I think Stereophile is a nice entertaining magazine. However, like everything, you must take it with a grain of salt.
The Stereophile rating system for equipment is a bit misleading. I have found from my own experience that there is a very big range of equipment in any given Stereophile Class (A, B, C, D, or E). Not every piece of equipment in ANY Stereophile class is remotely equal in any given system. They do however, stress that these are 'recommendations' and a person should listen to the piece of gear in their own system before they buy. No truer words could be said about audio.
My big problem about the Stereophile Recommended Components list is that it really, really, subjective. It seems that if any one reviewer loves a component, that component will make the list. Also, it is sometimes arbitrary at how long any given component can stay on the list. Some components have been on that list for several years, while others slip off very quickly. I know Stereophile has guidlines for how components stay on the list and when they are dropped, but it seems that these rules are many times ignored. This ends up IMHO causing a serious range of products to appear in any given class.
How does this happen? Well, let me give you an example that I am pretty familiar with. I used to have a Camelot Uther mk2 v3 DAC/digital preamplifier. This 24/96 DAC/preamp was in Stereophiles Class A digital since Stereophile first reviewed it. I got mine a little over 2 years ago and it sounded good. It was the best digital I had ever had in my system. I even bought into the idea that Stereophile published in the review that using the Uther as a preamp was the way to go, giving the best possible sound. I got a little adventurous and tried a Sonic Fronteirs 3SE preamp with the Uther just to hear what it would sound like. OMG, my system with the SF preamp sounded A LOT better than with the Uther pumping direct into my amps. Well... Next, I decided to get an EMC-1 mk2 CDP to hear how it compared to the Uther. Folks there was no comparison. The EMC-1 mk2 was better than the Uther in nearly every way imagineable. It was not-even-funny better. How could Stereophile keep the Uther in Class A when the best 24/192 CDP's blew it away 2 years ago?????? Now I have an Ayre CX-7 which is a CDP that made the EMC-1 mk2 sound well... not-so-good.
Everyone must remember that Stereophile is really interested in selling HiFi because that is what sells and keeps their magazine on firm financial ground. If they REALLY wanted to review components, they would do comparisons/direct comparisons between multiple pieces in reviews of those pieces. They would do an issue with reviews of say the Ayre CX-7 vs. Cary 306/200 vs. EMC-1 mk2 vs. Gamut CDP vs. Sony SCD-1 modified CDP (playing redbook CDs). Direct comparisons such as these, could really give us a glimpse into how these pieces of electronics stack up against each other.
There are minor problems though with Direct Comparisons of certain pieces ofc. Different pieces can sound different any any given system. HOWEVER, I'd like to see them review all the pieces in a few different reference systems. This might be ambitious (maybe too ambitious), but I think this could give a reader a better idea of what the pieces sound like.
Anyway, as far as speakers go.... I will say this. I have had the Maggie 3.6's and the Vienna Acoustic Mahlers. Both of these speakers are rated Class A (limited low frequency) by Stereophile. These two speakers sound COMPLETELY different. And depending on your system, either can sound really good or very bad. However, I will wholehertedly say that the Maggies are NOT the speaker you want if you want to play rock. Maggies do not have the dynamics nor the bass to really represent rock well. Rock played through my Maggie setup sounded waaaaaaaaaaay toooooooooooo refined. The Mahlers on the other hand are a MUCH more well rounded speaker than the Maggies. The Mahlers can play all kinds of music very well and are great for HT. They may not have quite the Maggie's midrange, but in all other categories (with the right electronics) they are better all around speakers. OFC the Mahlers cost over two times the Maggies retail.
KF
