Roy Gregory new VP of Marketing at Nordost!!!
mcduman -- Mon, 05/25/2009 - 14:03
This move is so representative of everything going wrong in this industry and so appalling and so tasteless that i am speechless. The whole hi-fi publishing business sinks to new low with this move ironically by one of the best writers around.
Poor corporate governance, irresponsible journalism, abuse of power and assault on the intelligence and good faith of thousands of readers and industry insiders alike, total lack of integrity and respect. And happening at the only magazine that i follow regularly. This is more than a cancel my subscription note. it really hurts...
i am sure roy will reconsider
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Dear mcdurman,
Sorry you feel so upset about Roy's change of role. Please note that he did not immediately leave Hi-Fi Plus to work for Nordost. To the best of my knowledge, his original intent was to pursue another career in audio, possibly something to do with RMAF. I was hired as Roy's replacement during the January CES, took on the role in early February, and Roy officially joined Nordost early April, after a meeting in March.
Such moves, though not exactly commonplace, do occur in a specialist industry. And they often occur when a reviewer is passionate enough about a product to make it justify a change in career. That doesn't make such moves 'look nice' to readers, especially as often that reviewer has been a loyal supporter of the product prior to the move. But they are often not as malign as seen from the outside. I would prefer to have a magazine with no such accommodations. But as such accommodations are almost an inevitability within the industry, I prefer them in the open, which is why I chose to 'out' his association with Nordost in my editorial.
I hope this goes someway to restoring your faith in Hi-Fi Plus magazine.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Good for Roy and I don't feel slighted in the least by this move. I think that the conflict comes when we as readers/consumers ask our reviewers to choose our equipment for us and thus divest all of our own personal responsibility for our own choices. The main thing I get from reveiws is the ability to experience other bits of audio bliss without making a purchase and most importantly some choice ideas for new music. Now I have used some reviews to gather information for purchases but not whether something sounded "good" or "bad" but by charcteristics of it's sound. A reviewer may hate something that is just what I am looking for. It's a small industry, people move around. Again, good for Roy, I will miss his reviews.
Dear Alan,
Having read issue 65 of hi-fi+, I must say I am now more confident the magazine will thrive under your command. Kudos for a very good number and all the best for the future.
I wish I could see roy’s move in the same light as you or some others, though. Then my confidence in the hi-fi publishing business could somehow be restored. Manufacturers and magazines already have an intertwined relationship that upset readers. Correlation between ad revenues and number of positive reviews, industry accommodation prices and all that. At a time when editors of hi-end magazines are working overtime to convince readers (sometimes with little success) that chinese walls do indeed exist, why add a new layer of uncertainty (and to the paranoia of the readers) with such a move?
You gave a very good review to the sennheisers in the last issue, what is going to stop me from suspecting you have something with them behind closed doors if your career could progress easily from editor to vp of marketing with sennheiser? It should not. Else, it will detract from the beauty of that review and the beauty of the product itself. It will be different game of interests.
I cannot see roy’s buddies in the magazine or in the sector not giving/receiving little favors and that’s not nice however you look at it. May be, nordost can even quote roy, their own head of marketing, in their ads in hi-fi+, next to roy’s column in the same magazine. What a wonderful world.
And strategically thinking, I cannot think of any other cable company that has garnered as much positive coverage in all hi-fi press as nordost from the spm days to valhalla then to odin. Why would such a successful (!) company with a stream of ground-breaking, world changing (!) products need such a dramatic restructuring in their marketing department? Time will tell.
I am happy that roy could turn a passion of his into reality though. I am guessing he will continue to fulfill other dreams including childhood ones like selling cd’s at a record store, or sweeping floors at a studio in reverse chronological order just like benjamin fucking button. That would not surprise me as much as this one.
I don't understand what the fuss is all about. Reviewer waxes lyrical about product Y. This may be because he loves it or because he's getting paid by the manufacturer or because the manufacturer is supporting the magazine with advertising. Some people automatically assume a vested interest on the part of the reviewer / magazine. Whatever the case, any would-be purchaser must listen to the product in question and make his/her own mind before buying. Taking reviewer's X word for it, buying the product blind then crying foul play is ridiculous. Magazines are just guides to what's available and provide some means to make up a short list of eqpt to audition, nothing more.
It does not make the Nordosts any better or worse, now that they have RG working for them. If you liked them before, then you will still do. If you didn't, nothing will change. RG is lucky to be working for a company that manufactures products he loves and used to recommend. Now he gets paid for recommending them :) If you were Nordost, wouldn't you like it that your vp of marketing loves the product?
