Essay bashing Primedia, Stereophile - and Audiogon

Most brick&mortar stores don't have a clue about customer service anymore. They either want the quick sale, at full retail, or they want to do custom install work. The four high-end stores that i frequent all agree that retail is dead and that the money is in custom install. You would be suprised at what some of these guys get to pull audio cables through walls (mostly new construction). Most people today don't want to see the equipment, they just want to hear it and be simple to operate. I've gone into multi-million dollar homes where hundreds of thousands (over a million in one home) have been spent on whole-house audio/video and for the most part. the equipment comes from manufacturers such as Denon, Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, etc. Of course, the have a crestron or some kind of "smart remote" in every room. The sound is mid-fi at best, but they love it.

And as far as young people are concerned, MP3 is where it's at.

I'm rambling now.....

Enjoy the music,

Still, on the whole, Stern is right about the industry - his abilities as reviewer not withstanding. Having access to good sites on the internet gives us an avenue other than the printed page to find the info we are looking for. Sterophile et al are in a position somewhat similar to the recording industry. They are blinded by the fact that they do what they have always done and don't capitalize on new technologies that would make them a little more accessable. Having detailed and expanded information on an advertizing supported web site would help all concerned, including the industry who are trying to get their product in front of the public ear. Instead Stereophile mostly just archives much of their magazine with now a great deal else. Sites like Agon and 6moons and a couple of others flourish because they give the people what they want. Detailed information about products under consideration for instance. Often with a less biased perspective. They also give info on tweaks and such. Remember this is a hobby and most of us like to tinker. Whether we get all we want in a one stop shopping format or not remains to be seen. But so long as there are sites like Audiogon where you can bounce ideas and opinions back and forth I believe we can winnow out the chaff.

To clarify my earlier comments. I don't blame Audiogon for the decline of B&M hifi shops. In an open economic market either you adapt to change or you die. As Flex points out above, there are some other factors involved in the demise of high end audio shops. Audiogon is great if you want to buy or sell equipment, but in exchange for good prices there are very clear costs. Most transactions go smoothly, but not always. Buying from a private party over the internet is inherently more risky than walking into a retail establishment. Furthermore, used equipment doesn't usually come with a warranty. Audiogon offers some tremendous benefits, but it's not without costs.

I am not going to focus on Stern's comments about Audiogon and get all hissy, defensive and nasty about it. There are people on this site who are very opinionated without the knowledge or experience to back it up, and there are people who waste manufacturers' and dealers' time by pumping them for info then run off to buy used off the Internet. I don't think Chip meant that everybody here is an idiot, and you can't discount everything is saying just because you don't agree with a small part of his argument.

Stern's article made several very good points about Primedia and their bottom-line mentality. There are good things and bad things about Stereophile, but if it goes out of business, then we lose the good things too. Primedia is to Stereophile what the big multimedia giants are to radio broadcasting and newspapers. Big companies are buying-up all of the smaller companies and their radio stations. Then they fire a lot of (good, qualified, and in their opinion over-paid) people and install their own hacks and bean-counters in their place. They then take all the freedom out of broadcasting by enforcing and playing pre-programmed, target-marketed, overly-commercial, "popular" crap music content that can change at the drop of a hat. They also fire any intelligent life at the radio station or newspaper that has the nerve to disagree with their business strategies or editorial policy. (which brings ugly business and political alliances into the mix also!)
Primedia is alienating their own employees, manufacturers and retailers with their lies, their money-grabbing business strategies and with all of the other stupid actions that Stern is decrying in his article.

So, you may not agree with everything that Stern has to say, but I'll bet you that at least he might take the time to debate it with you intelligently.
Primedia, on the other hand, doesn't give a shit what you think or want when it comes to quality music reproduction and this hobby of ours.

Good post Golden Ears.

Thanks,