Why waste review space on rubbish?!?
I'm not sure what you're saying here Nate. I don't see a great abundance of rubbish out there in the high-end (other than perhaps in the wires and tweaks market).
Studioray - I hear what you're saying and I can't argue with you much about the vocabulary they use. I agree, it gets a bit too effusive at times and does blur what otherwise may be a more clear distinction. But then again, this hobby is so subjective, I wonder how fare such distinctions actually are. As far as the stars, well I gues Stereophiles version is the Class A, Class B bit. I suppose you could just assign your star ratings as appropriate. Other than that I have not read HiFi Choice enough to comment further. I do agree with you...with the American glossy high-end rags it is more a matter of reading between the lines in many cases, and I also get a bit tired of the effusive and the wishy-washy. Then again, as I said, it is difficult to really say that a given component is a piece of crap, as I've personally heard nothing in the high-end that would cause me to yield that opinion. Have you? Perhaps I've been lucky, or just don't have enough experience with a wider variety of gear. Or perhaps I'm just not discriminating enough. I need to eat more Grey Poupon...do you happen to have any?
Kal - Thanks for responding and glad to hear you are actively seeking out manufacturers worthy of review who don't come to you. Still, I sure would like to read more evidence of that in the magazine. It may not be a fare sampling of your choices, but I grabbed a couple of issues, on recent, and one older. In it you were reviewing Denon multimedia gear, and, in the older issue, a comparison between PS Audio, Brickwall and Panamax and Empower. Both were interesting articles, but not exactly the kinds of components/companies that I find missing in the pages of Stereophile.
I got 751 hits searching B&W on the Stereophile website including many major reviews. Yet Silverline Audio nor Tyler Acoustics do not yield a single review. Both would occur to me as having worthy offerings that would give the likes of B&W a run for their money. No sight of Terry Cain's offerings either (in a more esoteric realm).
Plenty of spreads on Musical Fidelity's fine digital players and DACs. No mention of smaller, more affordable gems like Scott Nixon, Audio Mirror, AckDAC.
There are pieces on Unobtanium items for the money-no-object crowd, but how many articles can you write about Halcro stuff...what about a company like Electronluv that takes audio to an art form in more ways than one.
It was great to see the very worthy offerings of Mike Sanders company, Quicksilver Audio, get some attention last year, and I do hope to read more on his offerings. What about George Wright of Wright Sound, whose little 3.5 amps have a near cult following...or the new preamp by Dan Wright of Modwright (no relation to George) which is getting stellar notice from folks here in the forums.
None of this stuff is "rubbish" by any means, nor would it be a waste of time. These companies are offering a very valuable alternative to the Big Brother audio corporations that otherwise litter the pages of Stereophile both in advertising and in editorial. Often they are offering a product of equal or greater value/performance at a much more affordable price, and for that reason alone would seem to be worthy of bringing to the attention of your public.
Now I'm not saying companies like this are completely ignored in the pages of Stereophile and TAS - they aren't. These are just a few I have not seen any mentions of and that I happen to believe are worthy of mention. I'm sure there are others, and I'm sure the magazines don't have enough pages/time/staff to give coverage to all of them. What I'm saying is that what I do read there occurs to me to be out of balance to what the average Audiophile may be after, if I was to judge such things from what we read both here and on AudioAsylum, and from the handful of Audiophiles I've known. Sure there are the fans of B&W, Musical Fidelity and Mark Levinson, but there are also a huge contingent of others who are actively seeking out something different/better/with greater value-performance, and there's plenty of manufacturers out there who offer just that.
Marco
