J. Gordon Holt's Passing
I first met J. Gordon Holt at a CES show. I have no idea what year. I suspect he was going out for a smoke break and I joined him. Our conversation invariably drifted into recording, which he was passionate about. When I moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1991 I visited Gordon in preparation to interview him for The Absolute Sound. The interview never happened. Subsequently I did interview Gordon for Stereophile. The entire interview is posted on their website.
Soon after we met we started recording the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra and found it rather inconvenient writing for rival publications, so I went over to Stereophile with Gordon’s help. For the next fourteen years we faithfully recorded every Boulder Phil concert and spent many hours in the recording booth (actually a converted dressing room in Mackie Auditorium) talking, eating, drinking, and enjoying the opportunity to have an entire symphony orchestra in our microphones.
One of Gordon’s most compelling character traits was his unceasing curiosity. UP to the day he died he was still active on the Internet researching whatever caught his intellectual fancy. Also Gordon loved music, not all kinds of music; but nearly anything performed by a symphony orchestra. He was not, contrary to what you might expect, enamored by audio gear. He saw stereo systems as a necessary evil rather than a collection of objects to be treasured. When I rewired his system one time he immediately admitted that the new cable made a difference and did sound better, but he didn’t like the fact that it did.
As to J. Gordon Holt’s place in audio history, it’s very simple – without him high end audio as we know it today would not exist. The minute anyone starts to describe the sonic characteristics of a piece of audio gear, they owe most of the terms and intellectual methodology to J. Gordon Holt. He was the first person to ever write that components could and did sound different from one another. Any audiophile who hasn’t read any of Gordon’s reviews is as ignorant as an English major who’s never read Hemmingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald.
To call J. Gordon a giant of the audio industry does him a disservice. He was a giant in all aspects of his life, and will be sorely missed by everyone who had the chance to know him.
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Comments
God bless him. Feisty and grounded, with a hyperactive BS detector.
Can't think of any current writer with his combination of qualities.
A few years ago I thought, maybe Corey Greenburg, but he didn't have the depth.
When we talk about Gordon's contribution to high-end audio, it's obvious that the word “contribution” is far too weak; Gordon created, from scratch, the entire field of subjective audio reviewing. He was the first writer to honestly describe how products sounded, and to elevate the listening experience over measured performance. As such, Gordon had to invent an entirely new language to convey to the reader how an audio component interpreted the musical experience. It’s that language that we use today—and take for granted.
Gordon’s writing was a model of concision and clarity. He had the ability to explain in a sentence what many writers failed to convey in a page. I had the great fortune of working with Gordon as Stereophile’s Technical Editor from 1989–1997. On a personal level, he was a role model and mentor. In the larger view, the high-end audio industry wouldn’t exist as it does today without J. Gordon Holt.
It was "the day". Double KLH 9's and Marantz 9s, McIntosh and Bozak and a host of others that made us smile. We read his words and followed them like they were precious trail droppings, always leading us to the next morsel to nourish our unquenchable curiosity as the hobby evolved. As many have noted he was an excellent teacher, even when cranky, and tried to objectify his observations with nomenclature (often novel) and benchmarks that are still valid today. His perspective encompassed both the science and the art of the hobby. J Gordon Holt didn't create audiophiles, but he sure as hell tried to make us wiser and more articulate. He will be missed. RIP
Clearly one of Hi-fi's High End's Guru of Guru's! May he RIP.
I was very saddened to hear about Mr. Holts passing. Harry (Pearson) did me the favor of introducing us years ago, when I was still a teenager, trying to figure out this crazy world of Hi-fi. Mr. Holt always had something to teach me when we spoke, and I regret not reaching out to him more. When I went to work for Arif Mardin at Atlantic Records he seemed almost as excited as I was, claiming the experience would be a better teacher for me than anything in the Hi-fi press. We had some great conversations about recording, and artists, and I could never get him to spend much time discussing pop music (my favorite), but I cherished every moment. We've lost a warrior and a pioneer.
I am very grateful for these pictures. Thank you. I always wondered how JGH was doing in since leaving Stereophile and TAS, and I hope he lived his remaining years peacefully and happy. The last picture in incredibly affecting, and I can barely contain my emotions. Mortality sucks. What's almost as depressing is the reality that there is so little about his passing on the Web, let alone Wikipedia or elsewhere. It's a shame that there isn't something more cohesive than our memories in existence to extol this man.
I met JGH very briefly in 1993 at CES, and he was a very humble, but a very 'electric' and intriguing man to be around, and his physical stature was a bit of a shock, given the austere and powerful picture that in Stereophile I always remember him by. I really miss his reviews, especially since he STILL had vision regarding audio reproduction. And while I wasn't interested in any way in surround sound, I was stunned by what I (too) heard when I received the priveledge to sneak preview the Audio Research SDP-1 at a local retailer, days after I read the review he wrote in 1995. Hearing the soundstage open up IN FRONT of me (as well as in back of the speakers) was a true revelation, and I often wonder if that processor is still as stunning as it was 15 years ago. Knowing ARC gear, I'm sure it is.
It's a bit of shame that JGH left Stereophile, because it seemed to me that a lot of his supposed issues with JA's editorship seemed a wee selfish and unfounded. I always felt that the magazine's inherent format allowed for very differing views, and I wished JGH had a column like HP does now in TAS. I love both of the major magazines, and I look forward to Mr. Harley doing a full article on Mr. Holt.
-Glotz
I acknowledge all the great technical accomplishments but I was just a friend with a tin ear who loved the many evenings of great food (and drink), laughter, and the enjoyment of the antics of the Holt menagrie of Rex cats and reptiles. Charles my sympathy to you and all Gordon's many friends. Paul Beach
Hello all,
It is ironic that Gordon passed on at this time for me. Just ten years ago I sent a very long letter to Stereophile to do two things. First, I wanted to say goodbye as JGH left SP and also, to discuss my audio upbringing and how I felt after 40 years of stores, gear, tests and music. I had intended to write JA just this month when I hears the news. I owe Gordon a great debt. I was a 16 year old teenager who, although very technically literate, had not a clue about good sound reproduction. Then I stumbled on a new audio magazine while at a firends house. Siting on a coffee table in front of his father's chair in front of a huge speaker (just one... mono) was a very early edition of Stereophile. That started it... I have had countless hours of great listening, and the adventure of finding and trying out all those amps, speakers, turntables, wires and preamps as a result of that first discovery.
My only regret is that I never met the man. I would have enjoyed that a lot... RIP biggest of audio dudes...
Regards, Jim Lawrence