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Posted by Romy the Cat on
11-06-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d A site reader sent me email that Harry Pearson died last
night. It is sad news and my condolences to his beloved, relatives, friends and
the people who knew him personally. The internet
audio sites are full of tributes to Harry
Pearson and this is probably a good thing but among all that universal "fashionable"
worshiping of HP legacy many things get overlooked. For instance the TAS's "writer"
Mike Framer published his teary piece:
http://www.analogplanet.com/content/audio-legend-harry-pearson-passes-away
…that sound like a nice combination of words if to recognize
the nature of the facts. What was overlooked by Mr. Framer is that Harry Pearson
walked away from TAS with very specific blame of the TAS rats, he felt that TAS
got converted into a publication that he personally would never buy of read
himself – a very serious charge from my point of view and something that the industry
people today capitalizing on HP memories shall be very much consider. Do not
get me wrong. I did not take the Harry Pearson departure from TAS very seriously;
neither have I considered that Mr. Pearson was too much conscious of what he
was doing. He had a direction to flow at this time, he went for it and it happed
that it was not in TAS direction, who cares? Let presume that we care about quality
of play more than we care about the wellbeing of the actors and let to elevate our
horizons a little bit higher.
Today a lot of heard about Harry Pearson as the founder of
the high-end audio industry, the owner of "Gold Standard” of audio
journalism, invention of audio vocabulary and many other things that the feeble minds in audio feel that it was "given
to them" by HP. The irony is that they are very right – they bought in into
superficial, lightweight and mostly misleading high-end audio concept and they
have no own sensitivity or brain to undusted that the industry "best
intention", like cancer metastases have
conquested and have converted the industry consummates into a pile of dead cells.
I very much do not think that the high-end audio industry that we have it today
was something that HP envisioned in 60s but for sure all his life he was VERY instrumental
to shape the official audio into the format that we have today.
So, could a professional legacy of HP be evaluated by the retardness
of his professional survives? Well, let look into it. The "great"
industry that HP created (which is very much not true, he just was selling the concept
that have existed long before he was born) never was able to identify a
definition of "audio quality". As today there is no universal, meaningful,
truly objective audio quality assessment test, who would believe that 50 year
after HP's "invention" of the industry we still have this situation? One
of the most unfortunate HP accomplishment in his professional life was that
fact that he polarized a propagation of the audio idea around a group of selected
representatives. It was not the people who were educated by HP machinery but rather
people were converted into a silent flock who supposed to brainlessly pursue
the imaginary windmills that the "representatives" (or the "high
priests" of audio: magazine and sites editors, reviewers, dealer and the
rest of audio dirt) appointed them to follow. And, Oh, Boy, an Harry Pearson
LOVED to be the one who declared monthly marketing revolutions and kept promoting
new and new pointless products and idea. For sure many today no nothing better than
to imitate him and consider him as "godfather". Sure it was entertaining and sure the audio
maker love to ride that thread but, sorry, it had very little to do with growing
understanding of True Audio in people but instead it was about building up Artificial
Audio understanding around himself and solely for the sake of serving the own club
interests. The today level of official public
audio thinking is a very direct harvest of what Mr. Pearson have seeded and
cultivated for years and years. Sorry, I am not impressed but rather hugely disappointed.
With all my critical appraisal of Harry Pearson's audio endeavor
his death it is for sure at personal level is a very tragic and very
unfortunate news.
Rgs, Romy the Cat
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Posted by Paul S on
11-06-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d Unlike most audio writing, a good winnowing of HP's work at least results in something of substance, IMO. Unfortunately, use of his ideas has been fairly indiscriminate to date (including by HP himself...), and there is no reason to believe it will get any better from here on out. Sure, he tried to cash in; but, we can't hold that against him, can we? And, naturally, things quickly got out of hand, as ever.
I'm guessing people are already starting to lay outright claim to pieces and parts of HP, either for self-promotion or to promote ideas they ascribe to him, as they've done with Harvey Rosenberg, and innumerable others. While this is not unique to audio, "we" are notable (if not singular) in our rudderless approach to our pastime, making us particularly susceptible to idol worship.
As for HP's "actual legacy", why would there be any "progress" based on HP's percepts, when HP himself was "at his best" when "channeling", like the Oracle at Delphi, or Nostradamus? No, it will ever be up to "the reader" to make the most of rare opportunities afforded by others in audio. This means, I'm afraid, that we're still on our own, each of us, HPs contributions notwithstanding.
May he rest in peace.
Paul S
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Posted by rowuk on
11-06-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d
Granted, there are those that were involved at some point in time with HP and most of us read his stuff for what ever reason but why do we need a legacy?
What did he leave behind of note?
