The Absolute Sound vs Stereophile

I used to peruse and collect both, but I decided to stop reading audio magazines when a particular issue of one of them featured not one, not two, but THREE reviews of individual components that each retailed for $45,000 or more. I don’t disapprove of anyone who likes to read such reviews, but it made me realize that those two magazines just no longer had anything to do with me. 

I don’t miss them and I’m happy I had the courage to make the change. 

Stereo Review was always panned by audiophiles for it's style of review where everything was always good, by folks who began reading Stereophile an TAS when those magazines started. n fact it seems they started partly due to the poor reviewing on "Stereo Review," and "High Fidelity" and "Audio", though Audio always had a yearly issue in October, with specs for all the components that year. It was a great issue to keep.Another popular magazine was "Grammaphone" British, it ALWAYS favored British recordings, and British made gear. Big city public libraries will still have most of those magazines available to read. Including early TAS and Stereophile..

They both completely suck. Go back and take a look at these publications when they were thoughtful, informative, and nuanced. There were in depth articles about music and high fidelity using sophisticated language that seldom hyped. They were far less commercial, with fewer ads (and those that did advertise were not allowed to quote reviews). TAS had great cover art and both were smaller, uniquely sized. I still get them because they are almost free (to boost circulation figures so that they can charge more for ad space). I look at the pretty pictures, read the vapid, nearly useless music reviews, read the occasional Art Dudley piece and recycle. 

What I remember aside from reading each review over and over, (and I have read every issue since day one, several time EACH) is the bickering. And particularly in TAS over ’digital’. The damage to TT bearings from digitally recorded LPs so called scandel. The endless insults to Enid. The fact a single review in TAS or Stereophile could easily make or break a manufacturer. (and TAS IMO singlehandedly gave Audio Research to ability to grow, (and harm them, I remember the damning with faint praise review that blew up the relationship ARC had with TAS.All the bickering is now on the web. LOLThe advertisers today do a great job of making the magazine more interesting too.I would say that the text copy a little less developed and interesting than they were just ten years ago. But part of that is the shrinking customer base, due to audiophile graying out and dying

I enjoy them both