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Stereo Review ....... I miss you

I also was a subscriber to Stereo Review, Audio & High Fidelity. Got hooked in the very early seventies, while a student at Penn State. Before I subscribed, I read the copies at the university library. The complete series of publications of each was located in the "stacks" at Pattee.

Don't know what happened to my mags--probably tossed by my parents at the same time they eradicated my Playboy and Penthouse mags!
 
All those components I used to read about in Stereo Review, and couldn't afford.... now, if I'm lucky, I buy them for a song at local thrifts...go figure....
 
Remember the ruckus caused by the double blind amp. tests?

There were, among many others, a cheap Pioneer amp and a Julius Futterman tube amp that cost several thousand dollars.

Statistically, nobody could hear the difference between the two.

This single article is what set the whole audiophile world in a tizzy and caused the "experts" to denounce double blind testing.

The thing is, almost everybody has misunderstood what Julius Hirsch was trying to say. He didn't declare that all amps sound the same no matter what. He stated that all amps will sound the same if they have similar specs. AND are operating within their linear mode AND are set to exactly the same level. This, of course, is true.

I subscribed to all three of those magazines too. I got SR from the late sixties until it changed to S&V. Almost thirty years for SR and I didn't even renew S&V after the subscription fullfilment issues. Sad.

Doug
 
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carbonman said:
Stereo Review was interesting and had some really great articles. I saved one called "The Romance of the Record" that ventured to posit some reasons (along with some tests the author had done) that Vinyl sounded different than CD or tape.
Audio was my favorite, especially in the last decade of its publication. I still have the last issue in my collection of audio writing. FWIW, I have the last issue of Listener too. Makes me feel like an old fart.
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This is going to make you think:

Do you remember a Canadian audio mag called Sound and Vision, which most of the Canadian members of SR wrote for? I had the mags, then they quietly ceased publication, and I cannot find them anywhere. Obviously they were pro Canadian gear....
 
blackfly - Last issue of Sound&Vision (Canada) was February 1997. Ian Masters was the Editor, after Alan Lofft left in May 1996 to join Audio magazine in New York. Story I remember hearing was that the owner was retiring and just closed shop. Alan Lofft is with Axiom Audio - you can read his newsletters, etc at the Axiom website...
 
I seem to recall an Ian Masters magazine called Audio Canada or similar, back in the late 60's/early 70's. Things were very different then.
 
"AudioScene Canada". You're right, things were very different then.

We should start a separate thread on Canadian mags of the era...

Barry
 
Sorry but this is not it.

It was Called Sound and Vision, my memory is pretty good. But I cannot find anything on it. It was short lived but had Ian G. Masters, Daniel Kumin, Floyd Toole, and anyone else on the Stereo Review staff whom were Canadian. The magazine was light and glossy, and to my stupidity I listened to my wife and chucked all of it (along with all my SR which I am now collecting) in a move.
 
Haileyburian said:
blackfly - Last issue of Sound&Vision (Canada) was February 1997. Ian Masters was the Editor, after Alan Lofft left in May 1996 to join Audio magazine in New York. Story I remember hearing was that the owner was retiring and just closed shop. Alan Lofft is with Axiom Audio - you can read his newsletters, etc at the Axiom website...
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Thank you. I am not crazy after all.

The mag was terrific, far better than SR of the similar period (even if it was somewhat Canadiocentric). But it is sad a small publication can have such a big impact. Bryston, Classe never had it so good (until Classe became part of the B+W empire).
 
I just reread the Oct 83 issue and evidently the issue before had featured an AB comparison between Monster cable and 16 guage zip cord. Wow !! The letters to the editor were all fired up when SR had found no difference in sound between the two. Even Monster cable weighed in with their " unbiased opinion " .
 
Celt said:
There are few magazines I've kept after reading, but of the few I did, SR was one.
I've long since cleaned the house of all those back issues, gave a complete set of Sound Practices to a friend and kept my near-complete set of Listener's. I wouldn't mind going down memory lane with Stereo Review and Rolling Stone once more.
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I recently found a DVD-ROM with every issue of Rolling Stone from issue 1 in 1967 through May 2007 on the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble. The DVDs have every page, including all the ads. The package also included a paperback book and a coupon for a year's subscription to RS. The whole thing set me back something like $25 - heck, all the 1970s audio ads alone were worth that to me!
 
i was a stereo review and a car audio subscriber for years. i dropped stereo review when they went home theater. i can give a flying flip about hometheater.

i dropped car audio when it turned into nothing but mega thousand dollar systems that 99% of the readers cant afford.

thank god for audio karma! i love this place!
 
I got bit by the audio bug when I was 17 or so (1988), and I used to make a trip every week to the local public library to read Stereo Review. Ahh....memories.:tears:
 
zebra03 said:
I just reread the Oct 83 issue and evidently the issue before had featured an AB comparison between Monster cable and 16 guage zip cord. Wow !! The letters to the editor were all fired up when SR had found no difference in sound between the two. Even Monster cable weighed in with their " unbiased opinion " .
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That is what I miss about Stereo Review.
 
blackfly said:
Sorry but this is not it.

It was Called Sound and Vision, my memory is pretty good. But I cannot find anything on it. It was short lived but had Ian G. Masters, Daniel Kumin, Floyd Toole, and anyone else on the Stereo Review staff whom were Canadian. The magazine was light and glossy, and to my stupidity I listened to my wife and chucked all of it (along with all my SR which I am now collecting) in a move.
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www.soundandvisionmag.com:D
 
I have found The Audio Critic to be pretty close to the old Stereo Review.It has a more interesting letters section IMO. Peter Aczel is more from the Julian Hirsch mode, as far as the sound of electronics, which may challenge some peoples deeply held opinions, but there is a lot of good stuff in there.
 
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