Author Topic: Stereophile Founder dies  (Read 4784 times)

Offline BobM

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Stereophile Founder dies
« on: July 21, 2009, 11:57:23 AM »
A few minutes after 12 noon mtn time, July 20, 2009 J Gordon Holt passed away in his home in Boulder, Colorado. A memorial service will be held in a week or two. There will be, of course, martinis and the music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
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Offline bpape

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Re: Stereophile Founder dies
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2009, 12:06:33 PM »
Rest in peace JGH.  Another good one gone to a better place. 

I'll definitely have a Martini in his honor.

Bryan
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Offline richidoo

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Re: Stereophile Founder dies
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2009, 01:02:59 PM »
A few minutes after 12 noon mtn time, July 20, 2009 J Gordon Holt passed away in his home in Boulder, Colorado. A memorial service will be held in a week or two. There will be, of course, martinis and the music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.

That's Ralph Vaughan Williams.  ;)

RIP Holt. We could use you now.
http://www.stereophile.com/historical/66/index.html

To celebrate Stereophile's 30th anniversary, Gordon gave a speech at a dinner the magazine hosted at the 1992 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. The text of that speech was reprinted in [the] September 1992 issue, [of Stereophile] and it makes for disturbing reading:

"We seem to have come to a tacit agreement that it's no longer necessary, or even desirable, for a home music system to sound like the real thing. We speak in hushed and reverent tones about reproducing the ineffable beauty of music, when in fact much real music is harsh and vulgar and ugly. We design the all-important musical midrange out of our equipment in order to try—vainly, I might add—to recreate the illusion of three-dimensional space through what is essentially a two-dimensional reproducer. And whenever we hear a loudspeaker or a CD player that shows subversive signs of sounding more 'alive' or 'realistic' than most, we dismiss it out of hand as being too 'forward' or 'aggressive.' As if a lot of real music isn't forward and aggressive!

"The idea that all we are trying to do is make equipment that gives the listener some sort of magical emotional response to a mystical experience called 'music' is all well and good, but it isn't what High End is all about. In fact, high fidelity was originally a reaction to the gorgeously rich-sounding console 'boom boxes' that dominated the home-music market during the 1940s!

"We've lost our direction....The High End in 1992 is a multi-million-dollar business. But it's an empty triumph, because we haven't accomplished what we set out to do. The playback still doesn't sound 'just like the real thing.' People, let's start getting back to basics. Let's put the 're' back into 'reproduction.' Let's promote products that dare to sound as 'alive' and 'aggressive' as the music they are trying to reproduce."