greg@olivej.UUCP (Greg Paley) (09/26/84)
Someone (I can't remember who, maybe someone else on the net knows) once made the statement that one of the saddest occurences is when a wise man says something stupid, because it makes people doubt the validity of all of the wise things he's previously said. I feel this way about Absolute Sound. There are times when they have indeed been "trashy" in that the individual writers have indulged in cheap shots, adolescent parodies (such as their Julian Hearse and David Ramada-Inn jokes), and blanket condemnations which indicate they've formed a judgement without even listening to a product or record. On the other hand, they also probe into the nature of recorded and reproduced sound and attempt to provide in-depth evaluations of equipment in a way that nobody else does. Following their advice, I've never been misled into buying a poor piece of equipment or buying a poor sounding record (although some of the PERFORMANCES on their recommended list are hardly great). I have felt misled and angry when following recommendations in Stereo Review, High Fidelity, and Audio. - Greg Paley