Stereophile recommended components

Is it just me or is it just a list of everything reviewed?

Witness the Sjofn Hifi speakers that is on the list but didn't get a good review at all

 

Its a list of everything reviewed

 

How else would they get advertising money?

 

That got me, too. I'm betting it's due to not following the very specific setup instructions needed to get those to sound right, before they did the review ...

 

I am puzzled as to why Rega has dissapeared from digital. Rega Apollo R was classified as class A before and as far as I know it is still available. So why it is not in the recommended components anymore?

 

A piece of gear stays on the list for three years but may remain longer if a follow-up is done or a reviewer owns the product.
As S.P.'s editor has said, all components reviewed are on the " Recommended list ".

 

Funny, I never knew that this list included everything that was reviewed. Of course I also rarely read SP.

Wander what the point of the list is then?


Is Absolute Sound the same way with their Editor's Choice stuff?

 

Don't know if it's been put on this forum before but here's also a list of 'world favourites' from Hi-fi World, a UK magazine: http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/world-favourites.html - they say 'Here's a list of contemporary products we like. Not all are the latest model, meaning they're gems you may find on e-bay at a knock down price – faves don't have to cost "an arm and a leg"!'

 

Thanks, makes sense, I had forgotten about the three-year limit.

 

Recommend this?! Most rags have merely become a showcase of pretty pictures and platitudes IMHO, basically infomercials, and online magazines prove out not any better and often worse in this regard (Stereophile will have to up their photo game to be included). I guess I have just become a bit more cynical (or perhaps wise) in recent years about any possible utility they may display. Where at one time we could find audio magazines to contribute more often with an educational type role and serve as a voice of the common audiophile, music lover, tweaker, traveling the journey with us and humbly searching for bits of truth and satisfaction. If those days actually ever did existed, today they are nearly all but gone. I don't understand the value of huge lists of gear that most of us will never poses. Besides, picking individual pieces at the top of the heap at four to five figures, sometimes six, for their excellence doesn't offer anyone save the manufacturers and dealers, of mostly unobtainium any use, and aside from being akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Show us instead how to put together a reasonably priced, well balanced kit at a particular price point, that has unique synergy and then justify your choices, earn some merit, and display a little time earned wisdom... ah?

 

These posts offer two alternative approaches to cynicism: a drive-by sliming via a baseless jokey accusation of editorial corruption, and a sourpuss dismissal of Stereophile based on reveries of a imaginary golden age of hi-fi journalism.

Subscribing to Stereophile on and off over the years has been an extremely informative and pleasurable journey for me. Their reviews have steered me to a bunch of great components that perform way beyond the price. Those dudes work very hard to keep that magazine afloat in very hard times for print, and John Atkinson is a editor with integrity and great technical know-how. Hating on this "rag" is fair play, I guess, but I'm not impressed by the lazy, ill-informed put-downs. If Stereophile is useless for you, don't read it. But in fact, it's an extremely useful magazine, imperfect but highly professional.

 

I also didn't realize everything reviewed got recommended. Seems misleading to call it a recommended components list under those circumstances...how about they update the list for suggested system matching?
Either way I stopped subscribing, could no longer tell when the ads stopped and the articles began. I do respect John Atkinson for his detailed measurements, which can be an interesting (but not conclusive) way to look at gear.

 

It's an interesting magazine to which I have subscribed for years. The section I always turn to first is music reviews. Next, I will read Fremer. He's entertaining. I rarely ever read equipment reviews or recommended components. It took me a while but, re equipment, I just trust my ears. After all, I have to listen with them.

BTW, I won't be renewing my subscription to TAS. I haven't enjoy it since Harry Pearson left. Now he is really gone, may he RIP.

 

I tend to reference their measurement of gear I own, but I don’t look to them for reviews.

 

What you have here is a highly defensive reaction to a thread comment. Someone that apparently takes great offense to cynisism and likes to level baseless accusations at people that he does not know in order to defend something that he seemingly has a strong attachment to. I was unaware that a skeptical mindset was something to be discouraged.

