what really happened to j. skul

I thought J. Skull to be perhaps the most pompous, arrogant reviewer out there, whose reviews revealed mostly how full of himself he was, and the actual substance of the reviews was very mediocre at best.

Most of the time, I would finish the review wondering if anything he reviewed in the stratsopheric arena was less than fabulous. His carefully worded comparisons to others of his latest audio toys were clearly woven to provide the least amount of useful, honest information, and rather an attempt to place them all on the same lofty plane of audiophile nirvana.

When a friend of mine emailed JS to humbly ask him a question, and didn't receive the courtesy of any reply, this only confirmed my opinion of him all along. Perhaps JS's new salary at Monster Cable will allow him to imbibe a $500 bottle of Cogin while he reminisces about his glory days at Stereophile. At least I won't have to read his braggery about which bottle of vintage grapes accompanied his latest review.

His termination is certainly no great loss, except for the fact that Stereophile / JA continues to display blatant incompetence / disregard at maintaining a magazine of integrity with truly top notch reviewers.

sean, i miss your input on this funny issue. of all of the people i have read in my short visit to audiogon, i have been most impressed with you. despite the facxt that you are a young puppy, you seem to have an insight to the industry that is absent from most. i don't know if this is the appropriate forum for this, but i think if you are to exchange ideas, you should understand each other, with that in mind, i am a 65 year old veteran of the revolution, just kidding,make that korea.i have been an audiophile for 45 years,my god, you young folks must be really amused at this point, i have owned all of the hot systems, maggies, infinitys, wilsons,b&w,dunlavy,i may have forgot a few, goes with senior status don't you know. in electronics i have had arc, bat,krell, levinson,cj,and i may have forgotten a few here. as an aside and a laugh for you young folks, my first system was double advents,scott and a garrad turntable, my current system is a levinson 31.5,classe dac-1 z-systems rpd-1 and b&w nautilus 801 speakers.sean, i am vp of human resources for a major ct. company,hence my interest from a professional standpoint in the scull affair. what do you do to pay for our hobby?

saxo,tell us how you really feel. i agree the ribbon chair was a bit much and his nickname of j10 was oh so precious,but didn't you get a yuk out of some of his stuff?come on saxon, even if his reviews were not world class i think the entertainment value was worth something. i have read the anti scull responses and they seem to fall into two catagorys, those that disliked his professional reviews and those who for what ever reason hated the guy.i can never get as angry at anyone as you appear to be at scull, what's up with that? peace and tranquility saxon,relax and enjoy the music.

> what really happened to j. skul

That Scull, agchewly.

> J-10 was simply caught in the middle of budget cuts.

That is correct, Sir!

> Jonathan realized all ... and stated that he understood that it was a business move on the part of Stereophile and nothing personal. He also said that he's very happy working for Monster Cable and making more money than he ever did before. As such, i think it turned out pretty good for all involved. Sean <

Thank you, Sean, good to "see" you again. One door closes, panic, another door opens, relief. And I get to stay in the same hobby/business I've invested so much of my life into.

I'm off to Monster HQ in SF for two weeks tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday if there's a blizzard, and will check in here to see what's happening.

Enjoy!
JS
www.monstercable.com/ScullReport

> Skull

Scull, if you please, boychick.

> was a complete paradox for me:

Funny you say that. For me, life is all about paradox. My be my Russian heritage.

> of all the SP writers I valued his opinion on gear and music the least

Sorry to hear that, of course... but I'll defend to YOUR death the right to say so!
(-"

> yet always found myself turning to his reviews and Fine Tunes first. Go figure.

Indeed...
Regards,
JS
www.monstercable.com/ScullReport