HP has no legacy for me. He was a successful journalist for much of his career and was for sure able to combine hobby and job for his own pleasure. That's it. I read his magazines/articles for a while, but never bought anything based on the reviews because they never made sense to me.
So, my condolences to his family, may he rest in peace and hopefully his estate is organized. I will not be watching E'bay for deals.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
11-06-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d Rowuk, I think you are missing the point. No one judge him
as journalist who combine hobby and pleasure or judge him on any other matter.
The person has passed away. However, it is not the HP the Person who has a
legacy but a functional entity that HP took for years in one way or another
shaping and running the industry. The absence of any more or less civilized critiques
in audio is a part of his legacy. The idiotic integration of manufactures and revisers
is his legacy. Disability of majority of audio people to talk about sound and
if they do then to use meaningless vocabulary is his legacy. An army of directionless
individual who unable navigate own audio actions unit somebody stick their
noise is his legacy. Absurd amount of retards who fancy them audio journalist today
– they are all his legacy. A very severe shortage of manufactures whop actually
have own identity, integrity and ability to expels anything in audio is also
HP's legacy and he was the one who for year breed mediocrity among audio maker
and substituted it with own marketing Vaseline. So, if
you feel that you never was exposed to mentioned above then you indeed did not
deal with HP legacy. I need to say that I do not "blame" HP personally
in above and in many other aspects I do not like in "his" Hight-End
Audio but he for sure was a very visible figure and very much enabler.
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Posted by clarkjohnsen on
11-06-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d I like what Romy has written. It's clear to me that Harry fell into a role he had neither created nor perhaps even wished, and he stepped away when he realized what had become of it all. (Not to forget his inept business management.)
I've written my own, highly unusual appreciation, soon to be published in Positive Feedback; I'll alert y'all when it's out.
clark
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Posted by Paul S on
11-06-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d I have to say, despite Mike basically co-opting Harry's spotlight, the piece was +/- honest, and I (re)learned a few things.
Something MF makes clear: even HP was not more than a bellwether, once the "industry" really took notice of him.
I'd somehow forgotten that David Wilson once wrote for Absolute Sound; but this example also tells us much about "our industry", and HP's place in "shaping" it, I think.
Paul S
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Posted by Stitch on
11-07-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
11-10-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d Stitch, you do have a talent in visual form,
the image depicts the situation ridiculously accurate.
BTW, I took quite a lot of interest to read the
comments at different sites from different people regarding the Mr. Pearson departure. Many people presented the ironically
the same ides over and over again – they were regular "civilians" and
then many year back they discovered one of the audio publication that suddenly aroused
them to practice audio. Again, it is so much different from anything else. If
you are mountain climber, or sailboat racer or caves explorer, or poker player,
or vodka dinkier or anything else the makes you happy then you have interest
first and then you might discover a community with all those magazines and frameworks
to support you "hobby". In high end audio it looks like it very opposite.
Most of the people had no interest to enrich own like with playback experiences
but they read a glossy magazine that told them that by buying some "special"
magazine-approved boxes then they can get some "extra from life". I guess
then if we had no audio publication then we had no people interested in better
sound reproduction. Well, for sure we would have less idiots in audio and perhaps
of audio critiques had no diplomas and credentials that Mr. Pearson, Mr.
Holt and alike have invented for them we would not have the horrible state of audio and we have it
today….
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Posted by clarkjohnsen on
11-10-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d From Clark Johnsen's Diaries: When Harry Met Clarkie, or, Harry Pearson, R.I.P.
(Only my oldest, dearest friends call me "Clarkie", so be careful – but it does make for a better title, so, yeah. / The author)
When I first met Harry it was on the lawn of the St. Tropez Hotel at a C.E.S. some years ago. But we had had a history that, in its various intrigues, seems worth recounting, now that the grand old man is gone and unable to be embarrassed by some bad behavior. But we made up and even exchanged friendly e-letters later.
http://positive-feedback.com/Issue76/clark_pearson.htm
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
11-19-2014
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fiogf49gjkf0d TAS created a page with industry players play tribute to HP,
a good deserving thing.
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/tribute/harry-pearson/
It however ironic to read some of the comments as they exactly
describe what HP was truly great. The estimable Bob Carver before TAS was TV technician
who make a very loud reputation among his colleges as he was able to visit a customer,
to make some tweaks of TV and make TV to performer as it was fixed as that
parts were replaced. According to his colleges Carver those years did make a
name as TV reaper con artist. Then TAS pop up at his horizon. Bob Carver writes:
"When Harry reviewed my Phase Linear 700 amplifier in the premiere issue
of TAS, he launched me with such power and authority that I was able to
start a company and never look back." Yes, HP was able to do it, thankfully the
high-end audio has plenty of Morons out there who feel that practicing audio
means to get a periodic publication and to run rendering the recommendations of
the month. Oh, well….
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