Grand Prix Monaco review in new Stereophile- OUCH

Great post Sirspeedy. I was one of the people that wrote Mike a personal email, thanking him for contributing to Audiogon.

It does not matter if I or others agree with the review, what's important is his position in the audio community and his willingness to take time out of his incredibly busy schedule to help us.

I think you're right about everyone wanting their opinions heard, perhaps even to the extent of challenging Mike (who is a big target).

Again, that's why my only other contribution on this topic was joking with Ken to share his classic automobile with Mike Fremer.

I hope we have not run him off.

BTW, I didn't realize Groovy is Fremer (I didn't read the thread until after I commented on the initial post). I wasn't intending to be antagonistic. I just feel with some devices subjective experiences are too open to change depending on many factors (what kind of mood the person is in, their health, the weather, etc).

To be honest, I don't really read much of the equipment reviews nowadays, unless I own the piece, except for speaker reviews because those have easily identifiable differences in character that make the subjective reviews more valid IMO.

Turntables and their associated components (phonostage, cartridge, tonearm) certainly have more identifiable character than a CD player or amp (etc) IMO, but still less so than a speaker (unless the TT and associated components are exceptionally bad in design...).

Great post Sirspeedy, you said what I meant far more eloquently than I possibly could have!

Mr. Fremer, it was my understanding that you kept the Halcyonics Micro 40 isolation platform after the review was completed. IMO that platform would have been an excellent support for the Monaco table.

Perhaps you had already returned the Micro 40 by the time the Monaco table came along. I believe that the US distributor for Halcyonics is in your area. If you do write a followup to the review, the Micro 40 would certainly be a choice worth considering. I have tried a Micro 40 sitting on a GP stand to support an EMM transport. The results were very audible and positive. Perhaps they would be in the GPM application as well.

It's "grooves" but of course it's all "subjective" and dependent upon many factors. Those are givens. However, do this long enough and get it wrong too many times and you've got no credibility. In Stereophile you write your "subjective" (I prefer "observational") impressions and then there are measurements. When it comes to speakers I try to predict what the measurements reveal and I have a pretty good track record in that regard. There should be more information in reviews than just subjective sonic opinions and there usually are in the good ones, including information that's valuable when considering a purchase.