My assertion is my experienced opinion of Peter Aczel and his publishing history. I do not begrudge him for retiring, but you would think that someone would have taken over IF the publication was still successful.
My experience with the later publication was mixed.
My first experience was in about 1992 when an oversight was found in one of my designs, the Parasound 2200MK2 that followed the 2200MK1 that was an initial 'failure' of mine. As I removed the AD712 from the front end and instead installed an open loop jfet follower to make for 'balanced' input, initially in hope for better sound quality, a mistake was made at the factory, and the wrong current range of jfets were used. This made for more distortion than the design would normally give. I did appreciate that this error was brought up to me by the magazine, but I never heard the end of it, even after we fixed it.
Later, when the Parasound A21 was reviewed, there was much 'pre-prejudice' offered before measurement that I had made the same mistake, but to their surprise, it worked just fine, like it was originally designed to do. This is the sort of 'un-professionalism' that I noted with the reviewer. He could have asked me, as we often met at CES, but no, he would rather badmouth me for making the change. After all, an IC did MEASURE better. Fortunately, removing the IC gave the HCA2200mk2 a better reviewer rating than the mk1. Later, I removed the IC in my own and my associates 2200mk1 amps with similar improvement in sound quality. So what was wrong? I don't know, but I had selected the IC personally, and it did not do me any favors. (and you guys wonder why I tend to avoid IC's)
My experience with the later publication was mixed.
My first experience was in about 1992 when an oversight was found in one of my designs, the Parasound 2200MK2 that followed the 2200MK1 that was an initial 'failure' of mine. As I removed the AD712 from the front end and instead installed an open loop jfet follower to make for 'balanced' input, initially in hope for better sound quality, a mistake was made at the factory, and the wrong current range of jfets were used. This made for more distortion than the design would normally give. I did appreciate that this error was brought up to me by the magazine, but I never heard the end of it, even after we fixed it.
Later, when the Parasound A21 was reviewed, there was much 'pre-prejudice' offered before measurement that I had made the same mistake, but to their surprise, it worked just fine, like it was originally designed to do. This is the sort of 'un-professionalism' that I noted with the reviewer. He could have asked me, as we often met at CES, but no, he would rather badmouth me for making the change. After all, an IC did MEASURE better. Fortunately, removing the IC gave the HCA2200mk2 a better reviewer rating than the mk1. Later, I removed the IC in my own and my associates 2200mk1 amps with similar improvement in sound quality. So what was wrong? I don't know, but I had selected the IC personally, and it did not do me any favors. (and you guys wonder why I tend to avoid IC's)
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The first time, one can chalk it up to a mistake. When it's repeated after a dozen counter-examples, well, draw your own conclusion.
edit: Actually, I gave 14 counter-examples. I can give more, if you like.
And the thing is I did all of this already for the largest pro gear mags in the world, I offered. I think Peter is a bit hurt that he couldnt really make it take off and wishes it to go with him. I understand, but I think the work needs to go on. I would love to continue it, hell my name is already Peter, but nope, he wont have it (-:. What I feel Peter did wrong was, as I too am tempted to do, shame the consumers as well as the producers. Its not smart and there is a better way to do this, HUMOR! kidding! fun! Disguise the education, make it fun and dont give in to tempting provocation no matter how tempting it is!
Well back in the 70's Peter Aczel's publication was exactly like all the other "gee wiz" audio mags out there that bought into the snake oil BS. He even admits later in life that he was guilty of believing all the hog wash till he wised up and started printing the truth. I guess the truth hurt a lot of manufacturers feelings 🙄 Not very useful to YOU perhaps but then he wasn't in the business to give people that couldn't build a quality product a free ride. I admire him for standing up to "black hats" and revealing all the crap they tried to sell.
Bitter much? I'd take The Audio Critic and Audio (dearly missed) over ANY audio publication. We have joke books online and in paper print already.
I still remember cartoon in Popular Electronics or Audio way back. A lady at the counter asking the male rep, " Can you explain the difference between a male connector and a female on?"
The sad mess the audio industry is in now, is that motivated people can easily pick that altering or adding something, whether it's a ridiculously priced snake oil product, or something eminently sensible and value for money, makes a difference to the perceived sound. And this is largely by altering the spectrum of the audible distortion components - hence the 'sound' of a system.
But no-one is putting major energy into sorting this out - so the ridiculous rituals continue: the people who see that there is money to be made by exploiting this are happy to continue providing themselves with an income, and those upset by this 'behaviour' froth at the mouth, and bang their fists violently on the table ...
But no-one is putting major energy into sorting this out - so the ridiculous rituals continue: the people who see that there is money to be made by exploiting this are happy to continue providing themselves with an income, and those upset by this 'behaviour' froth at the mouth, and bang their fists violently on the table ...
So, I should dig up the schematics for late 2200 II's to see how to properly convert my 1200's into balanced, rather than add a THAT receiver in front? Any other suggestions? I can't pull off buying a A23 as the wife knows I can re-cap my 1200's. She is rather fond of them too.
John Curl. You are a talented and intelligent man. You say you believe in Bybee devices. Peter Aczel learned where his disconnect with reality was. He fixed it. This goes a long way toward his credibility.
On recapping- I've a pair of vacuum caps I don't use just now, do you think there'd be any benefit in bypassing some 0.22 superior coupling capsin a small set el 84 ?
These were better resolving in a passive line filter before.
All the work is done by the engineering staff and sims, the drivers drive the setups in the sims and by the time they hit the track, they already have an idea of laptimes. The drivers job is just to drive the sim lap as best as possible, changes are down to fit individual driving styles, sway too much from the the engineered setup and you will be slow.
Input from driver is not really necessary, input is accepted to get car and driver cohesive, Driver/engineer era..
😎
Not mutually exclusive to Audio, life in general ........
I did enjoy the Audio Critic, first time was in 78 .... 🙂
now
http://www.hificritic.com/
So no credibility if Bybee's make a difference .. ?
As a side note, when I first got my 801s, notorious power hogs, I quickly found out 200w Hafler is not quite enough. Looked around here for amp guys. I had to eliminate some brands, guess why? For me its about judgement, I am not an ee, I rely on an engineers judgment. I am not qualified to judge the circuitry. I can judge reality.
Per above. I am not silly enough t believe in total horse manure. No credibility to anyone who does period. Something is wrong, something does not add up. I would bet the jewels, lives, and anything else
Ahhh, the user is quite irrelevant to the equation - we really just need robots to do the rather pointless exercise of driving the mechanical assemblies around the track ... in fact, why have races at all? We'll just need to compare the test bench results, and sim performances of the different teams in a computing shootout - job done!! I mean, we've managed to make chess pointless, the machine can always win - with a bit of luck, we can ultimately engineer life to a perfectly calculated assembly of events that just lock together in a neat jigsaw of happenings - so that we can do the really important things, like ceaselessly tapping away on a piece of glass and plastc ... 😉
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I think that no one is putting energy into *re-sorting* it out again and again. If you want the best sounding nuetral electronics buy those that measure the best, that is all. I do froth at fraud sue me (-:
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