The Original Famous Hams and ex-Hams List - detail page
W2KFB

Callsign Name Details/Claim to Fame Links
W2KFB Julian D. Hirsch Longtime audio and stereo equipment journalist and engineer, whose consumer reviews often appeared in "Popular Electronics," "Stereo Review" and "Sound & Vision." see below

[Back][Home][Astronaut Hams][Rumors and Mistaken Identities]

 

Additional Information (as of 31-DEC-2003)

Obituary
354 words
1 December 2003
Warren's Consumer Electronics Daily
Volume 3; Issue 230
English
(c) Copyright 2003 Warren Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Julian Hirsch, 81, audio engineer and journalist, credited as among the
few pioneers who helped transform hi-fi from an esoteric hobby into a
mainstream global industry, died Nov. 24 in suburban N.Y. after a long
illness. Through more than 40 years of testing and reporting on the
performance of audio equipment for various consumer magazines, especially
Stereo Review, Hirsch helped demystify high-fidelity sound reproduction
for mass audiences. Under the auspices of the Electronic Industries Assn.
(now the CEA), he helped draft standards for the testing of power
amplifiers and FM tuners that made specifications for those components
easier to compare and more useful to shoppers. A fringe of audiophiles
thought he gave too much weight to what was measurable, but during his
long career many music lovers wouldn't buy new gear if it didn't have his
imprimatur. Hirsch developed an interest in technology when he discovered
amateur radio at age 14.

He received his engineering degree from the Cooper Union in N.Y.C. in
1943 and served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. As the
commercial audio industry began to expand in the early 1950s, Hirsch and
his engineering friends, including Gladden Houck, tested products to see
how well they met their makers' performance claims. In 1954, Hirsch and
several colleagues began publishing their results in a newsletter, the
Audio League Report, whose circulation reached 5,000 but whose impact was
felt much more widely. With the newsletter's end 3 years later,
Hirsch-Houck Labs was formed exclusively to do product testing for
Ziff-Davis magazines, including Popular Electronics and later Stereo
Review. Years after he bought out his partner, Hirsch and his lab
continued contributing monthly columns, test reports and occasional
feature articles until his 1998 retirement, when he was given the title
editor-at-large at Stereo Review and its 1999 successor, Sound & Vision.
Donations are welcomed to the Cooper Union's Julian Hirsch Scholarship
Fund, which was established soon after his retirement by Sound & Vision
publisher Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. Hirsch's survivors include his
wife, son and daughter.


                                                        ###

Julian Hirsch, 81, an Engineer Who Wrote About Audio Gear
By WOLFGANG SAXON
481 words
3 December 2003
The New York Times
Late Edition - Final
17
English
(c) 2003 New York Times Company

Julian Hirsch, an electrical engineer and writer who was among the first
to help a growing audience of audiophiles sort through the good, the bad
and the indifferent in electronic sound equipment, died on Nov. 24 in the
Bronx. He was 81 and lived in New Rochelle, N.Y.

Starting in the 1950's Mr. Hirsch began to keep track of the hi-fi hobby
as it bulged into a billion-dollar industry. By his own count he wrote
about 4,000 laboratory test reports for various publications by the time
he retired in 1998.

About 2,400 of those were articles appearing in Stereo Review, a bible
and buying guide for droves of audio fans. (Months after his retirement,
it merged into Sound & Vision, a 400,000-circulation magazine that
publishes 10 times a year.)

Mr. Hirsch's monthly column in Stereo Review first appeared in 1961 when
it was called Hi-Fi/Stereo Review. He titled it ''Technical Talk'' and
used it to explain how he performed various measurements and what the
results meant.

He listed the specifications that a buyer should look for in a component
and others that were chaff. At the same time, he sought to describe
features not readily measurable and to address readers less technically
inclined.

It was his technical approach that at times drew disfavor from other
experts, who asserted that he so admired each new line of speakers or
amplifiers that he ignored the aesthetic quality of the sounds coming
from them. It was, his critics said at the time, like judging a wine by
chemical assays.

Julian Hirsch warmed to the technology at 14 with amateur radio. He
graduated from Cooper Union in 1943 and spent World War II in the Army
Signal Corps. He then worked in the electronics industry on laboratory
instruments for spectrum analysis.

Having adopted hi-fi as a hobby in 1949, he and his engineering friends
started testing products as the commercial audio industry caught on in
the early 50's. They circulated a newsletter to spread the results, the
Audio League Report, and eventually found 4,000 subscribers.

The pressure of putting out the report while holding down full-time jobs
prompted Mr. Hirsch and a colleague, Gladden Houck, to quit the Audio
League in 1957 and form Hirsch-Houck Laboratories. There they tested
stereo systems, turntables, receivers, speakers, woofers and the lot,
leaving the write-ups to others.

In 1960 Ziff-Davis Publishing asked him to test equipment for it
exclusively. His first test report, ''Technical Talk,'' appeared in the
fall of 1961 in Hi-Fi/Stereo.

Mr. Hirsch is survived by his wife of 57 years, Ruth; a son, Steven, of
Burlington, Vt.; a daughter, Barbara Harrison of Chappaqua, N.Y.; and two
granddaughters.


                                                        ###