JMS@mis.Arizona.edu (Programmin' up a storm.) (04/09/90)
In article <1187@philmtl.philips.ca> pedersen@philmtl.philips.ca (Paul Pedersen) writes: > >In article <21258@cs.yale.edu> tarr-michael@YALE.EDU (michael tarr) writes: >>Is it just me or does Stereophile seem to have a high correlation >>between number of ads and liklihood of product being reviewed? > >Did you get this impression from the February '90 issue ? I ask because >I just bought it (you wouldn't believe the delay around here) and have had >a similar reaction. I don't know how Stereophile runs their editorial department, but most magazines have a very weak link between editorial and advertising, which works this way: the editorial people agree to tell the advertising people what they're going to write, but usually don't know the specifics yet---they're going to talk about a Yamaha xyzzy, but don't know whether the review is good or bad. Then, the advertising people go out and try to get Yamaha (or whomever) to run an ad, which they'll try to get as close to the review as possible. If Yamaha is confident that they have a good product, they'll usually go for it, since the synergy of a good review next to a good ad is hard to beat. Now, magazines range from this "almost totally ethical" behavior all the way to showing the review to the manufacturer to induce them to get on the advertising bandwagon. Plus, some magazines (in a different field, but the same principle applies) have been known to choose among competing articles based on advertisting budget and track record. You can usually figure those out pretty quickly---the reviews are ALL good; the ads are all in sync; and the quality of the writing is low, because real writers won't work in such an environment. I have experiences with publications at both ends of the spectrum, and can report that the ones that last for years are all very straight with their readers and advertisers; the sleazy ones tend to go under very quickly. ========== Obligatory high-end audio discussion: I recently went through the pain of finding a new tape deck. Ignoring the published wisdom of Stereophile (and other magazines), I went directly to the net for information: rec.audio and the grateful dead mailing list. Because of the heavy involvement of Dead fans with taping, their advice turned out to be quite good. As expected, most of the answers from rec.audio said "get a Nakamichi." However, the more I talked with heavy users of decks, and the more I talked with stereo salesmen (not known as a fount of knowledge), the less interested I became in the Nakamichi. There's a legendary---and possibly mythical---assertion that Nakamichis are great standalone, but have problems interoperating with tapes read/written on other systems. There were other decks mentioned, and other suggestions: 3 heads, type of material used in the head, 3 motors, no dubbing. But the two brands that got most mentioned were Nakamichi and Denon. While there were some folks praising and some burying Nak, no one had anything bad to say about Denon. So, I took a look. Denon has three decks at exactly the same price-point, $400 retail. One is a dubbing deck, one has some other consumer-oriented feature, and the third (the 700) is where they put their head/motor dollars. You can move up from there---the 800 is the same deck with better heads (amorphous). I ended up listening to the Denon 700, against two Nakamichis, a Yamaha, and some other miscellaneous decks. I was unable to tell the difference in reproduction of sources recorded on the same deck (although they were all slightly degraded from the original CD, only detectable in A/B play). I could barely hear a difference in tapes played on other decks, but as a non-blind test, I suspect that I was imagining the difference. In any case it wasn't upsetting; your mileage may vary. My impression is that the Nak engineers are more meticulous about moving that little tape past the head while the Denon engineers care more about the sound. Mostly on the basis of price performance, I chose the Denon 700. I was willing to buy the 800 on the basis of recommendations from net folk (the difference wasn't great, about $100 retail), but the salesman refused to sell it to me, claiming that such a deck is only for "anal retentive audio purists who only listen to their stereos with oscilloscopes." I got them to throw in a case of tapes (Denon 100 minute tapes, wholesale cost about $3.25 each) and some long cables which I needed for dubbing to a Tascam that's rack mounted (probably worth $10), and agreed to pay the $399 retail. So, I figure I got about a 10% discount. They weren't willing to haggle further, and pointed out that my time was worth more than the additional $10 to $20 I could save by going to Phoenix or mail-order. On the deck: Pretty standard. 3 motors, 3 heads. Line inputs, NO MIC LEVEL. Two power supplies (whatever that implies, which I suppose is less noise across channels). The remote only works when connected to other Denon equipment. There's a weird thing you can do with recording and pausing that the manual was real excited about, but didn't seem worth figuring out. The manual, like most Pacific Rim products, was awful. Dolby B, C. "HX Pro Headroom Extension." (another anal-retentive feature, I've been told by several folks). A tape counter that shows TIME ! ! ! I didn't think this was worth anything until I found myself using it A LOT already. I'm normally anti-Bell and Whistle, but this is a real win. Some memory thing related to the counter. A balance control for input, as well as a single level. Fine bias adjust, and output level adjust. FM MPX filter. Bottom line: It works GREAT! I upgraded my home from an El Poopo Teac I got for making tapes for the car and I can REALLY tell the difference. Noise is down, levels are sparklier. If you are considering a deck in the $300 to $500 range, you should take the time to look into this one. I think that it's price/performance against Nakamichis is excellent. Also: Send mail if you're interested in a summary of the notes I got off the net. jms Joel M Snyder, The Mosaic Group, 627 E Speedway, 85705 Phone: 602.626.8680 (University of Arizona, Dep't of MIS, Eller Graduate School of Management) BITNET: jms@arizmis Internet: jms@mis.arizona.edu SPAN: 47541::uamis::jms A stitch in time saves nine. Suture self, it's Badenov as it is.