Stereophile's Products of 2021

Here's another Stereophile milestone, our second one this year. In August, we celebrated the magazine's 500th issue. This month, we celebrate a number that's smaller but almost as round: our 30th Annual Product of the Year Awards.

PotY finalists and winners form a Who's Who (or, rather, a What's What) of high-end audio over the last 30 years. The first year's overall winner, in 1992, was the Mark Levinson No.30 D/A processor (priced at an impressive $13,950), one of the first great-sounding DACs. The following year's winner was the Convergent Audio Technology SL-1 Signature preamplifier ($4950 in 1993), a legendary tubed design that, after several further revisions, is still in production. (Bob Deutsch has one. So does my good friend Bryan.) Want to read more? All online.

As I pointed out in last year's introduction to this feature, the average price of a category winner (excluding the Budget category) in PotY's inaugural year—1992—was $6259, which is about $12,200 in today's dollars. Over the subsequent three decades, it was rare for a nominated product to exceed, say, $50,000—rare but not unheard-of: 1995's winner, the Wilson Audio Specialties X-1/Grand SLAMM loudspeakers, cost $67,500/pair, about 121,000 of today's dollars. An even more expensive Wilson won eight years later: the $200,000/pair Alexandria XLF. Indeed, with occasional exceptions, like the $108,496 dCS Vivaldi stack from 2014, if a nominated product is impressively expensive compared to the norm, it is probably either a Wilson loudspeaker ...

... or a turntable. The Rockport Technologies System III Sirius turntable ($73,750 with tonearm, or $121,000 in 2021 bucks) won the overall award in the year 2000. The Sirius became Michael Fremer's reference but only until 2006, when the Product of the Year was the Continuum Audio Labs Caliburn with Cobra tonearm and Castellon stand ($99,500), which sat in Mikey's listening room until quite recently.

This year's nominees continue that pattern and extend it ever upward. One of this year's Wilson Audio Specialties entries—there were two—costs $329,000/ pair. And this year's contenders include three turntables priced between €150,000 (sans tonearm) and $450,000 (for the basic version).

In the past, Stereophile's reviewers—who are invited but not required to factor perceived value in their decisions—have rarely flinched when faced with the prospect of voting for expensive stuff, but a $450,000 turntable and a $329,000 pair of loudspeakers is a whole new level. Will reviewers follow these products right on up the price ladder and offer their support? Or—to intentionally mix locomotion metaphors—are prices like these a bridge too far?

How We Did It
In early September, I compiled and shared with reviewers a list of all the products reviewed over the 12 months between the November 2020 and October 2021 issues. This year, reviewers were invited to nominate five products in each of eight categories: Loudspeaker of the Year, Amplification Component of the Year, Analog Component of the Year, Digital Component of the Year, Headphone Product of the Year, Accessory of the Year, Budget Product of the Year, and Overall Product of the Year.

Last year, I put an absolute price limit of $2000 on products qualifying for the Budget category. This year, I employed a more flexible method, designating Budget products based on my perception of value: $500 is cheap for an amplifier or a pair of loudspeakers but not for a phono cartridge or an interconnect.

Just like last year, only products that received their first reviews during those 12 months qualified for this competition—except for Editors' Choice, which was open to products reviewed earlier but auditioned by the nominating reviewer during the past 12 months. I then went through the nominations and totaled them up. In each category, the six (or so) products with the most reviewer support became finalists. I compiled a list of finalists and sent it to reviewers, who were asked to award three points to their favorite product in each category, two points to their second favorite, and one point to their third favorite. I counted up the points. I then sent an email to reviewers, reporting the results. And then I wrote this essay.

Some final notes: The prices listed herein were current at the end of August 2021. Finalists in each category are listed in alphabetical order. To order back issues mentioned in this article, call (888) 237-0955 or visit shop.stereophile.com. All the reviews are also available online, free.

And the winners are ...

COMMENTS
TomS's picture

$299.95 makes the KEF the budget speaker of the decade....buy yours now at this special SP price :)

John Atkinson's picture
Typo in HTML file, now fixed.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

JOHN LEONARD's picture

When I view DACs I always see some reference to it's clock. Usually its a subjective remark about how good or poorly it functions compared to it's predecessor. I may be wrong, but I have not seen a reference to a standard such as the Cesium fountain clock in London, England. I know, it has it's own error frequency, but still, whatever standard is chosen, I would like to see a reference to it, how well this clock functions. Thanks

dc_bruce's picture

Some months ago, Octo Research's website stopped talking about a waiting list and simply said not available at this time. I sent an e-mail, and the response was the same; but I was invited to sign up for their newsletters (which I did). Unfortunately, the only sound since then (months ago) has been crickets.

