sc53 wrote:
What are "buff books?" Is this a Britishism?
Not if I wrote it, I live in the US.
It is a magazine trade phrase. For reasons long lost in the history,
magazine folks call them books. Buff books are for fans of an area.
Car and Driver, Road and Track, Automobile are US car oriented 'buff
books' altho they have different aims and interests than something like
Hot Rod.
Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, The Audiophile Voice and others are
buff books about stereo, while The Absolute Vision is about home theater.
Buff books tend to have limited advertisement scope/variety, all the ads
in Stereophile are for hi-fi gear. Contrast this to the ads in a general
circulation magazine like Time or Newsweek or even Sports Illustrated.
The big worry/complaint about buff books is that they tend to be
uncritical in their copy and reviews, as they depend on the advertizers
of totally non-essential goods for their business model. They rarely say
that $5000 interconnects are a waste of money. Some do, however, leave
hints for the careful reader.
I think it was Stereophile about a year ago that compared a bunch of
megadollar speaker cables, and included a $20 extension cord from Home
Depot. The difference was inaudible. They left it to the reader to
judge whether or not spending $500 or a grand was cost effective.
--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html
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