Purist Audio & Stereophile

Hi Jmcgrogan2,

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion but I must tell you that even though my company has many products listed in Stereophile's Recommended Components we have done very little advertising in the magazine. In addition, in our almost fifteen year history, Bright Star has been nominated four times for "Accessory of the Year" and has had four major product reviews and a number of sidebar mentions in Stereophile and I never, even once, had the slightest amount of pressure from anyone at Stereophile that we should either reciprocate by placing ads or that by placing and ad Bright Star would be more likely to get products reviewed or that it would influence the outcome of a review.

For the record, not one other high end magazine has tried to pressure or entice us to place ads in connection with product reviews or awards (of which we have received many from a wide range of publications) either. The only pressure I've ever received about advertising in connection with a review was done by one of the mainstream "glossy" mags (who will go nameless even though they are no longer in business). A high end magazine has never done so.

Just my unsolicited testimonial.

Best Regards,

Barry Kohan

Disclaimer: I am a manufacturer of vibration control products.

I could not agree more with the above posts. Advertising dollars, equipment loans, willingness to submit products for evaluation, etc., all enter into magazine ratings and recommendations. You won't find Transparent Cables mentioned in Recommended Components either.

There could be many reasons why certain products get articles and awards and others don't. However, one thing is for certain. None of these reviewers or magazines have heard every piece of gear out there. So, therefore, you cannot place as much importance on what they say as many people would like to do. Their "ratings", "awards", and opinions do not hold any special "magic" when it comes to how a component will perform for you. It probably means that it is at least an OK product that may be worthy of an audition. They can't make any definitive statements because they have not heard everything. It is opinion only, just like the posts here on Audiogon. If you agree with their opinions, then fine. Personally, I think that many extremely good sounding products don't ever get reviewed or rated by Stereophile, even when they have penetrated well into the mainstream on their own merits, and have attracted alot of consumer attention. Why?

There are a zillion other cable manufacturers not mentioned in Stereophile either. So what?

I am sick of Sam Tellig raving about every Musical Fidelity product.