The Absolute Sound Review of Sony SCD-XA777ES ???

The review is "worthful" with or without an associated equipment list if and to the extent that you trust the ears of Mr. Cordesman and Mr. Harley.

If you think that afiles get wacky in their preferences for equipment and its effect on outcome, you should talk to surgeons about their preferences for instruments. Yet I've never read a surgical paper in which a list of instruments was included.

The bottom line is that, by definition, the output sound cannot be good unless both the equipment being evaluated and the associated equipment are good. I agree that it would be helpful to see a list of associated gear because if it included stuff you don't like it would give you a leg up on deciding whether or not the thing being evaluated might work for you. But it would not make all that much difference because the odds that Cordesman or Harley or any other reviewer uses exactly the same setup you do is miniscule.

Therefore....if you trust their ears, and they say it sounds good, give it a shot in YOUR system and see if it yields the results you want. In the end, it is YOUR gear that matters, not Mr. Cordesman's.

And, in the process, have fun.

Bishopwill, glad the review works for you.

Will, would you please say something stupid just once? You're giving me an inferiority complex. I am reminded of one of Joe Pesci's courtroom lines in My Cousin Vinny - "yeah, what that guy said."

Jim, I am always curious about the associated equipment used by a reviewer, but most of the time I have no experience with much of the equipment listed - so it doesnt really inform. I have found over the years that I trust the ears, sensibilties and points of view of a few reviewers, e.g., Greene, Colloms, Cordesman, and I trust them to describe the sound of the component they are reviewing, as opposed to the sound of the system including the component under review. They know what they are doing. When Greene or Cordesman say something about a component, they are really talking about the component - not its interaction with something else. They routinely evaluate components in combination with multiple amps, sources, etc.

A more serious omission in most reviews is any information about the reviewer's listening room (Greene and some of the other TAS reviewers have described theirs). For example, "Sam Tellig" recommends all sorts of inexpensive components that other people find barely listenable. John Marks's description of "Sam's" listening room in an AA thread explains a lot of stuff.

Paul

Clueless: I don't think our audio world is quite ready to hear that the King has no clothes.

The hi-end is an incestuous marriage of art and commerce - or the search for "beauty" and the search for money - where, invariably, the considerations of art take a back seat to an individual's greed. At the apex of these organizations are individuals whose identity structure (who they tell themselves they are and project to other people) must include an image of the guru, making unassailed, Platonic pronouncements from on high, as if they were Zeus. Of course, to keep this illusion going the acolytes must be willing - need it somehow - to accept the "guru's" projection. Its a symbiotic dynamic.

Oh my God, I just realized that I've said something "Bad".

Quick, everyone, stone the Witch!!!!

Oh well...

Hey, Whatjd,

I hope you didn't hear my remarks as a personal put-down. I, too, miss the equipment list and wonder why Miss WhatsHerFace can't find three column inches to include it now that TAS is fat and sassy again.

I'm inclined to believe that it all comes down to (1) whether the reviewer has any ears and (2) how similar his taste is to my own. Over the years I have learned that my own ears/taste are so different from Cordesman's that his reviews are pretty much worthless to me. Harley I do better with. And HP's (all genuflect before the celestial throne!), too, once one learns to read beyond his incredible pomposity.