumstances, it seems that the big publications operate with a very odd economic model. The defenders point out that reviewers often get paid nearly nothing by the publications. But people don't usually work for nothing. So, they are compensated by manufacturers through what are essentially gifts of equipment, mischaracterized as long-term loans, or the ability to buy at deeply discounted prices not available to plebeian consumers. The rub is that they are compensated by manufacturers to write purportedly objective "reviews" of the products of those very manufacturers or their competitors, an obvious conflict of interest.

Short of changing these practices, the next best solution, as Michael suggests, would be full disclosure. The publications could diffuse the issue by simply putting a quarter page disclosure on the last page of each edition that says these reviewers received accommodations from these vendors. Subscribers could then decide for themselves whether that impacts the credibility of a review armed with all the relevant information. What's wrong with that? This would cost nothing, enhance their credibility and put to rest an issue they know is a problem. Maybe their defenders can tell us why they don't adopt the transparent approach-doesn't make sense to me.
 
Michaels HiFi said:
Huh. So RH didn't call this all fake news and created by people jealous of him as a response to Jay and Elliots video? I seem to remember watching videos where they went over his farcical chest-beating diatribe line by line. Maybe I dreamt it.
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Maybe I miss read the article. It was the first page on the new Absolute Sound. Two pages long actually. There was a similar article on the last page of the latest Stereophile (by their editor as well). He made it very clear that ads and reviews have no connection, zero, but that many times a manufacture will take out an ad in an issue they know has one of their items being reviewed, for obvious reasons. Also, manufactures, at times try to dissuade reviewers from returning items because they feel the mention in associated gear in future reviews does indeed bode well for them. I read no chest-beating or calling videos by others as farcical, only explaining why most reviewers have and do continue to have certain items on long term loans, and making a good solid reasoning for such.
 
Randy Myers said:
Maybe I miss read the article. It was the first page on the new Absolute Sound. Two pages long actually. He made it very clear that ads and reviews have no connection, zero, but that many times a manufacture will take out an ad in an issue they know has one of their items being reviewed, for obvious reasons. Also, manufactures, at times try to dissuade reviewers from returning items because they feel the mention in associated gear in future reviews does indeed bode well for them. I read no chest-beating or calling videos by others as farcical, only explaining why most reviewers have and do continue to have certain items on long term loans, and making a good solid reasoning for such.
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Hi Randy - he came out with another one that was all chest-thumping and calling out people like Jay and Elliot for daring to speak the truth.

If they were really admitting to the truth, why all the anger and retaliation from them for the recent videos? It's all been extensively covered and documented.
 
Michaels HiFi said:
Hi Randy - he came out with another one that was all chest-thumping and calling out people like Jay and Elliot for daring to speak the truth.

If they were really admitting to the truth, why all the anger and retaliation from them for the recent videos? It's all been extensively covered and documented.
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Maybe. I was only referring to the one published in the latest issue of the mag.
 
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