WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO

My name is Mario Bruneau. I am a professional webmaster and Internet Marketing specialist. But I'm also a professional musician. I play and compose on piano and the accordion. In 2004, the author of the articles pertaining to musical instruments in the printed magazine UHFmag Reine Lessard conducted an interview in my home in Dunham, Quebec for the accordion article published on the #73 issue of UHF magazine. This was my first time meeting with Gerard Rejskind and Reine Lessard and since then we became good friends. Reine passed away in 2016 and we just lost Gerard Rejskind last December 7th 2023. My goal here is to continue the tremendous work Gerard Rejskind as undertake since 1982 about the HIFI high-end world of audio equipment.

Richard L. Hardesty's Audio Perfectionist

When Richard L. “Dick” Hardesty passed away in August of 2014, audio enthusiasts everywhere lost one of their finest teachers and fiercest advocates. First as a retailer and then as a writer Dick was a consummate educator who excelled at making complex concepts understandable to virtually anyone. His sharp intellect and deep understanding of electronics and engineering helped legions of customers and readers assemble stereo systems capable of providing profound emotional satisfaction for many years.
Richard's legacy need to survive and one of this website's missions is to make this knowledge available to public again.

You can contact me at mb@mariobruneau.com

UHF

HISTORY

uhfmag since 1982

UHF began life in 1982 under a different name, Hi-Fi Sound Magazine. The name had a good reason for being--it was the English language edition of a then-successful French Quebec magazine called "Son Hi-Fi." Like its French cousin, HFS distinguished itself by having a clear point of view, by standing firmly in favour of true high fidelity rather than just "consumer electronics." Since it regularly took stands ("that must be an expensive hobby," commented one reader), it made enemies. And a lot of friends. But, initially, not quite enough to make money.

In 1984 HFS was bought by Broadcast Canada, a company owned by editor-in-chief Gerard Rejskind. Son Hi-Fi was offered as part of the same deal, but was eventually sold to a different purchaser. In order to sever the (apparent) connection to its former sister publication, HFS, in 1989, adopted its present name, UHF.

UHF magazine logoAt the same time, it launched a French-language edition, ULTRA. Despite a good-sized readership, ULTRA was affected by the shrinking amount of audio advertising, and it was killed off in 1993 after 13 regular issues and two special issues.

It was in the 1980s that The Audiophile Store was added to the magazine. We then carried just one record label (Opus3), but that quickly grew. Today the store lists products from numerous manufacturers (including UHF itself), from many sources. Because the store lists only recommended products, it is easy to avoid conflicts of interest. Indeed, the store is the key to the magazine's independence: each magazine includes advertising pages that no one could take away from us.

UHF went on line in the summer of 1996. From the start the Web site was a success, quickly reaching traffic of some 2500 hits a day. Traffic has since grown threefold, and we became as much an Internet company as a print publisher.

Gerard RejskindToday, UHF continues as a national and international magazine of genuine high fidelity. Though most of its readers are in Canada, UHF fans can be found in the US, South and Central America, Africa, Europe, Oceania Asia...all of the continents except Antarctica. The magazine's philosophy remains unchanged.

From the very start, UHF had a clear point of view. That point of view determines the sort of articles it publishes, but also the way that equipment tests are done.

  • The most important aspect of high fidelity is the faithful reproduction of musical values (melody, rhythm, harmony, etc.), which must come before the reproduction of purely sonic aspects (bass, treble, liquidity, "air," etc.).
  • Those aspects cannot be judged in a quick "A-B" test, nor in such variants as the "A-B-X" test. Such tests prove little, and indeed they are in violation of the scientific range rule: a system under test must be tested within the parameters within which it was designed to operate.
  • There is little point in making improvements in a system whose source is deficient. The best loudspeaker cannot reduce distortion caused by the source, nor can it replace detail the source was unable to resolve. A terrific source heard through a ghetto blaster will sound better than a ghetto blaster plugged into the world's best amplifier and speakers.
  • Notwithstanding what is often written elsewhere, current sources (CD players, turntables, etc.) are a long way from perfect, and they do not all sound the same, even if you stuff cotton in your ears. The same is true of amplifiers and other components.
  • Current 16-bit digital is not fully adequate for high fidelity. On the other hand, if it were as awful as its harshest critics claim, then it would be true that all CD players sound alike. And then there would be no point trying to build a better one. That said, the LP sounds a lot better than its critics claim, and the equipment for playing it just keeps on getting better.
  • It is inevitable that judgements of equipment by different people will not be identical, just as judgements of wines or art are not identical. There is, however, a certain convergence...not unanimity but a consensus. If opinions are all over the place, there is something wrong.

That philosophy determines the way UHF's equipment tests are done. Our method is unique, but we believe it yields the best possible results.

  • Unlike any other magazine, we maintain a very high quality reference system for listening tests, two of them in fact. They are used for all tests, without exception.
  • The original system is installed in a specially-built room with extraordinary acoustics. "Normal" people don't have a room like this, but then they mostly don't have the sort of system we have either.
  • Listening tests are done not by just one person, but by three or four persons. The panel can discuss the results after each disc auditioned. Dissension is not discouraged. Indeed, each review (which reflects the group consensus if there is one) is followed by a section titled "Crosstalk," in which each panelist sums up his or her opinion, and may even disagree with the majority.
  • We do not go out of our way to look for bad stuff we can bash (we could spend all our time doing only that), but we don't spare anybody who deserves to get whapped.

