Welcome to Spintricity - High-end Audio Adventures

OK. The big question.... Why do we need another high-end audio magazine?

The reason... when you get right down to the chewy center... is because the current crop of magazines are just plain boring (as we outlined in this magazine's pre-announcement found on the main page of the 2008 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Show Report).

How boring are those magazines?

They are so boring that, listening to Diana Krall, for the 1000th, on a Bose system, is only marginally worse.

Well, maybe we exaggerate. A little.

Why are magazines so boring? One is the way reviews have been conducted for these last few decades (the tag-team reviews in Audio Musings excepted).

Reviews

An audiophile visits a magazine and sees the list of equipment being reviewed, and as they look at each component being reviewed they say to their self 'I bet they like it'.


[A manufacturer/distributor sees their equipment reviewed and says to their self "I hope we get it back" and "I hope nobody drops it down a flight of stairs"

To most of us, this is just really hard to swallow - making the review itself worthless and boring, and the reviewer and magazine itself untrustworthy, manufacturers stressed-out, and audiophiles wondering where the beef is.

So what are we going to do about it? First, we have no reviews. Or to be more precise, we have no reviewers.

Instead we encourage manufacturers and dealers, perhaps in conjunction with a writer or photographer, to submit articles about their equipment. Articles will be screened to maintain a high level of information content and a low level of marketing speak [we sell advertising space for those].

This brings the manufacturer or dealer who wants to take advantage of this opportunity and the audiophile community closer together - there is no longer a persnickety reviewer or publisher in between gumming up the works. Audiophiles will get to understand a brand better, and to get to understand the people behind the brand better.

So how is this different? Aren't all these 'reviews' still going to be positive? Won't the manufacturers and dealers writing the reviews focus on the good and ignore the problematic?

Right. And at its worst this is exactly the same as it is now with those 'other' magazines.

Except...

Other magazines represent their reviewers as paragons of impartiality and competentcy - and in the vast majority of cases, we would argue, this representaton is misleading.

At Spintricity, we do not pretend that the reviews are completely impartial and factual. There is no pretense of the all-seeing all-knowing reviewer.


Opinions

Our writers have opinions. Strong opinions. They are free to express their opinions in our magazine as long as they try to explain how and why they reached this opinion. They are free to disagree with each other. [In fact, I sometimes think it would be very rare that they would ever agree on anything :-)]

The more strong opinions people read in our magazine, the more people will realize that they are going to have to spend the time to figure out who has a clue, and who doesn't, and where their own personal preferences lie.

And the more fun the magazine will be to read. Fun, exciting, thought-provoking, weird, obnoxious. But not boring.

More about us next month. Now on to the show!

Enjoy!
-Mike

persnickety reviewer or publisher in between gumming up the works. Audiophiles will get to understand a brand better, and to get to understand the people behind the brand better.

So how is this different? Aren't all these 'reviews' still going to be positive? Won't the manufacturers and dealers writing the reviews focus on the good and ignore the problematic?

Right. And at its worst this is exactly the same as it is now with those 'other' magazines.

Except...

Other magazines represent their reviewers as paragons of impartiality and competentcy - and in the vast majority of cases, we would argue, this representaton is misleading.

At Spintricity, we do not pretend that the reviews are completely impartial and factual. There is no pretense of the all-seeing all-knowing reviewer.

Opinions

Our writers have opinions. Strong opinions. They are free to express their opinions in our magazine as long as they try to explain how and why they reached this opinion. They are free to disagree with each other. [In fact, I sometimes think it would be very rare that they would ever agree on anything :-)]

The more strong opinions people read in our magazine, the more people will realize that they are going to have to spend the time to figure out who has a clue, and who doesn't, and where their own personal preferences lie.

And the more fun the magazine will be to read. Fun, exciting, thought-provoking, weird, obnoxious. But not boring.

More about us next month. Now on to the show!

Enjoy!
-Mike

to express their opinions in our magazine as long as they try to explain how and why they reached this opinion. They are free to disagree with each other. [In fact, I sometimes think it would be very rare that they would ever agree on anything :-)]

The more strong opinions people read in our magazine, the more people will realize that they are going to have to spend the time to figure out who has a clue, and who doesn't, and where their own personal preferences lie.

And the more fun the magazine will be to read. Fun, exciting, thought-provoking, weird, obnoxious. But not boring.

More about us next month. Now on to the show!

Enjoy!
-Mike

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