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May 5, 2006 - 11:53pm
#1
no Class A without measurements...
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Hard to say, Tony, why no one at all responded to your post for a full year. I don't recall the first post but I'd have thought you'd get a variety of reactions - pro and con. Personally, I pay little attention to the Recommended listings and, in fact, resent the space devoted to them which might be devoted to material I'd find more interesting. I have a couple of pieces of gear which were rated in the A category, but that's not why I bought them. Maybe there are more people who share my attitude than I thought.
Are you striving for an all class A system?
I'm impressed that you remembered that you posted this a year ago and came back to post a follow up. I wish I remembered everything I did a year ago.
While I like that Stereophile both measures and listens to equipment, for me the sound of a component wins over measurements. I understand your point however.
One thing you can rely on is the initials of the reviewer that is provided with the subjective comments under each recommended component. This provides some idea as to whether it is likely that a component has been measured.
I don't have a recommended components issue in front of me so I can't check, but in the section that describes how the components are picked does it state that measurements are considered in the rankings? My vague recollection is that the components are chosen by sound alone. I am happy to be corrected however if this is not the case.
Yes, because I believe that is fair to the products that are covered in our regular columns. Inclusion in "Recommended Components" is almost entirely based on a product's sound quality as described by our writers, not on its measured performance.
I do try to measure some of the more interesting products and publish a follow-up, but time limitations mean that I cannot do this for all the products reviewed in the columns.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
thank you for your feedback. I do not mean to denigrate the value of subjective reviewing, I happen to put a lot of stock in Sam's picks for example. I still feel uncomfortable about the class listings aspect of this; I still feel there should a minimal attempt at "quality control" before including an item in class A or A+. Especially given the fact that there are two types of reviews in Stereophile, the purely subjective and the "combined". I feel the combined are far more complete and useful to readers trying to make purchasing decisions since they provide both listening impressions supported (or perhaps complemented is a better term) by the Stereophile suite of standard measurements, this allows a nice ability to compare across reviews and reviewers. Whereas the purely subjective reviews only allow you to compare with the reviewers previous opinions without a objective means to utilize as support/complement. SO...why not reserve the top claissification for those components that have, at least, passed through both processes? This would simply mean that every time a reviewer recommends a component for class A inclusion that it be scheduled for testing. I can still hope for that can't I? A formal policy like this would keep poor performing laser cables from being included in class A for example. best regards, T