Reactions to HP's review of Antique Sound Lab amp?

Ohn: Yea, you got it.

I agree. JV was once the bright, shining hope of TAS, the clear heir-apparent to HP in the days before the lame-o Fi experiment. I loved reading his reviews. But since his return, he's been almost a parody of a high-end reviewer and has lost a ton of credibility in my mind.

I agree. Aren't JV and JS - Jonathan Scull- really the same person.Every expensive piece is great.

On second thought, if we're back on-topic, why should I recuse myself? :-)

JV is a much better writer (and possibly listener) than J-10. I liked Fi well enough - found it mostly non-infuriating and congenial for an afternoon's read. That, and getting you enthusiastic about the stuff of audio every month, is the primary purpose of the rags as I see it anyway - entertainment, topped off with a bit of info. This is what Stereophile fails to deliver way too much of the time these days. I wasn't reading Valin back in his previous TAS days, but what I notice and fault him most on now is his terminal predeliction for ever-escalating paradigm-smashing raphsodics, combined with a worse-than-usual case of the typical voice-of-God uber-authoritativeness, a specialty of the guys who disdain to review any affordable gear. Although Scull could be maddening in his requiring you to read waaay between the lines to figure out what he actually though of a piece, both in his characteristic over-the-top reviewer's voice and the fact that a casual persusal could convince you that it was all equally great to him, I'd probably rather go on a boat fishing with an armchair playboy like him than a self-important priss like Valin, whom I ultimately don't trust. But then, I'd rather fish with the down-to-earth J. Gordon than either of those guys.

Zaikes, you don't know how accurate you are, and, even worse than that...The ability to structure a paragraph has little to do with it...

On Scull, didn't know the guy - he blew out of TAS (an action familiar to many people) - and heard the history there rewritten, assumably, about him, but I always liked his reviews (except for the Griffin episode)because he seemed to still love the Music.

You have to understand, at Scull's "level", or JV's, the incentive to reduce it all to a Machiavellian game is very high. At the several magazines I worked for, I have had ideas, er, "lifted" from me (and its still happening...), had BIG reviewers from other magazines slander me with accusations of criminal behavior in an attempt to prevent me from reviewing gear they wanted to review and that I had (and whose attorneys told them to issue me a written apology - I don't put up with that crap from there either), seen gear not get reviewed because someone didn't kiss the ring enough, seen gear maligned tangentially (oh, its always tangentially, to let the "offending" manufacturer the opportunity to redress his political error later)if not enough accomodation was forthcoming, etc etc. and on and on. In this queen cat fight, therefore, I always am willing to overlook someone who has to mention he lives in a New York loft and is married to a french woman because, assumably, he can't get over that he didn't get picked for the dodge ball team in sixth grade, if, if, he still lets, on occasion, the love of Music shine through the accumulated skein.

I thought Scull did a fair job on the AudioPrism Mana amps (now the Rosebud ref amps.... for, somehow, $10K more...)and I thought he got Cary down pretty good. And I also appreciated him continuing to stick his neck out on M'Pingo disc type stuff when the "convergence" at Stereophile started, and then quickened.

Morpheus in The Matrix: "Welcome to the Real World..."

So, do you take the blue pill or the red pill?