Finally, RG got a lot of stick for his admiration of Nordost. Let's not forget that there are countless reviewers, in all magazines (including HP), that use Nordost as their reference cable, that Nordost cabling was pretty evident in many CES rooms (perhaps they bribed the manufacturers to hook up their systems!) and that at least one Nordost model is on the recommended list of most magazines in the world.
For starters, none of the equipment I currently own has ever been reviewed in the tas group of magazines and, for a while now, I follow the audiophile press solely for its entertainment value rather than its recommendations. I also count myself fortunate to have owned some of the best-regarded cabling systems from nordost including Valhalla and odin and I think I know exactly what they sound like or which audiophiles will like them best. But that is not what I was talking about.
I see here a conflict of interest in the highest order. Think for instance, in the absence of a better example, a politician playing the dual role (although not simultaneously) of secretary of defense and ceo of an oilfield services company. Then think some more
Of course roy is not dick and this is nothing in the great scheme of things, but some roles are by definition contradictory and under no circumstances should one normalize roy’s behavior.
Some people have become really callous (in the absence of a better word)
Skipping over recent political history for a moment, your analogy bears closer investigation.
Someone taken on as secretary of defense would be expected to have some understanding of defense before they were appointed. That immediately limits the pool of prospective holders of that particular office. If the newly-appointed secretary of defense was, say, the current editor of Jane's Defense Weekly and a well-known supporter of that administration, it might invite a degree of skepticism. It might also suggest that the now secretary of defense's support of that administration while in the chair at Jane's was politically motivated.
However, such suggestions could also be nothing more than a post hoc fallacy.
Here's why. The editor of Jane's has been a supporter of the concepts underlying those adopted by the administration long before it became an administration. The portfolio of skills held by that editor of Jane's are precisely those required by the administration for the post of secretary of defense. By being editor of Jane's, the new secretary of defense has already been privy to aspects of the defense world that were unlikely to be readily available to other applicants. The editor of Jane's had been in the post for some not inconsiderable time and recently made it clear within the defense industry that they wished to put their somewhat specialist skills to good use outside of the publishing business, when the opportunity arose. However, the editor of Jane's also wished to continue to lend the magazine their years of experience in print, with the proviso made clear from the outset that any material written by the secretary of defense is not to be in conflict with their political appointment.
In the small world of specialty audio, my secretary of defense analogy fits snugly with the current situation at Hi-Fi Plus; simply substitute job titles, magazine titles and replace the word 'administration' with 'company'.
This is not without considerable precedent. Here in the UK, Boris Johnson was editor of The Spectator from 1999-2005. He was also elected Member of Parliament for Henley in 2001. In other words, a serving Tory politician was editing a magazine about politics for four years without people considering it a conflict of interests. He eventually left the magazine because he was promoted to Shadow Minister of Higher Education (and subsequently elected Mayor of London), which placed increasingly greater demands upon his time.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
it seems we need an "oath of office" in the hi-fi business these days :-)
i will not take this any further as the new editor appears to be happy with the current situation. thanks for taking the trouble to write by the way. apparently only a few of us cared. it is nice to be heard on these matters.
now, about the quality of printing paper for the upcoming issues of hi-fi+...
I think we need to show some more respect and thanks to Roy. I read some old Hi-Fi Plus magazines during the Chrismas days and I noticed two things.
The first was that the guy wrote the most informative articles in the industry. I read a lot of reviews and after reading them I still don't know how the equipment sounds. Not with Roy. This way of writing can only be done, if you put the reader first. Yes, you review a product, but the reader has to understand what you are hearing. Not a easy task and a lot of reviewers fail, since they put the equipment first. This alone shows the greatness of the man.
The second thing was that he introduced a lot of innovative things in the magazine. He let reviewers designed a system and had it reviewed by other reviewers, he gave us great insight in the "art of cabling (power cords first!)", system matching and upgrade options.
His love for Nordost was well known but was never to much. So it's sad to see him step down, (the new Mr Plus has some big steps to fullfill) but I wish him all the best in in his new position.
Now if he could only drop the prices on those Valhalla cables.....
I think Roy was the most incisive and one of the best writers ever in the audio world press. I trusted his insight completely. Please try to replicate this going forward!!
Add me to the list of RG admirers - I learned much from his 2008 RMAF seminar. I hope he keeps wrting articles for HiFi+.
Len