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Cover me: the best covers

By Michael Jones

December 2006

From November 1986 through to March 1998 AudioEnz was a printed magazine, under the name Zounds, AudioVideo and finally AudioEnz. Here are some of my favourite issues.

December 1986

In November 1986 I picked up the first issue of my magazine from the printer in Lower Hutt. The 3000 (I think) copies certainly weighed down the dodgy springs in my dodgy Morris Marina.

Dated December 1986, the first issue was a massive 12 pages in A4 size. It was “all my own work”, with every word, bar a letter to the editor written by future reviewer, Wellington Audio Club president Charles Thomson, coming from my pen. Quite literally a pen too – these were the days before desktop publishing.

The front cover featured a phono cartridge for the first and last time. From memory, the Ortofon MC20 Super was a sample loaned by then distributor AWA to the Wellington Audio Club, which then fell into my hands. Also reviewed in this short issue is the Sony 502ES mk2 CD player, beginning a fascination with top Sony CD players that lasted for over a decade.

December 1987

A year on, with many ups and down. The name of the magazine was changed, as I was fed up with so many people telling me that the name Zounds was silly. One farsighted realisation was the early realisation that audio and video would be co-mingling in the future; hence the adoption of the name AudioVideo.

The December 1987 issue is notable for my first ever home theatre review – well before the phrase “home theatre” had been invented. My attempt at a descriptive term, “vaudeo”, was thankfully never to be seen again.

The home theatre product reviewed was the Shure HTS 5000 Dolby Surround processor. This device, released before Pro Logic was devised, retailed for $2200 – a serious amount of money back then. And that was for just the processor – no amplifiers included.

For the Shure processor review it was not enough just to try the device at home. With the help of Darrell Ramsey from Wellington retailer Absolute Audio supplying many amps and speakers, members of the Wellington Audio Club were treated to their first experience of home theatre surround sound. “The videos [VHS tapes back then] included Return of the Jedi, Top Gun, Amadeus and Back to the Future. And the sound was terrific. From comments afterwards it was obvious that no one was expecting the sound to be so good and the movies to be so engrossing when seen yet again. And the subwoofer was working overtime.”

Seems some things never change!

April 1988

After a number of issues printed on newsprint, we were at last back to some decent gloss paper. Now up to 24 pages, AudioVideo had regular advertising from Paul Quilter’s The Listening Post, Linn, Darrell and Lorraine Ramsey’s Absolute Audio, Phil McIsaac’s Smiths Sound, Chris Ball’s Monitor Acoustics (now Image Loudspeakers), Manawatu TV & Sound, Chris Murphy’s NA Distributors (Naim) and AWA, the then KEF distributor. Without these companies (and more specifically, the individuals involved) you would not be reading this today.

Reviewed in this issue were the Systemdek turntable featured on the cover, plus a Plinius 3100 power amp. But to me the best part of this issue is an interview with amplifier designer Gary Morrison. Gary, a talented designer building Craft Audio amplifiers, was just about to join forces with Plinius Audio’s Peter Thomson.

April 1993

One of the biggest (at 56 pages) and most controversial issues of AudioVideo. This and the previous 64-page issue were probably the high point of AudioVideo magazine. With the help of graphic designer Colin Saussey, I had redesigned the logo and look of the magazine for 1993, and was very proud of my work.

The first controversy was over my cover story, “How your hi-fi can affect music’s pace, rhythm and timing”, or “The Story of PRAT”. For several years I had been aware that different hi-fi equipment could affect our perceptions of the pacing and rhythms within music. Recent writings in UK hi-fi magazines had helped crystallise my thoughts and prompted my article. “Jonesey, you’re the bloody prat” was one reaction from a member of the trade (Hi Frank).

The other controversy appeared in our letters section. A letter writer complained about some New Zealand products being modified within months of their introduction, suggesting that the designs had not been properly finished prior to release. It was a view I had some sympathy with, seeing this pattern as using early purchasers as unwilling beta testers. A belligerent response to the letter from the then Plinius distributor inflamed the situation.

