Recommended components on Stereophile Magazine.

I used to have a Sterophile subscription and eagerly digested the Recomended Components issues. I'm not a suspicious type, but..

I did a little test - take the preceeding 3 issues, open to the 'Advertisers Index' in each and then look at the Recomended components list. Uncanny similarity between being an advertiser and on the recomended list. This doesn't mean the RC list is useless, just that majority of advertisers products get reviewed. How many Von Schweikert speakers have made the list? Supratek preamps? etc etc.

Be sure to make a note that it's Stereophile Recommended when selling your gear.

Bravo, Marco! Best post of the year, in my opinion.

For a long time, I've railed against the objectivist argument that audio must somehow be quantified. You just put things in far better terms than I am able.

No one tries to measure and assign a set of numbers that serve as the be all and end all to things like upscale jewelry, ice cream, or handbags. So, why do we continually fight this battle in regards to high-end audio components?

Bravo, Marco! Best post of the year, in my opinion.

Thanks, Joe!

I think it's human nature to need to make everything fit into some kind of black and white, better worse, Class A and everything else, us and them scenario. And boy do we love to have our opinions validated by others (except for Elizabeth, of course :-).

No one tries to measure and assign a set of numbers that serve as the be all and end all to things like upscale jewelry, ice cream, or handbags. So, why do we continually fight this battle in regards to high-end audio components?

I think there's the camp ("camp them") that believes that there is some kind of objective "truth" that should not be soiled by our nasty components lest we live under the delusion that we are actually listening to "real" music. They can be spotted chanting ritualistic verse about the sound engineer's intent, reproduction of square waves, and worshiping various authorities who know better than the average bear what music really sounds like. I'm pretty sure if someone came up with some machine that assigned numbers that they claimed quantified the quality of the taste of ice cream there would be a large contingent of people that actually bought into that and purchased only the ice cream that rated the best. It's sad that so many are willing to let others form an opinion that they adopt as their own based upon some kind of popularity agenda.

I ask myself should I put my finger to the left, no
I ask myself should I put my finger to the right, no
I say it really doesn't matter where I put my finger
Someone else will come along and move it
And it's always been the same
It's just a complicated game
-XTC

If you want to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when there was a small magazine that took no ads, appeared a little late sometimes and was staffed by committed audiophiles check out HIFICRITIC. Reviews and articles by Martin Colloms, Paul Messenger, Malcolm Stewart, Ben Duncan,Chris Bryant, Stan Curtis and others. Long reviews and measurements that never appeared in the old Stereophile. An article in the current issue examines the work of Miland Kunchur, a physicist at the Univ. of South Carolina who is doing fascinating research on how we hear. He has found that 75% of listeners can detect differences as short an 6 millionths of a second, which seems impossible but is the result of experiment.