Why in the h*&^ do you have Fremer reviewing digital equipment? Why does every digital review from Stereophile have to compare against analog? The way your guys do this is all wrong and it does an injustice to your readers.
1: You have Fremer that uses a terrible sounding Sooloos system when he play digital. For 1, you have to have a large screen near you (bad) and from what I know, Sooloos still hasn't done much to improve the SQ. Fremer does this for convenience but he has no problem spending countless hours setting up a tonearm!!! Fremer complains about having to buy a $100 hard drive to review a music server and he balks, but he has no problem paying hundreds of thousands of $$$ for an analog rig. How unfair!
2: Your reviews almost always compares digital SQ to analog which is subjective at best and the way you do it, is very unfair. Let me explain:
Not all analog sounds better than digital and not all MQA sounds better than either analog or straight digital. If you want to do a double "open" eye test between analog and digital, I will come over with a $50 cd player with a cd of "Fourplay" and a copy of it in vinyl. The $50 cd player wins hands down because you can't get 90% of the new jazz music I like in vinyl!
I have the luxury of having a very good analog setup as well as a digital setup playing ripped or Tidal with MQA music. I have some songs/albums that sound much much better using analog over ripped or MQA but I also have just as many songs that are superior using ripped or MQA over vinyl. I have SACD's that sound superior over vinyl. My point is that you can't always assume that analog or MQA will blow away ripped/cd SQ!
What is also very very unfair is that ALL of your rants about how vinyl is so much better (See Fremer's latest Brinkmann DAC review), you are doing it all wrong! Fremer's comments are based on his $250k analog setup (maybe more $$$$) compared to a $18k dac. That's like comparing a $18k Toyota Corolla to a Porsche GT3. Get real folks! To solve this problem, I think Stereophile needs to do a couple of things:
1: Keep Fremer from reviewing digital components or at least keep him from making any remarks about how much better analog is ov any digital piece up for review.
2: This is just as high priority as #1 above. If you are going to compare a digital DAC against analog, you need to compare like costing equipment. For example, in Fremer's Brinkmann DAC review, he would need to setup an analog system comprised of the turntable, tonearm, cartridge, head amp if needed, setup tools, phone preamp, and all associated cables that equaled $18k. Fremer's phono preamp or cartridge cost 2x more than the DAC. How unfair is this? Better yet, since I have a PS Audio DS with bridge II and I think it equals or better's other DACs for many more times the money, I would like Fremer or Stereophile to build a analog system that costs $7k to compare with the PS Audio DS/bridge II. The digital setup will blow away the analog system at the same cost. I have been there with the cheaper analog setups and IMO, you have to spend many times more than a DAC/streamer to get very nice analog SQ that betters a very good sounding digital setup.
Why in the h*&^ do you have Fremer reviewing digital equipment? Why does every digital review from Stereophile have to compare against analog? The way your guys do this is all wrong and it does an injustice to your readers.
1: You have Fremer that uses a terrible sounding Sooloos system when he play digital. For 1, you have to have a large screen near you (bad) and from what I know, Sooloos still hasn't done much to improve the SQ. Fremer does this for convenience but he has no problem spending countless hours setting up a tonearm!!! Fremer complains about having to buy a $100 hard drive to review a music server and he balks, but he has no problem paying hundreds of thousands of $$$ for an analog rig. How unfair!
2: Your reviews almost always compares digital SQ to analog which is subjective at best and the way you do it, is very unfair. Let me explain:
Not all analog sounds better than digital and not all MQA sounds better than either analog or straight digital. If you want to do a double "open" eye test between analog and digital, I will come over with a $50 cd player with a cd of "Fourplay" and a copy of it in vinyl. The $50 cd player wins hands down because you can't get 90% of the new jazz music I like in vinyl!
I have the luxury of having a very good analog setup as well as a digital setup playing ripped or Tidal with MQA music. I have some songs/albums that sound much much better using analog over ripped or MQA but I also have just as many songs that are superior using ripped or MQA over vinyl. I have SACD's that sound superior over vinyl. My point is that you can't always assume that analog or MQA will blow away ripped/cd SQ!
What is also very very unfair is that ALL of your rants about how vinyl is so much better (See Fremer's latest Brinkmann DAC review), you are doing it all wrong! Fremer's comments are based on his $250k analog setup (maybe more $$$$) compared to a $18k dac. That's like comparing a $18k Toyota Corolla to a Porsche GT3. Get real folks! To solve this problem, I think Stereophile needs to do a couple of things:
1: Keep Fremer from reviewing digital components or at least keep him from making any remarks about how much better analog is ov any digital piece up for review.
2: This is just as high priority as #1 above. If you are going to compare a digital DAC against analog, you need to compare like costing equipment. For example, in Fremer's Brinkmann DAC review, he would need to setup an analog system comprised of the turntable, tonearm, cartridge, head amp if needed, setup tools, phone preamp, and all associated cables that equaled $18k. Fremer's phono preamp or cartridge cost 2x more than the DAC. How unfair is this? Better yet, since I have a PS Audio DS with bridge II and I think it equals or better's other DACs for many more times the money, I would like Fremer or Stereophile to build a analog system that costs $7k to compare with the PS Audio DS/bridge II. The digital setup will blow away the analog system at the same cost. I have been there with the cheaper analog setups and IMO, you have to spend many times more than a DAC/streamer to get very nice analog SQ that betters a very good sounding digital setup.