Gerard Rejskind

APJ

RICHARD HARDESTY

High-end audio reviews

My name is Richard Hardesty.
In addition to extensive education and training in the fields of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and music;  I have sold, installed, repaired, designed, consulted on the design of, and reviewed high-end home audio equipment for nearly fifty years.  I have listened to virtually every audio product that has achieved meaningful commercial success during that time, and I’ve heard lots of failures too.  I had personal relationships with and interviewed many of the innovative designers who created and continue to sustain the high-end audio industry.

Audio specialist

Motivation
Beginning in my pre-teens, I studied music and the piano for thirteen years during which time I developed an interest in the construction of hi-fi systems designed to provide more natural reproduction of recorded music at home.  Music is very important to me and I continue to be involved with it in various ways.

Technical Background
As a lifelong audiophile, I was constantly seeking the best possible sound from my home audio equipment.
I started building electronic kits as a child at about age nine and, as a young adult, I designed and constructed my own audio equipment while earning my living as a computer engineer.

My partner and I entered the hi-fi business in the early '70s by opening one of the first high-end audio stores on the West Coast of the United States.

I also built and raced boats, cars and motorcycles. My technical background is well grounded in science from both the theoretical and practical points of view.

I worked for two pioneering companies in the computer industry, but I didn’t like it much. Computers at the end of the 1960s were huge, primitive devices that used discrete transistors and core memory but Ohm's law was the same then and the laws of physics haven't changed, so far as I know. Pentavalent atoms still have five electrons orbiting in their outer shells, don’t they?

If you’re making a transistor you need to know things like this. If you are evaluating products that utilize transistors in their circuits this atomic information is somewhat less significant.

My knowledge of modern computers is sufficient to allow me to use them in my work, but my consuming passion involves audio technology. Do I know as much about amplifier circuit design as John Curl or Charlie Hansen?  Or as much about loudspeaker design as Richard Vandersteen or the late Jim Thiel?

No, and I don’t claim to, but my technical knowledge about electronics and physics is sufficient to allow me to fully appreciate the work of these men and I can troubleshoot their circuits and repair the products that they manufacture.

I have heard the sonic results of their work as well as the sound delivered by products from competing designers
in a vast number of of settings. I can measure components in all the conventional ways and I have developed a few unique methods of my own for evaluating product performance,  but I always listen first. I use measurements to confirm my listening impressions and in an ongoing attempt to discover why things sound as they do.

I listen to evaluate sound quality and I measure to determine why I hear what I hear, and to make sure that I'm not being momentarily fooled.

Sound Exposure
The retail store that I started with my partner, Curtis Havens, was one of the first stores to cater to music listeners who were not hard-core experimenters. We were there at the genesis of the high-end audio industry.  We sold all the edge-of-the-art products and those components that simply sounded better than the comparably priced mass-market competition.

We sold equipment by actually demonstrating the sound of one component compared to the sound of another—a novel approach in those early days and one that is becoming rare again today.

One of the "value added services" that our customers got was me. I offered to come to the customer’s home and listen to and tweak every system or major component that we sold. Many people took me up on this offer.  We sold several systems a day, seven days a week, for over twenty years (with the help of as many as twelve employees). I visited the homes of many customers each week.

I have auditioned and adjusted an enormous number of audio systems in domestic settings.  But that’s just the beginning!

We had an open-door policy for vendors who were marketing equipment that was appropriate for our venue. I personally listened to every component and speaker system that was brought into our store and compared it to what we were selling at the time.   We also encouraged customers to bring in their own gear for comparison to products that they were evaluating for purchase.   These practices allowed me to hear everything that was a commercial success and hundreds of things that weren’t.  I am an experienced listener, to say the least, and I still enjoy it.

In the early days I performed component modifications and repairs myself. This allowed me to gain valuable, hands-on experience with a broad range of products and to become thoroughly familiar with the electrical and mechanical aspects of their designs.

I retired from retail after nearly twenty-five years and became an industry consultant and audio equipment reviewer.  I attend all the trade shows, as I have for decades, so that I can stay current on industry trends and new technology, and I review audio components on a daily basis and write about my findings.  My technical articles and product reviews have been published in Widescreen Review and The Perfect Vision magazines.  The Absolute Sound listed me as a senior writer although they never actually published any of the material that I submitted.  I wrote, published and edited Audio Perfectionist Journal for more than a decade.

Audio Perfectionist JournalSummary
I was trained as an engineer. I have owned and operated a high-end audio retail store, and worked for various manufacturers in the audio industry.   I have written engineering papers about audio components, and was a contributor to several consumer audio/video publications.  As you can see, I am experienced in virtually every facet of the high-end segment of the home audio industry and I’m thoroughly familiar with home theatre systems as well.

I know how the industry works from an insider’s point of view but beneath it all I’m a music lover who wants good sound in my home and good value for my money.   I know how to get both and I can help you do the same.

My knowledge is based on science, and tempered by empirical evidence. My opinions are based on real-world experience and lots of it. I look forward to sharing with you what I’ve learned.

STATS & FUN FACTS

PUBLISHED

SINCE 1982

1500+

REVIEWED PRODUCTS

22000+

HARD COPIES SOLD

180+

REVIEWS AND RATINGS
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