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Topic: The Audio Critic Has Retired (Read 6186 times) previous topic - next topic
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The Audio Critic Has Retired


    THIS IS GOODBYE!

    Having reached the 90th year of my life, after several years of very little productivity, I have decided to stop altogether. My website has been discontinued; there will be no more content added to it. That does not mean that what has been published and available up to now will be lost. Everything on the website has been transferred to Welcome to biline.ca News and Updates!, the technology site of Jeff Mathurin. Nothing is missing, thanks to the supportive efforts of Jeff. You can still go to every former section of The Audio Critic by using the menu on the left. It is not without considerable regret that I am making this move, but the time inevitably comes when you have to call it quits. Goodbye, friends and antagonists; it has been a great 38 years!

    —Peter Aczel
    Editor & Publisher
    Midsummer, 2015

    Link to archive:
http://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/audio_critic.htm
Kevin Graf :: aka Speedskater

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #1 –
 

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #2 –
Quote
Ultrahigh-priced cables are the biggest scam in consumer electronics, and the cowardly surrender of nearly all audio publications to the pressures of the cable marketers is truly depressing to behold.*

Courageous, bold statements like this one - in an industry which is more than ever, in dire need of the truth - show us how massive a gap he'll be leaving behind.

May he enjoy whatever retirement he may have ahead of his quite advanced age, in the fullest!


*Issue 26, Fall of 2000, pg
• Listen to the music, not the media it's on
• The older, the 'lossier'

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #3 –
Thank you, Peter Aczel, for all your years of fighting the black hats, as you call them. I salute you! Your impact on audio was profound despite their ever growing ranks. Unfortunately as the white hats dwindle the black hats grow. With the recent passing of Tom Nousaine and now your retirement we have received some especially big blows over this last year in fighting for the truth.

It was always a breath of fresh air to read The Audio Critic instead of the deceitful, profit driven rags which perpetually pandered to the morally bankrupt high end audio industry, which was is kept them alive via these con artists' ad dollars and MONSTEREOUS (pun intended) profits.

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #4 –
Because it happened in the pre-internet (for me at least) days, what was the whole furore about him and Fourier loudspeakers?

Googling seems to bring up contradictory opinions and plentyof WEB-SHOUTING from both sides.

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #6 –
""In view of our role as godfather to the [Fourier loudspeaker]...we've decided not to review it here in the subjective sense.  The objectively verifiable design data presented should be sufficient."

This to me says they were upfront that the magazine had a connection to this speaker company and I don't see any reason why they should not discuss the speaker's technical merits in at least a profile.

source of quote: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/5094.html

Millions of people who support the high end industry have an axe to grind with Mr. Aczel, especially those connected to Stereophile.

Also from another source:

"With respect to Mr. Zipser's  incredible statement that:

>Aczel reviewed Ohm F's, and he not only WROTE the advertising for Ohm, he
>was the principle owner.  That was not divulged during the review.

Here is the actual text as published (in boldface) in The Audio Critic, Volume
1, Number 4, July/August/September 1977 in a disclosure paragraph preceeding
the review of the Ohm F:

"To prevent rumors, anonymous letters, crank calls, slanderous know-it-all
comments, and other manifestations of ugliness and paranoia endemic to the
high-end audio scene, the following disclosure must be made. The
Editor/Publisher was one of the original founders of Ohm Acoustics in January
1971 and for several years thereafter its largest single stockholder. His
involvement in the company was strictly as a Director and nonresident
consultant, without any day-to-day participation in management or engineering.
In March 1974 he sold all of his stock to the company and has currently no
closer ties to Ohm Acoustics (or any other audio manufacturer or retailer) than
to the Exxon Company or the government of Lichtenstein. He does confess,
however, to continued partiality to the brilliant, if incomplete, loudspeaker
theory of the late Lincoln Walsh."

