Audio (magazine)

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Audio
Audio Oct 1963.jpg
Cover of Audio, October 1963
EditorDavid Saslaw
Eugene Pitts III
Michael Riggs
Categories High-end audio
FrequencyMonthly
Year founded1947
Final issue2000
Country United States
Language English

Audio magazine was a periodical published from 1947 to 2000, and was America's longest-running audio magazine. [1] Audio published reviews of audio products and audio technology as well as informational articles on topics such as acoustics, psychoacoustics and the art of listening. Audio claimed to be the successor of Radio magazine which was established in 1917. [2]

Contents

History

Audio began life in Mineola, New York in 1947 as Audio Engineering for the purpose of publishing new developments in audio engineering. In 1948, the Audio Engineering Society (AES) was established and in 1953 they began publishing their definitive, scholarly periodical, the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. [3] Audio Engineering magazine dropped the word "engineering" in 1954 and shifted to a more consumer- and hobbyist-oriented focus while retaining a serious scientific viewpoint. In 1966, Audio's headquarters were moved to Philadelphia and the periodical was printed by North American Publishing Company. [4]

In 1979, CBS bought Audio from its Philadelphia publisher and moved operations to New York. [5] CBS then bought a group of magazines from Ziff-Davis, including sometime competitor Stereo Review , which soon found itself sharing office space (but not staff) with Audio. In October 1987, Peter Diamandis led a management buyout of the CBS magazine division with 19 magazines with $650 million of financing from Prudential Insurance. [6] Diamandis Communications Inc. soon sold seven magazines for $243 million and in April 1988 sold Audio and the rest of the magazines to Hachette Filipacchi Médias for $712 million. [7] Peter Diamandis remained in control of the magazine group and in 1989 bought competing audio magazine High Fidelity and merged its subscription and advertiser lists with those of Stereo Review, firing High Fidelity's staff and shutting down its printing. [8]

Audio's final appearance was the combined February/March issue in 2000. [9] Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. group publisher Tony Catalano told reporters that trouble in the high-performance audio sector led to the cancellation of the magazine. Sound & Vision , the successor to Stereo Review, would become the publishing group's sole magazine containing reviews of home audio equipment. [10]

Contributors and content

Eugene "Gene" Pitts III served for more than 22 years as Audio's editor [11] before being replaced in 1995 by Michael Riggs, executive editor of Stereo Review and former editor of High Fidelity, who was then joined in 1999 by Corey Greenberg in an eleventh-hour attempt to revive sagging advertising revenues. [12] Pitts went on to buy The Audiophile Voice in 1995 from The Audiophile Society, a club in the tri-state area around New York City. [13]

Audio magazine was known for its equipment reviews, which were unusual for their concentration on objective measurement and specifications rather than subjective opinion. Audio's contributors included respected audio engineers, many active in AES. Harry F. Olson, Howard A. Chinn, John K. Hilliard, Harvey Fletcher and Hermon Hosmer Scott, all AES Gold Medal awardees, were among the pioneering audio experts who took their discoveries to Audio's pages. Richard Heyser, inventor of time delay spectrometry, wrote articles for Audio in the 1980s including his column Audio's Rosetta Stone. He often reviewed loudspeakers during his short tenure. Don Keele followed Heyser, using TEF analysis in his loudspeaker reviews. Don Davis, founder of Syn-Aud-Con, wrote occasional articles and letters to the editor. Ken Pohlmann, digital audio author and educator, [14] and David Clark, founder of the David Clark company and expert in unbiased double-blind test procedures and originator of the ABX test, wrote articles for Audio. [15]

In 1972, Robert W. "Bob" Carver wrote an article about his 700 watt amplifier design, the Phase Linear PL-700. Thereafter, Carver products were often reviewed in the magazine. Bob Carver wrote an article about his development of sonic holography, an experiment in psychoacoustics as applied to loudspeaker physics. [16]

In 1984, a column called Auricles appeared, providing purely subjective equipment reviews that did not include performance measurements or emphasize specifications. New contributors who were not engineers were invited to review audio products. After a decade of Auricles, at least one observer characterized the change in editorial content as an indulgence in "fantasy". [15]

Related Research Articles

High fidelity High-quality reproduction of sound

High fidelity is a term used by listeners, audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts to refer to high-quality reproduction of sound. This is in contrast to the lower quality sound produced by inexpensive audio equipment, AM radio, or the inferior quality of sound reproduction that can be heard in recordings made until the late 1940s.

