An open letter to John Atkinson

In his May 2008 review of Paradigm Reference Studio/20 Robert Reina states the following, “Even on “The Best of Both Worlds,” from Hannah Montana’s Dance Along DVD (Disney IFPI 7792), the Studio/20 had me following an interesting melody on distorted guitar buried under Miley Ray Cyrus’s processed, in-your-face vocal.” (May 2008 p.101) What is Mr. Reina doing with this DVD in his collection and what makes him think that this is an appropriate demo disc for a Stereophile review? This largely, if not completely undercuts his credibility and seriously threatens the credibility of Stereophile Magazine itself. John Atkinson should call for Mr. Reina’s immediate resignation, or Robert’s severed head on an mpingo disc. The disc’s harmonic tuning could turn his screams of “I Leave my 24” Celestion Si speaker stands to Sam Tellig.” into Frank Sinatra singing “I get a kick outta you.” Who at Stereophile knew that “Robert J Reina” was the nom de plume of a 15 year old girl, and when did they know it? I call for a series of Congressional hearings into the matter. The hearings are to last at least 20 months, cost $20 million dollars, produce a report of no less than 409 pages and answer no questions, find no fault, and offer no solutions. Use the Mitchell report as a blueprint and you can‘t go wrong. In addition a copy of the report must be mailed to each subscriber so we can not read it at our leisure, but discuss it as if we had. In the future Mr. Atkinson I strongly suggest that you screen applicants for reviewing jobs much more vigorously. Please cancel 1/10 of my Stereophile subscription. Not by issue count, but by removing Rob Reina reviews from issues mailed to me. Please issue my refund check for the difference in Canadian dollars.

Signed,

A reader with too much time on his hands

P.S. In all seriousness I know that everyone is trying to lose weight but the latest issue of Stereophile is positively anorexic at 150 pages. The postman slipped it under my door.