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Stereophile - 50 Golden Years

P

Pandovski

Super Member
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In couple of weeks as November begins one of the most loved and read magazines in the audio world will celebrate its 50th birthday.
Yes Stereophile magazine, which was founded in 1962 by J. Gordon Holt, is alive and kicking
after 5 decades through the best and worst of the history of High Fidelity audio.

In November 2002 Stereophile celebrated its 40th anniversary and published the article 40 years of Stereophile: The Hot 100 Products.
We expect a similar article from the experienced Stereophile's editorial team with John Atkinson at the wheel.

I know AKers are avid Stereophile readers and eager to see how this great 50 golden years anniversary will be celebrated.
Feel free to write about your personal experience with Stereophile magazine, your favorite issue, article, opinion about its staff
and don't forget to share if you find more info about the anniversary.

Happy Golden Anniversary Stereophile!!! :thmbsp:



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Despite the many criticisms often hurled at it, I happen to feel Stereophile is an excellent magazine and still well worth the subscription price I pay. I wish them another 50 years.
 
Agreed. I don't always agree with them but not an issue goes by that doesn't offer up something worth much more than the modest subscription price. Happy Anniversary!
 
Mr. Lin said:
Despite the many criticisms often hurled at it, I happen to feel Stereophile is an excellent magazine and still well worth the subscription price I pay. I wish them another 50 years.
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I dropped Stereophile several years ago because I no longer felt it was worth a buck an issue. The issues I recently borrowed from an audiophile friend have given me no reason to revise this opinion.

That said, I may just buy this issue at the bookstore if it provides a good retrospective of the magazine's early days.
 
My wife works in an industry with technology and trend reporting and providing information on products the way these magazines do in a cost conscious environment is a difficult task to do at all, never mind to do well.

More power to 'em. I subscribe just to help them keep going.

You don't think you need them until you do, and then you're glad they're there, even if it's to see a review of a piece that's now 10-15 years old.
 
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Stereophile is a pillar and a touchstone of our audio community. At a buck a month, I find it a true bargain. It is one of just a few journals of what and how and where we do what it is that we do. Not everyone in a family always delights and always supports, and is always helpful and entertaining, and rarely do we always agree, yet we are family and I offer them a little grace. Cheers to Stereophile and I wish them well for years to come!

I have extended my subscription for years.

Happy Listener!:beatnik:
 
audiodon said:
More power to 'em. I subscribe just to help them keep going.

You don't think you need them until you do, and then you're glad they're there, even if it's to see a review of a piece that's now 10-15 years old.
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:thmbsp:

It'd be boring if I agreed with everything they say. Might as well just have them publish my own opinions.
 
Being called out on the Steve Hoffman Forum by the Editor of Tone Audio - Jeff Dorgay, John Atkinson commented back with this data about the current readership stats of Stereophile magazine.

The most recent ABC report, for the final 6 months of 2011, listed Stereophile's circulation as 71,695. This figure is relatively stable, but what is more interesting about this figure is that around 9% is now our Zinio and Apple Newsstand editions, which are growing rapidly.

Stereophile also has a Web presence and Google Analytics currently counts Stereophile around 500,000 unique visitors per month with 3 million total page views. (Note that this doesn't include our new Web ventures, AudioStream.com and InnerFidelity.com, which are tallied separately.)

Alexa ranks Stereophile.com 16,000th, which may not sound like a high ranking. However, I believe it is the highest-ranked pure audio publication, Web or print, in the Alexa database.

Now that I have offered our metrics, I hope that other publishers/editors do likewise.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
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BTW current Alexa stats for www.stereophile.com are:
Global Rank - 30,487
Rank in US - 17,356
Alexa Traffic Rank Reputation - 3,274 sites linking in
 
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http://www.stereophile.com/content/2012-recommended-components

Individual reviewers mentioned by their initials are: John Atkinson, Jim Austin, Paul Bolin, Lonnie Brownell, Martin Colloms, Brian Damkroger, Robert Deutsch, Art Dudley, Michael Fremer, Larry Greenhill, Jon Iverson, Fred Kaplan, Erick Lichte, John Marks, Stephen Mejias, Paul Messenger, Thomas J. Norton, Wes Phillips, Bob J. Reina, Kalman Rubinson, Markus Sauer, Jonathan Scull (J-10), Chip Stern, and Sam Tellig.
 
