The MoFi Mess and TAS rolling over for them

For many years now, I've considered The Absolute Sound simply to be a "high end" boutique magazine like the fancy design &  fancy boating - mega yacht publications. They're fun to look at & see what's out there but offer little to no objectivity on what they review even though TAS has made an effort to regularly cover more reasonably priced stuff in recent years. 

How can you truly learn anything useful from a review that doesn't mention what ancillary equipment is being used & never makes any direct comparisons to similarly equipment in design/ build and/ or price?

The only occasional exception is Steven Stone who can be better at that & now seems to primarily focus on "bargain priced" equipment which I think is appreciated by many of us. It's to bad too because I think many of the TAS writers do know a great deal about hi fi & have lots of experience that would be helpful to many of us. 

@yoyoyaya   I figured you were being sarcastic but I felt an  urge to complete the circle.  I have really enjoyed the help you gave me in my Direct Drive thread.  

@wolf_garcia   I lost respect for Stone when he declared all non MQA DACs were obsolete

I lost respect for Stone when his review of the JA Pulsars was mostly done using them as desktop speakers in his computer setup.  Who does that???  What an utter joke. 

Thanks Mahler - and I loved your embedded in a slab of petroleum and extracted with a needle reference!

My Cannonball Adderley One Step is pre-sold out and not even shown to be able to be preordered anymore. Mofi is overwhelmed with demand and every One Step ever made in the last 5 year has sold out. Maybe this nonissue (to me) will cause the resale market to drop, which I would certainly welcome.

I only care about sound quality, and even Analogue Productions is making some of their highest end records with digital tapes involved. They had a major announcement today that they are releasing all Steely Dan studio albums on 45RPM UHQRs at $150 a pop. A few are not totally AAAAnalogue. I couldn't care less. Make the best sounding records you can. Luckily, I have almost all their albums on Speakers Corner, Mofi, or Japanese pressings, so I won't be buying any UHQRs (unless I have a really weak moment and go for Royal Scam or Pretzel Logic).

The packaging drives the prices WAY up. Luckily, they will be releasing them all on 33 1/3 with digital files from Bernie Grundman that I am sure will be excellent with original packaging. No word on pricing for those, but hopefully they will be similar to other AP pricing - $40 for 33s and $60 for 45s.

For those who care more about whether the sound is 100% complete analogue than how it sounds, enjoy paying more for less and thanks for staying out of the resale markets.