Stereophile's 2021 products of the year

It's not possibly to listen to everything yourself. It's not possible for anyone to compare everything. Why would anyone assume a list is meant to be comprehensive? It may be far from perfect, but it can still be a good place to start. There are lists of everything from cars to whisky to Michelin starred restaurants that are equally subjective as anything Stereophile puts out. Are you just going to take advice from any yahoo on the internet instead?

If I am starting my research from nothing then reading a list compiled from reviewed items is a place to start. Some of them may not be described as anything close to what I want. Some of them are beyond my means. In looking further into others I may find a trail to something that really interests me and, more importantly, suits me. There is nothing wrong with reading a map or using a navigation app, but you still need to watch where you going.

Stereophile ONLY rates the products they have reviewed, unlike TAS which will give a product they heard at a show but didn’t review a rating as well.  I find Stereophile much more honest than TAS. I do have subscriptions to both and have been a subscriber since 1990.   I do not trust Robert Harley or Jonathan Valin, as anything Uber expensive gets a good write up.  

Harry Pearson is probably shouting from his grave for the way the magazine is run now.  TAS has nice ads and that for me is the best audio porn out there.   I take everything written in both magazines with a grain of salt, but in TAS case, more than one grain. 

I like Stereophile's bench testing. While I don't put much faith in the rankings, etc., I do like having a source for tech data on various products. I don't buy measurements, of course, but I do like to see them.

I don't put too much faith in them either. One of the first crazy expensive systems I ever heard belonged to this guy who was into "deals". His whole system was a Who's Who of Stereophile Class A picks. All bought used on the basis of being "the best". 

Have you ever seen one of those gags where they swap things around and you're expecting one thing and shocked to get something completely different? I gave him my CD and when the music started I whipped around and hit eject fully expecting to find he had swapped or something. But no, it was my CD.   

All these Stereophile Class A Components combined for the worst sound ever. Horrible, could hardly stand it. No exaggeration.   

Few weeks later we had a party, everyone in my listening room just playing tunes. Couple hours into it this guy's wife sneaks up to me, looks around to make sure no one will hear, and eyes wide in wonder whispers to me, "I could listen to this all night!!!" This was before the hopelessness of digital had become clear to me. We were probably playing a lot of CDs. So it wasn't that. It was the awfulness of the combination of all those Class A Components. 

There are probably some good ones on the list. But I suspect it is more about bragging rights than anything.

@jjss49 i'm relatively new to this hobby, <2 yrs.  where does one find the information you describe about the policies of the different publications?