An audiophile is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. An audiophile seeks to reproduce the sound of a live musical performance, typically in a room with good acoustics. It is widely agreed that reaching this goal is very difficult and that even the best-regarded recording and playback systems rarely, if ever, achieve it.

High Fidelity was an American magazine that was published from April 1951 until July 1989 and was a source of information about high fidelity audio equipment, video equipment, audio recordings, and other aspects of the musical world, such as music history, biographies, and anecdotal stories by or about noted performers.

PS Audio is an American company specializing in high-fidelity audio components equipment for audiophiles and the sound recording industry. It currently produces audio amplifiers, preamplifiers, power related products, digital-to-analog converters, streaming audio, music management software and cables.

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Robert W. (Bob) Carver is an American designer of audio equipment based in the Pacific Northwest.

Wilson Audio

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Stereophile is a monthly magazine that focuses on high-end home audio equipment, such as loudspeakers and amplifiers, and audio-related news, such as online audio streaming.

Rudy Bozak American audio engineer

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Ambiophonics is a method in the public domain that employs digital signal processing (DSP) and two loudspeakers directly in front of the listener in order to improve reproduction of stereophonic and 5.1 surround sound for music, movies, and games in home theaters, gaming PCs, workstations, or studio monitoring applications. First implemented using mechanical means in 1986, today a number of hardware and VST plug-in makers offer Ambiophonic DSP. Ambiophonics eliminates crosstalk inherent in the conventional “stereo triangle” speaker placement, and thereby generates a speaker-binaural soundfield that emulates headphone-binaural sound, and creates for the listener improved perception of “reality” of recorded auditory scenes. A second speaker pair can be added in back in order to enable 360° surround sound reproduction. Additional surround speakers may be used for hall ambience, including height, if desired.

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J. Gordon Holt American journalist

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NAD 3020

The NAD 3020 is a stereo integrated amplifier by NAD Electronics, considered to be one of the most important components in the history of high fidelity audio. Launched in 1978, this highly affordable product delivered a good quality sound, which acquired a reputation as an audiophile amplifier of exceptional value. By 1998, the NAD 3020 had become the most well known and best-selling audio amplifier in history.

Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) is an audio codec using lossy compression and a form of file fingerprinting, intended for high fidelity digital audio internet streaming and file download. Launched in 2014 by Meridian Audio, it is now owned and licensed by MQA Ltd, which was founded by Bob Stuart, co-founder of Meridian Audio.

References

  1. ↑ AES Pro Audio Reference. Audio magazine (1947–2000)
  2. ↑ Audio, Table of contents, October 1963.
  3. ↑ AES Journal Article Database Search
  4. ↑ Roger Russell. Audio magazine history Archived September 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ Dougherty, Philip (November 16, 1979). "Advertising: CBS Agrees to Acquire Audio Magazine for Cash". The New York Times. p. D12.
  6. ↑ Dougherty, Philip (October 2, 1987). "Advertising: Diamandis Group at the Helm". The New York Times. p. D14.
  7. ↑ Fabrikant, Geraldine (April 14, 1988). "Hachette to Buy Magazine Publisher". The New York Times. p. D1. "Mr. Diamandis and his management team will make about $95 million."
  8. ↑ Stereophile magazine. August 1989, Volume 12, Number 8. High Fidelity Is Dead.
  9. ↑ Roger Russell. Collection of equipment reviews from past issues of Audio Engineering and Audio, 1981–2000 Archived September 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ Stereophile. January 18, 2000. Audio magazine throws in the towel.
  11. ↑ "Enjoy The Music. Reviewer's Bio. Gene Pitts: Music Lover Extraordinaire". Archived from the original on 2008-10-07. Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  12. ↑ Stereophile. March 3, 1999. John Atkinson. Corey Greenberg New Editor of Audio.
  13. ↑ Enjoy The Music. The Audiophile Voice
  14. ↑ University of Miami, Frost School of Music. Ken Pohlmann Archived September 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  15. 1 2 The Audio Critic. Issue No. 23. Winter 1995–1996 Audio magazine. Archived December 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  16. ↑ Audio and Audio Engineering magazine. Subject Index. May 1947 through December 1999
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