Stereophile and related sites Sold: Layoffs have begun.

As most may have heard, Stereophile and it's sister publications/sites was sold to Paul Miller's group in the U.K

AVTech Media Ltd (UK) Acquires Home Tech Network From Ten Publishing Media

It seems heads have already rolled, with Michael Lavorgna of Audiostream, Jana D., and music editor Robert Baird being let go. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

 

Wow

 

Dang and I haven't receive my May issue yet. Man I hope that this works out.

M~

 

Uh, don't worry, they won't fold the magazine...you will get your May issue.

 

Jana D.? You've got to be f*cking kidding me. She has been the only breath of fresh air that publication has had in a decade. Look at the quality of her videos and social media presence. Someone is not thinking straight!

 

I wonder...my subscription always ends in May and my credit card is usually charged in March. No charge yet this year. Hmm...

 

Doesn't a physical magazine need an on-line presence? In fact, isn't the physical mag secondary to the on-line presence? Seems like if you're going to let something go it would be the cost of materials/printing/delivering the physical mag. Perhaps I'm missing something.

 

They were probably let go because they supported MQA! Lol

Just kidding. That aside, I liked Jana and her video work and Robert with his music reviews.
That's too bad and I wish them all the best.

 

Jana's Reviewer profiles were the best. I'll miss her.

 

If they fire Art Dudley I'm going postal!

 

I just reluctantly renewed for 2 years about a month ago.
Almost didn’t do it.
Hope that doesn’t come back to bite in terms of not receiving my full 24 issues and/or the quality suffering.

 

Curious where you got the information about the layoffs?

 

Maybe the writing will improve. And perhaps the reviews will be more useful. It doesn't make sense that I can get more out of free online reviews (Positive Feedback, Part-time Audiophile, 10 Audio).

 

Stereophile and AnalogPlanet are little more than trade "advertorial" vehicles. I would guess that Steve Guttenberg, through his videos and articles on CNet, drives much more traffic on his own than all of the writers combined on Stereophile and AP.

The consumer elites of the audio world really don't need the sales vehicles that are those publications anyway. There are so many better ways to learn about the upper reaches of audiophilia that it makes little sense for them to exist anymore. What I would love to see is someone, ANYONE, who would conduct real testing and evaluation, Consumer Reports style, of audio gear. It won't happen, but one can dream.

 

Consumer Reports is a rag!

 

That’s too bad. As someone else said, if the new owners can Art D. I will be done with Stereophile. However, that’s unlikely and no one else there is critical in my opinion. And I do think it is important to support the few decent paper magazines that remain. Absolute Sound is worthless as far as I am concerned.

With few exceptions the online mags are of little interest to me. Part-time Audiophile is the main exception.

 

In my little audio world, I'm not sure what affect this will have on me. As a teenager in the 70's I used to subscribe to Stereo Review and others, I loved looking and reading about the gear and dreaming that when I get a real job I'm buying that krapp!!

After 30+ years of not getting those mags I subscribed again 2yrs ago.........I don't like them anymore as all you read and see is the uber expensive gear that I have yet to see anyone here own. I'm tired of reading about $50K amps, $30K speakers and $15K phono stages.

Hopefully the mags/publications get some kind of makeover, some of those guys are getting way too long in the tooth......Who is going to replace them?? Or does anyone want to replace someone like Fremer? Does he and others have understudies??

 

Wow. My Absolute Sound subscription just expired and I was going to give a Stereophile a try. Almost wrote the check!

 

Columnist Herb Reichert's FB page.

 

I have been reading Stereophile via free digital (Zinio) for a couple of years, and recently got an offer in the mail to subscribe to the print edition for around $7/year. Even that was too expensive for me. I agree with others that too much of the content is tuned for the very expensive gear. I typically would look immediately at the price of the gear on page one of each review, and it was out of my range, I would quickly skip through to the next article. Doing that, I generally get through a Stereophile issue in half-an-hour or less, and that includes Zinio's very sluggish interface, waiting for next pages to load, etc. I would consider subscribing to a "Budget Audiophile" magazine, though, aimed at those who spend perhaps $10-15,000 max. on their audio system, with features on "giant-killer" $2,000 systems, $5,000 systems, etc. ...

Craig.

 

+1.

 

$7 a year is too expensive? No wonder print magazines and physical music is dying.

 

I am a subscriber to Stereophile and have been for many years. It seems like in the past few years Stereophile has been sending me constant notices to try to get me to convert to the online edition (instead of the regular print magazine).

Scott