TAS new look-the end is near?

When you have been in this thing as long as HP its like anything else that was once a love and passion - it becomes a job. It's still a passion but just how excited and what can you say about something like an amplifier that you haven't already said a thousand times about the latest amplifier.

TAS is still the best mag overall IMO, and has been so through its many, many ups and downs, notwithstanding some still competition from Fi, aeons ago. I have every issue of TAS (as well as Fi, Sounds Like... - anybody remember Jeff Goggins foray into publishing? Where is HE now? - Audio Adventure, TAV, etc.), and most of S'phile -- and TAS remains a reference, frequently pulled out and consulted, each re-read providing new insights previously missed, while S''phile and all the rest stay on the shelf for the most part, quick snacks compared to TAS' feasts. I agree that one of the truly annoying things about TAS is/was the never-ending parade of dropped hints: "Oh, what we COULD tell you if we really wanted!" Hints about backstage controversies, promises of revelations about un-named wonderous products that never appeared and future updates that never made it into print...there was a lack of continuity, even over series of issues, and the reasons for these lacunae were rarely stated. BUT HP's writing has always been a draw for me; he obviously delights in words as much as he does music, and I'm happy that he's been able to share so much of his passions while still remaining a very private person. Can we really imagine what it's like to BE HP? Waking in the morning and patting the latest amp du jour on the way to brush his teeth? Having a video system that makes the cineplex obsolete? Multiple systems, all of them arguably SOTA, with a set-uptron to take care of the tedious details like cleaning connectors and aligning cartridges? Envious? Ubetcha!!! :-)

I wonder what behind-the-scenes machinations (if any -- I'd not like to posit a coup where none exists) led to Harley's elevation? Did HP get kicked upstairs, as it were, willingly? What would (will) a post-HP TAS look like? Harley should have a chance -- but at the outset, I have to say that I have never gotten the sense that RH has a guiding vision a la HP or JGH, that he's a dryish technocrat and not an inspired, passionate leader. Well, no one really thought GWB was a leader either, so who knows? But the chances of our ever knowing the true story are dim.... It's like a family argument about which we are kept in the dark, like children -- although WE are part of the family too!

I am inespeptic, frasmatic and compunctious to think I have caused any paracombobulations.

So say you, Blkdr!

Anyway, I am horrrified at the latest TAS iteration...a start down into that audio magazine black hole.

there's no THERE THERE anymore.

Do you mean that TAS is beginning to lose continuousness? Perhaps it will then lose pompositiousness, as well.