Stereophile's 2021 products of the year

I find it very sad that most of the Stereophile basher’s here, are also too technically inept to understand the measurements.
I just did a search and beside me, the only ones that mention Stereophile measurements are two that admit they don’t look at them!!!
And measurements will tell you far more than "just the review", and "could" show you if the reviewers full of it also.

Cheers George

I consider SP and HFNRR to be about the best of the lot.  I used to think that HiFi+ was just as good...until they sold to TAS.  HiFi+ retains a higher standard than their overlord but one can see some negative impact. HiFi World is interesting, a vinyl and vintage forward bias, but their over the top promotion of Icon Audio equipment begs the question of a commercial connection.  TAS  ?  No thanks.   Too many lists, too many non review recommendations, too much of a documented history of pay to play, and a senior editor with a public record of unethical behavior. 

SP and HFNRR are carefully written and provide thoughtful commentary.  Both provide measurements that are correlated to what one hears, or does not hear.  One can gain an understanding of how a piece of equipment sounds, and the biases of individual reviewers.

@georgehifi  - the measurements can be useful and I'm glad that Stereophile takes the time to do them, but they don't tell the whole story. That's why subjective reviews exist and are generally useful.

I also find it disappointing that Stereophile no longer really explores a product's weaknesses, and has eliminated negative reviews. I used to really enjoy TAS and SP back in the late 70's, early 80's when Harry Pearson and J Gordon Holt were at the helms. 

But I do agree that most products available these days are pretty good. With the amount of information shared on the internet, it's all but impossible for a company that makes truly bad products to survive. 

But every product has strengths and weaknesses, and the biggest challenge of building a great sounding system is figuring out which components play well together. That's really where the professional reviewers should come in - trying a product with a variety of other components and describing what worked well and what worked poorly. Some reviewers do a better job at this than others. 

I recognize that most reviewers are working out of their home and are either doing it as a second job, or living fairly frugally on a writer's income. So it's challenging for any reviewer to have a wide variety of products to test with. 

@georgehifi - the measurements can be useful and I’m glad that Stereophile takes the time to do them, but they don’t tell the whole story. That’s why subjective reviews exist and are generally useful.

They actually tell more than 50% of the story.

And "if" the reviewer "was truthful", the measurements "can" explain why he may say
EG: say the bass sounded a little thick and uncontrolled,
measurements may show poor damping factor (high output impedance) poor current ability.

Or the highs of an amp sound distant and recessed,
measurement could show early rolloff in the HF because of poor HF bandwidth extension even phase shift, or inability to handle low impedances creating it to become a tone control, like the bass problem above.

So many things can be read into an amps potential performance by looking at the measurements.

After all, every amp ever made was designed and made primary by using measurements and the laws of electronics, if you find one that wasn’t, then your looking at a piece of unreliable junk.
There is no "snake oil" or "voodoo" in the design of high end audio, or even low end mp3 players.

Cheers George

Stereophile and TAS reviews are way more credible than the opinions expressed in this forum. All three can be useful, however. The fourth source, of course, is direct listening at a dealer. But dealer equipment is limited, and dealers are rare in some areas. As a member of LAOCAS, I get to hear equipment every month at a different LA area dealer. (Befoe Covid, that is.)I will admit that my very latest acquisitions were from forum suggestions.
Just let your ears and wallet be your final guide.