🚀 go-pugleaf

dave@fgh.fgh.oz.au (Dave Horsfall) writes:

> After nearly twenty years, I terminated my subscription, disgusted at
> a bunch of pelicans that makes pronouncements outside their competence
> and are too gutless to admit their mistakes.  Should such a retraction
> ever appear, I will renew my subscription.

I stopped reading Choice *many* years ago after they "tested" audio
turntables.  The pronouncement was that there was no benefit to be
gained from spending more than a couple of hundred dollars. I wouldn't
need to evoke the "golden-ear syndrome" to show that conclusion to be
utter rubbish.

But it got worse. A spokeswoman (I don't have to say "spokesperson"
because this took place in pre-pc days) appeared on a talk show on ABC
radio and was giving "technical" tips. Her suggestion for coping with a
record on which "grooves were skipped" was to put some coins on the
headshell.

Now, by definition, the record was *already* damaged and the woman
wanted to inflict more. She ignored such things as the effect on the
tracking weight (which would probably exceed the recommended maximum),
the mass of the system and the effects on the frequency response.

It should be noted, though, that such idiocy is not confined to
Australia. I remember reading a review of colour television receivers
in the US equivalent of Choice.  Readers were told to check the focus
by using a magnifying glass to examine the scanning lines (on a
*domestic* receiver)! As an aid to this they printed a photograph of
what the scanning lines "should" look like. Pity they used a photograph
of a mono tube ...

Ralphe Neill