One of my favorite article and debate on Stereophile is WHO STOLE THE BASS from 1987.

http://www.stereophile.com/features/44/index.html


Preview
Who Stole The Bass? / No One Stole The Bass
By Martin Colloms • Posted: Apr 29, 1987
Editor's Introduction: Stereophile's "Recommended Components" feature is, as I am sure you will have guessed, produced by a committee. The reviews are studied, the reviewers polled to verify the continued validity, the merits and demerits of specific pieces of equipment are discussed or, rather, argued over at length by JGH, JA, and LA, and out of the whole business emerges the "truth." But, as with the findings of any committee, what is presented as a consensus will have significant undertows and countercurrents of opinion; if these are very strong, a "Minority Report" is often also produced. Such has been the case this time, concerning loudspeakers.
When compiling the recommended listing, performance parameters are weighted equally: midrange verisimilitude has to be counted as equally important as the ability to produce well-focused stereo imaging; a clean, uncolored high end is no more or no less important than the ability to provide thunderous levels of low bass. If all loudspeaker designers aim at providing a complete performance package, then there should be very little disagreement about what models to recommend. But when a designer has chosen, instead, to sacrifice one area of performance in order either to push the others as far as possible with the technology at hand, or, with a low-priced model, to allow more of the limited resources to be concentrated where he thinks appropriate, this brings taste into the equation. To some listeners, on some kinds of music, the deficiency will be unimportant; others will argue that such a sacrifice denies the loudspeaker any chance of producing a high-end sound, no matter how good it is in other areas.

We present, therefore, a Minority Report on loudspeakers from AHC to accompany this issue's "Recommended Components."---JA
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Who would have thought,

"if nobody else will report what an audio component sounds like, I'll do it myself!" -J. Gordon Holt

What a concept.

Happy Listening!:beatnik:
 
Pandovski said:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/2012-recommended-components

Individual reviewers mentioned by their initials are: John Atkinson, Jim Austin, Paul Bolin, Lonnie Brownell, Martin Colloms, Brian Damkroger, Robert Deutsch, Art Dudley, Michael Fremer, Larry Greenhill, Jon Iverson, Fred Kaplan, Erick Lichte, John Marks, Stephen Mejias, Paul Messenger, Thomas J. Norton, Wes Phillips, Bob J. Reina, Kalman Rubinson, Markus Sauer, Jonathan Scull (J-10), Chip Stern, and Sam Tellig.
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I enjoy reading the speaker reviews, but their headphone/headphone amp recommendations are seriously dated. I'm not suggesting that newer is automatically 'better', but its pretty clear that Stereophile hasnt reviewed the latest orthos (or flagship dynamics from companies like Beyer). The thrash in the IEM market is so ferocious that I understand why they dont try to keep on top of that curve, but it might be time Wes Phillips strapped on some new headphones and typed a few words.
 
So cheap I might as well get a subscription.

Its been a while since I've had something to read every month! :D
 
Pandovski said:
General critique of which I too agree is that Stereophile should review more headphones and headphones amps.
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Wes Phillips did what he could, but I get the distinct impression that most of the other reviewers dont have much time for the headphone when they have so many speakers on their doorsteps each month. They reviewed a couple of Ray Samuels amps, but that petered out and now its just the odd press release for gear from CEntrance, Peachtree and others. What irritates me is when a 4-page review of a speaker amp or CDP carries zero mention of the quality of output from the headphone socket prominently featured in the specs. They'll tell you about the phono stage - of course - and any tone/balance controls, but would it kill them to plug a pair of HD600s into the bloody socket and listen to a tune ? I dont expect most integrated to drive the HiFiMan orthos from the headphone out, but a sentence or two re the listening experience wouldnt kill these guys.
 
estreeter said:
Wes Phillips did what he could, but I get the distinct impression that most of the other reviewers dont have much time for the headphone when they have so many speakers on their doorsteps each month.
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This is a good point. TAS has reviewed some of the fancier in-ear "headphones" in recent years, and I can't recall if Stereophile has really touched that area. Headphone amps, much less common.
 
I used to read it in the early years and subscribed for several years. I dropped it after I could no longer afford, nor had access to, many of the products they reviewed after JGH sold it. It was very interesting while my reading it lasted, and I learned plenty.
 
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