August 1995

The final issue of AudioVideo appeared in 1995 and included the only review of a Shahinian loudspeaker (featured on the front cover) that we ever did. The review of the Shahinian Arc loudspeakers was, I always thought, one of my finest pieces of audio writing. And, after more than a decade, the speakers are one review subject that I remember with great fondness.

The stunning photography of the Shahinian Arc’s was by my friend Lloyd Macomber, who was responsible for many AudioVideo covers. The photos were taken at the back of Soundline Audio in Auckland, then located in K Road.

Further inside the magazine, Lloyd wrote about the Audiolab 8000T tuner – still, a decade on, a highly desirable product. Lloyd was very busy in this issue, also writing about the Epos ES25 and Near 10m loudspeakers. Max Christoffersen reviewed a complete Energy home theatre speaker package and contributed a think-piece called The Way We Were about our first stereo systems: “Talk to anyone who grew up with an AWA Series 9, Pye Iso-Tronic, Akai Pro-Lab or Philips 3-in-1 and chances are the discussion will turn to the pure fun those early systems brought their owners.” The way we were, indeed.

This final issue of AudioVideo has long been a favourite of mine.

May 1996

The very first magazine with the name AudioEnz appear in 1996, less than a year after the last AudioVideo. AudioEnz was designed specifically to have much lower production costs than AudioVideo – the print numbers went down from 10,000 to 4000 and the magazine was printed in a single colour rather than including full colour sections.

It was graphic designer Colin Saussey that came up with the wonderful idea of using darker Pantone inks instead of black for the single colour. The dark ink made the text look black, while the colour added depth to the images. Plus it made AudioEnz look much more expensive than it really was.

The cover story was on recommended CD players. My writers and I chose a number of CD players that we could happily recommend. Plus I asked a number of retailers for their choices and the reasons why they chose them. I still use the same format in the favourites section of AudioEnz online.

The May issue also saw the debut of an “anti-audiophile” column. Written by Darren Knight under the name “The Sonic Gladiator”, Darren’s role was to poke the piss at some audiophile practises and attitudes. Around two-thirds of AudioEnz readers loved the Sonic Gladiator columns, while a third absolutely hated them, suggesting that Darren pitched his column contents perfectly.

March 1997

“Final Vinyl?” was the heading on this 1997 magazine, as I truly believed at the time that AudioEnz would be featuring little in the way of vinyl playback equipment in future issues. How wrong that prediction turned out to be!

The front picture was a fully loaded Linn (Sondek, Ekos, Troika) brought along to the photographer’s studio by Linn distributor Dean Harnish. I watched in horror as the tonearm was bumped and leaped into the air, to crash the cartridge cantilever down on the record. Much to my relief, Dean assured me that the expensive Troika he had brought along was already a knackered sample.

Inside this magazine I take issue with Consumer magazine. A “test” in a recent Consumer was on the subject of loudspeakers, yet not once did they discuss the sound of any speakers – surely the whole point of differentiating between speakers. A friend of mine once told me that he had trusted Consumer completely until they wrote on a subject he knew about. Once he saw how they got one subject completely wrong, he harboured doubts about the rest of their tests. Same here.

Also in the March issue Max Christoffersen writes out very first review on a Dolby Digital amplifier – a Yamaha 3090. Yes, it’s less than a decade that Dolby Digital has been available in the home. Back then it was only of use to laserdisc owners. DVD was still a year away.

March 1998

The very last print edition of AudioEnz came out some eight and a half years ago, but it sure doesn’t seem that long ago.

On the cover was a notable event in home theatre – the new Zealand launch of DVD players. Thanks to Pete Tilsley, the Pioneer product manager of Pioneer distributor Monaco, AudioEnz was able to grab a Pioneer DV-505 DVD player and borrow a few discs. And who better to write about the new format than John Paul, a man who has worked in pro video and audio for most of his life.

John took the DV-505 into work and hooked it up to grade one (mega-expensive) calibrated video monitors. Compared to the VHS machines that us poor consumers had at the time, the picture improvement was remarkable.

The other article in the March 1998 issue that strikes my fancy was a (then unknown) pointer to my future publishing efforts. Owen Young wrote an article on audio in cyberspace, outlining some of the early websites and discussion groups on the internet. I didn’t know it then, but my future lay online.