PS: Typical McGowan Sound? -- HCA-2 & Classic 250

Please note the Rowland new amp the 301 is based on some
variation of Class D amplification. What does that tell you???

A psychologist could make a career and a fortune out of studying audiophiles behaviour! It is sad that egos and simply people's need for approval are the motivation for the majority of online reviews (and maybe profesional reviews [ST !!!]), as any person can appreciate when reading audioreview.com write-ups! I feel that one has no credibility as a critic if they cannot evaluate the flaws of the equiptment along with the virtues, and also have an extensive resume of previous components used. For many reviews there is nothing but glowing remarks of equiptment they own, especially so from folks who recently moved from low-fi receiver land to seperates, or cheaper anything on up to mid priced gear, as is often the case with highly reviewed budget components, and then folks really feel they own the best they can afford, regardless of their limited experience, where you typically see phrases like:

"Best for under X grand"
"Beats products costing X times as much".

and so on with no basis in reality! Funny as heck to read but sad that many people can't see through the BS.

And since we are talking about the HCA-2, anyone else really disturbed by the claims stating that a $500-$2000 power cord is absolutely required to make this amp sound good!

How right. Does Sam Tellig review anything that isn't great? You can't trust the reviewers. I don't mean to disparage this amp -- I'm sure it has its good qualities, but I, for one, cannot overlook the very strong negative comments, or the glaringly bad lab results.

I'll have to look it up, but I believe the Bel Canto evo amp, which is Class D as well, did not measure so badly as the PS did. Even Stereophile's reviewer did say it was fuller, warmer, less upfront sounding, and actually he said, in its 2nd generation, it was on the same playing field as the HCA-2. So, why isn't everyone raving about it?

To re-iterate one of my previous comments from another thread, the more a power cord helps a component out, the poorer the design of the power supply and filtration within the component itself.

As to the comments about "try it out at no risk for 30 days", i've got better things to do than rush out to buy / try EVERY product that Stereophile ( or any other mag for that matter ) raves about. Even the reviewer, who was basically responsible for placing the amp in Class A ranking, said that it was noticeably lean and forward sounding. Besides that, JA was pretty plain in stating what he found i.e. nothing impressive what-so-ever.

Combining the information provided by the two people responsible for this review, you end up with an amp that has an "anemic" warmth region with forward mids and a less than competent design ( as verified by the poor measurements in almost EVERY aspect ). This gives me all the info that i need to know. This amp does not sound good nor does it measure good. In effect, i would be wasting my time if i were to go out of my way to purchase this amp, install it into my system and listen to it for ANY amount of time. Call me biased, call me stupid, call me whatever, i really don't care.

As to whether i am any of the above, I must not be alone in my thoughts. I've seen more than a few of these units for sale. Evidently, the sonics must be just good enough to get past the 30 day free trial or the owners wouldn't be selling them so quickly after they bought them. If a product is truly as good as the hype, even the "flavour of the month club" members will hang onto it for more than a few issues of their favorite rag. These amps haven't been out for all that long and they are already populating the market in good quantity.

The funny thing is that, even though all of these comments were put into plain sight in the review, the amp was still placed in Class A. Evidently, reviewers & magazines don't mind telling you the truth up-front. That is, so long as they can lie to you at the end of the article or review to keep the manufacturer / advertiser happy. Sean
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