How about blind listening and a 100 point scale?

Works for Wine Spectator!

Plus, we'd have the advantage of knowing which piece in any given category is actually better or worse then other pieces in that same class.

To get this right...

Only having five classes is too broad.

Maybe we could compromise and add decimals to your system, and flip the numbers.

The best would be class 5, and within the class, components could be more accurately placed by going beyond the decimal.

It could even work like rock climbing ratings, and after 5.9 (five point nine), we could go to 5.10 (five point ten!) or higher, making a second, hundred point scale within each class.

A rating of 6 would be "live music."

I think you might be on to something by going numerical.

I mean, Stereophile lumps all that gear into each class, but we need a more precise way to differentiate amongst the members of the class.

There could be a Class B component that is almost a Class A, but we'd never know.

A numerical system woudld let people know it was better than the other Class B gear.

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A numerical system woudld let people know it was better than the other Class B gear

I thought we already had that? It's called the price!

RG

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Personally, I've never been a fan of "A+" simply because class A is already supposed to mean "best available," but when A+ was simply a way to recognize a few outliers, it kinda almost made some sense -- A+ wasn't exactly a "class" like all the others. But now, IMHO, that's just false. I think it's time to revise the Recommended Components ratings slightly. (I know -- it's easy for me to say "slightly" since I'm not doing the editing.)

Maybe a 'cost no object' classification