The Stereophile "Most Valuable Advertiser" List

[aerius]

I dropped by the bookstore today on my way home from work and leafed through a copy of the Stereophile "Recommended Components" issue. It was depressing, and quite unbelievable. For one thing, there's an average of 10-15 components in the "Class A" list in every single category of gear. This is close to and in some cases exceeds the number of components listed in "Class B", and in all cases it exceeds the number of "Class C" components.

That ain't right. Am I supposed to believe that there's more "best of the best" gear than solid decent bang for the buck stuff? That for every piece of "above average" gear there's 5 pieces of "best of the best gear"?

I also noted that the "Class A+" categories are growing at a nice rate, in fact for digital sources there's now at least 10 "A+" pieces of gear. Instead of demoting everything in "Class A" to "Class B" and dropping a bunch of gear off the list, they added a whole new class. Pretty soon they'll have to make "Class A+++" to fit in all the crap they want.

It's depressing because the list has lost its meaning. You can't have 15 pieces of gear that are all "the best", it can't be that way by definition. By definition, "the best" means the one component that beats everything elses ass, meaning there can only be one, like the Highlander. But I'm a generous guy so I can live with 3, which happens to be the number of medals they give out in championships. But 15? That's ridiculous.

Anyways, rant over, carry on.

[hungrych]

I agree. If you haven't read this you should: http://www.high-endaudio.com/reviewers.html

[nmculbreth]

They're a bunch of shills for their advertisers, I take everything Stereophile says with a huge grain of salt.

[tkam]

Yep, professional reviews are pretty useless for the most part. The Stereophile recommended components list is especially bad though.

[aerius]

I agree. If you haven't read this you should: http://www.high-endaudio.com/reviewers.html

I dropped by at his store once in '99 or 2000 and got introduced to the Apogee Centaur speaker. I like his writings because he seems even more skeptical and cynical than I am.

[tiberian]

I dropped by the bookstore today on my way home from work and leafed through a copy of the Stereophile "Recommended Components" issue. It was depressing, and quite unbelievable. For one thing, there's an average of 10-15 components in the "Class A" list in every single category of gear. This is close to and in some cases exceeds the number of components listed in "Class B", and in all cases it exceeds the number of "Class C" components.

That ain't right. Am I supposed to believe that there's more "best of the best" gear than solid decent bang for the buck stuff? That for every piece of "above average" gear there's 5 pieces of "best of the best gear"?

I also noted that the "Class A+" categories are growing at a nice rate, in fact for digital sources there's now at least 10 "A+" pieces of gear. Instead of demoting everything in "Class A" to "Class B" and dropping a bunch of gear off the list, they added a whole new class. Pretty soon they'll have to make "Class A+++" to fit in all the crap they want.

It's depressing because the list has lost its meaning. You can't have 15 pieces of gear that are all "the best", it can't be that way by definition. By definition, "the best" means the one component that beats everything elses ass, meaning there can only be one, like the Highlander. But I'm a generous guy so I can live with 3, which happens to be the number of medals they give out in championships. But 15? That's ridiculous.

Anyways, rant over, carry on.

6 moons is just as bad.

[aerius]

6 moons is just as bad.

After their "review" of the Fab Audio Model One I gave up on a lot of their reviewers. Mid-bass suckout, agressive tweeter, lack of bass weight, what a load of crock. I've heard the speakers in 3 different setups now and they're nothing like that.

[hungrych]

After their "review" of the Fab Audio Model One I gave up on a lot of their reviewers. Mid-bass suckout, agressive tweeter, lack of bass weight, what a load of crock. I've heard the speakers in 3 different setups now and they're nothing like that.

I disagree, I think 6moons (or at least a Srajan, Jeff Day, and Paul Candy) do some great reviews. Since I've read so many of Srajan's reviews, I can get a really good idea of what something actually sounds like from them, and unlike alot of reviews they actually go out of their way to compare it to other products of the same price (no rega p3 vs vpi hr-x crap).