As for.the uniformed allegation I'm fairly certain that most people that have been in this hobby for.more than a few years know how Stereophile and the other review magazines work, at least I hope they do. Magazines like Stereophile maintain relationships with the bigger manufactures to insure they continue to receive advertising revenue which keeps them afloat. As I have no desire to rehash an incredible old debate I'll just post this link. Its an oldie but sums things up pretty well.

http://www.high-endaudio.com/reviewers.html

Of course you could just choose to believe that just about everything they review, all the companies that can pay for or possibly one day pay for advertising, deserves to be a "recommended component".

After perusing the profile of the quoted poster I see that he lists his occupation as "writer / editor". Perhaps an audio reviewer?

 

I don't completely trust Salvatore either.

 

I don't completely trust anyone that I don't know in person but he makes a few good points and the letter he shares from Michael Fremer is hilarious.

 

I agree

 

Yup, If an audio mag really wanted to help us audiophiles, tell us which audio products to avoid, you know, the real dogs, and there are many but we'll never hear about them from the rags.

 

I always liked Sam Tellig style of writing, the guy has a great sense of humor. Many years ago his column was
called the Audio Cheapskate, it was interesting to see every month what kind of inexpensive audio gems he would
review. He recently retired, I wish him well….

I do believe a Stereophile recommended component (which are the item’s they review) have better resale value.
Like them or not, they have been around a long time. When I started my audio journey back in the seventies SP
was a smaller physical size magazine with less advertisers. If I remember right, a subscription cost $35,00 for
one year..

 

Started with no advertising - as did The Absolute Sound, a couple of years later.

It would take me days to to read the magazine - now, I can get through it over two lattes. Sadly, TAS is a short black rag (Harry would be pissed).

 

Not a sourpuss and nor a perky cheerleader either, thank you. I just have my doubts about a list. I too am a current subscriber of Stereophile, but possibly unlike you I have subscribed and enjoyed (and some times, not so much) since the mid-seventies and have back read copy to their humble beginnings. I was also a reader of Art Dudley's Listener, still have the full set on the shelf and pull one down from time to time. Read The Absolute sound for nearly as long and enjoy Hifi+ for years now, What Hifi?, remember Audio, Vacuum Tube Valley, Stereo Review? So perhaps my understanding over the decades is somewhat limited and perhaps I find the spirit and direction of these folks beginnings more akin to my current and continued spirit of audio as a hobby but, you seem to be the one taking a cheap shot, distilling inaccurately, and finger wagging toward someone who you do not even know. If you had read my previous posts here, on A'gon, AK, AA, etc. over the years you would have a clear understanding that I have been a long time advocate for the rags (paper copy) and have defended their place and purpose in our community. You will not find me over the course of time running down these folks personally or making unfounded accusations of impropriety on their part. My comment of who these lists may serve was me personally wrestling with, and thinking out loud about my own utility and the simple fact, that like with automotive magazines who continually showcase bugatti, ferrari, lamborghini on their covers, may satisfy, young boys and wet dreams, but doesn't really support the majority of working class ongoing hobbyists IMHO. It has arguably become somewhat more exclusive, than inclusive. Save that both Michael Fremer's informative analog column and Art Dudley's Listening are some of my most interesting reading and chucked full of great useful information, I was just questioning the overall worth, and comparing it to the past when most writers of our fair pass time and passion had a somewhat more educational approach and vision perhaps because they were newer to it as well. Do you even know of that time and demeanor I speak of? Golden era hardly, but not what it is today either. I've choose to somewhat approach audio from that earlier POV, so shoot me. I never suggested that these folks had all gone down to the crossroads one night with their pens (or guitars) and sold their souls to the devil for fame and fortune. But today is today like yesterday, it's a mixed bag. You know, hate is an awfully strong word, I certainly don't hate the lists but, like popular country (music), I choose to avoid it because it does not leave me fulfilled and happy, that's all. If the lists serve you, than fine, knock yourself out. But I believe you are taking an unfounded, cheap shot at someone you don't even begin to understand. And audio magazines, like most things in life, are not that simple or easy to take clear sides upon. If you had approached me in question, rather than feeling you understood the complete answer, we would stand the chance of possibly agreeing on more things than we see otherwise...

Happy Listener, Happy Listening!

 

Nope, but thanks for speculating that I'm as crooked and in the tank as you think Stereophile is.

 

Thanks for replying — I was seeing red about russk's post and shouldn't have roped you into my rebuttal. My apologies, and happy listening to you.