$4500 amp beat out the Tenor OTL in the latest TAS

My Threshold T-100 is even better than the Antique Sound Labs.

Do you think Stereophile, The Absolute Sound or the like, are going to give any company's product, that advertises with them, promises to, or poses a good advertising possibility, a less than B+ review. Let's get very real, here. When advertising is the name of the game, it will dictate supposed objectivity. Who pays for these magazines? Not the subscription fee. Case closed. If we had an audiophile publication, like Consumers Report, then, we'd see some fireworks/objectivity. Do you think Sterophile is going to say anything negative about a Musical Fidelity product, when they buy the back cover every month. Do you have any idea how much $$$ that is. Look at all the full page spreads of cables. Now you know why they're marked up 1000%. Have you ever read a poor review or a C+ review? Not in a mag with advertising. NEVER!

There was already some info out there on this amp before HP made his revelation. Refer to http://www.high-endaudio.com/RC-Amplifiers.html - bottom of the page. There is also some negative info on Tenor amps on this same page. Israel Blume likes these amps with his speakers and does some mods to them. A friend of mine owns them and likes them a lot. Having said that, are they the best amps ever? Is there such a thing? HP does tend to rave over components of lower quality and price, most notably the Sound Dynamics speakers. I owned the RTS3s and 300Tis based on his recommendation for a very short period of time. That's the last time I will listen to HP. Ever read the TAS recommended components? Components they rave about in magazine reviews aren't on there, Golden Ear Award winners are down several levels from the top, and there is little or no explanation for why things are rated the way they are. Example - Gamut CD player. HP says it is better in some ways than the Burmester combo. He rates it at the same level as the Burmester stuff. Yet the review says it doesn't produce much bass below 40 hz. This is one of his best rated digital components?

Kana813 and Warrenh, far be it from me to defend Stereophile too much. I find everything from their cover blurbs to their Recommended Components list to the actual reviews to be sorely lacking in many ways. I could probably reel off a post, as long as all the ones in this thread combined, on just that one topic. I certainly don't believe they're as objective as they could be in their overall approach.

All I'm saying is that: A) I don't believe - and there is no evidence for believing - that there is a direct quid pro quo of rave reviews for ad dollars; and B) The same thing goes - *as far as ad dollars are concerned* - for the integrity of their individual reviewers (whatever their shortcomings as such). There is no doubt however, that all the gear loans, meals, and general schmoozing which goes on severely calls into question the reviewers' abilities to exercise true independent judgement.

Trust me, I share your frustration with the mag's general lameness and lack of leadership, and how cozy and convenient everything is in that world. It's just that I have equally little patience for accusations - sans *any evidence* - of formal influence-buying corruption at the core. I think the situation would almost be more understandable were that the case. Unfortunately, there are serious ramifications for the way the industry operates directly caused by the audiophile press paradigm, and there is enough guilt to go around in that sense even without a dirty money trail to indict the players.

While I don't know this to be true, I suspect HP doesn't get out much. By which I mean that most of what he listens to are statement products from the upper echelons of the high-end. I don't fault him for this--a broad perspective on the market is not what we look to Harry Pearson for, we'll leave that to others--but I imagine many of us have a better sense of "context" for evaluating products.

It seems quite possible to me that Harry is sometimes caught offguard by the quality of more modestly-priced products because he doesn't hear them too often and imagines a bigger gap between the ne plus ultra and the merely high end. I've never heard the Sound Dynamics speakers, but if all I ever listened to were big Rolls Royce speaker systems, I might find a small bookshelf surprisingly refreshing. Hell, my car stereo has better PRAT than most big rigs I've heard. (So does my boom box, for that matter.)