After one of Mr. Aczel's customary data-driven analyses of the loudspeaker he
concludes the review thusly:

"So, if you want one of the most brilliantly conceived speakers of all time -
with a boomy bottom; a highly colored, ringing, metallic midrange and top end;
plus superb time response if your ear could only separate it from all that mess
- get the Ohm F. Incidentally, this is the "improved version; some minor
changes were made about a year and a half or two years ago. We remember the
original version as having been better, but we didn't have all these other
speakers to compare it to, and besides we don't claim an acoustic memory quite
that retentive and precise. It's possible that our standards of excellence have
changed more than the speaker."

With respect to Mr. Zipser's next statement that:

>Aczel reviewed Fourier Loudspeakers, and gave them a rave review and used
>it as his reference - and he OWNED the company - and in fact, he ran off
>with the subscription money of 10,000 subscribers WHILE he started the
>speaker company!once again the actual text tells a slightly different story.

From The Audio Critic, Volume 2, Number 3, Spring through Fall 1980, Page 7
:
"Although we can't take credit for the actual nuts-and-bolts engineering and
execution of the Fourier 1, the speaker would never have happened without our
initiative and our conviction that is was feasible; therefore, since The Audio
Critic is in the business of making impartial and commercially disinterested
evaluations of audio equipment (including other 3-way dynamic floor-standing
speakers on occassion), we want to disclose here the full background of the
project so you can judge for yourself the exact degree of our involvement and
our consequent partiality, if any."

This paragraph is followed by two pages of text concluding:

"In view of our role as godfather to the Fourier I, even though we didn't
actually design it, we've decided not to review it here in the subjective
sense. The objectively verifiable design data presented above should be
sufficient.  Its large-signal bass response alone, not to mention its
time-domain characteristics, make the usual comparisons unneccessary. We're
currently using it as one of our top reference speakers, alternating with the
Quad and the Quad/Janis W-1 combination to double-check our perceptions and
evaluations. "There are some good solid criticisms that can be leveled at The Audio Critic
and Mr. Aczel, a point that he would no doubt concede, particularly with
respect to its publication schedule, but the charges leveled by Mr. Zipser
(above) are without merit."

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #7 –
I took a quick read over his articles and this is the part I liked the most:

Quote
Soaring Audio SLC-A300 ($3400) - "With the 1 kHz fundamental at 0 dB, referenced to 100 watts, the 2nd harmonic is at –31 dB (2.82%), the 3rd harmonic at –40 dB (1%), the 4th harmonic at –44 dB (0.63%), the 5th harmonic at –45 dB (0.56%), and so on, with significant harmonics all the way up to the 24th, where the graph stops. I must emphasize that the amplifier was far from clipping at 100 watts into 8 ohms; it just produced an amount of distortion unheard of and unthinkable in the 21st century. The rms total of all those distortion components is 3.5% (–29 dB), and I found that the distortion does not vary with frequency, only with level. Even at 1 watt it is about 0.5% (–46 dB)"


Anybody still believe that "more expensive = must be better" logic again?

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #9 –
Many, many thanks mr Aczel.  Your site helped me immensely to navigate through the hifi jungle  .. for me it was the audio equivalent of Sagan's BB Code
You Type   We Show
Bullshit Detection Kit   

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #10 –
Thank You for all the great reviews and info you provided over the years.
Enjoy your time off and go to a lot of concerts.

                                  Bill

The Audio Critic Has Retired

Reply #11 –
Quote from: mzil on
""In view of our role as godfather to the [Fourier loudspeaker]...we've decided not to review it here in the subjective sense.  The objectively verifiable design data presented should be sufficient."

This to me says they were upfront that the magazine had a connection to this speaker company and I don't see any reason why they should not discuss the speaker's technical merits in at least a profile.

source of quote: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/critics/messages/5094.html

[stuff omitted]


Great post, thanks for uncovering/sharing that background info: Viewed in that context, the "controversy" seems like nothing more than rantings of fools with an axe to grind and no more credible than moon-landing deniers.