DougM's picture

That the editors consider a $1500 speaker a "busget" component just shows how out of touch with reality they are. While many families are struggling to make ends meet these overpaid stuffed shirts show that they are part of the 1%, and have no concept of how actual working people live. Poll most Americans, and you'll find that the majority of them would struggle to come up with $1500 for their whole system, let alone a single component. This is further proof that audio, and especially the editors and readers of this publication, are the domain of wealthy old men only, and not mudic lovers in general. 30% of workers in our xountry earn less than $30,000 a year. Chew on that as you sip your cognac

thatguy's picture

While $1,500 is a lot of money, that investment could easily last someone decades.

How many latest and greatest phones will those same people without the means to afford the speakers buy in the same 20-30 year period? How many months of unlimited service for those same phones would it take to equal the cost of the speakers?

I learned some time ago that it isn't buying the more expensive items that last decades that break one financially; it is all the small things we don't think about that bleed ones accounts dry.
It is far too easy to accept small sounding monthly charges for things we don't need but want or to pay way more to get fancier than we really need. Keep those KEF speakers for 20 years and it works out to $6.25 a month.

I work with a guy that doesn't have money for big expenses but spends $10 to $15 a day on lunch. A year of $10 lunches is $2,500. I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and could easily buy those speakers with the savings.

Kal Rubinson's picture

I work with a guy that doesn't have money for big expenses but spends $10 to $15 a day on lunch. A year of $10 lunches is $2,500. I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and could easily buy those speakers with the savings.

Funny reminder. Back in high school, I used to eat my friend's spare tuna or PB+J sandwich (his mother always packed extra) almost every day for lunch to save up the money for my first (pre-stereo) audio system. To this day, he regards that as his seed-money investment in my audio systems resulting in his part-ownership of every thing that it has evolved into.

DougM's picture

Your reply has shown that you're as out of touch as the editors. I don't eat out, and I don't own a hand held god, only a land line. My only income is my monthly SS check, and after paying my bills, I barely have enough left to eat. Furhtermore, the majority of working people I know that do have cellphones don't have $1000 I-Phones, but $200 Android phones, which, in this day and age, is a necessity to keep in touch with their spouses and kids in today's hectic world with so many obligations besides work. You've shown by your ignorant comments that you too are in an ivory tower, just like most Sterephile editors, writers, and readers

MatthewT's picture

But I am enjoying a nice IPA as I read your rant and sit in my concrete tower.

omega_jeff's picture

With so much angst against those with more resources than you, why are you here? Shouldn't you be perusing www.coupons.com?

ChrisS's picture

...then it's rather moot of you to complain about affording anything.

shawnwes's picture

It's unfortunate that you weren't able to save more during your working life to provide for yourself in your later years. Hopefully you have your health. We all make choices in life and the readers of this magazine have chosen audio as one of their passions. Not everyone can afford the second car, a cottage and a boat. I can't, however over the years I've put together a great system that isn't too far off the SOTA mark by choosing to spend my $ on audio and music rather than daily lattes or fancy restaurants! I'm surprised you even read these pages if it makes you so angry or have you forgotten the joy a nice stereo system can bring? Keep well.

dsnyc's picture

Actually, do the poor even have hobbies? They have babies, but...Oh wait! Now I know what their hobby is!

Robin Landseadel's picture

There are some of us po folk that spend increments of hundreds of dollars rather than thousands or gazillions of dollars on audio. There are some really excellent pieces of electronic/digital gear that go for far less than $1,000.00 a pop.

You will not read about them here.

shawnwes's picture

$299 incl shipping & Made in the USA. By many accounts the equal of a Topping D90 at 1/3 the price. Looking forward to upping my digital game finally after years of improving my analogue rig to killer status.

JHL's picture

...direct you to at least a couple "audio reviewers" out in the wild, who, by virtue of their blowing enormous sums on high end test gear, deliver meaningless assessments on bargain basement audio 24/7. Even then they and their ears are consistently wrong, something that doesn't happen here, but they have a particular certainty you may find fulfilling, that and their silly lists of state of the art audio stacks everybody else somehow overlooked down in the $199 bargain basement.

What's better is that as awesome as that stuff is, even it shows up in the used ads for a quarter of its new price.

Problem solved: The finest sound ever made for a penny on the typical audio dollar. Enjoy.

chuckles304's picture

I posted the following 2 years ago in response to a similar complaint on price in a different thread. The only thing I would add to it now is, as someone who can't afford the items described below, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg if someone can/does purchase "expensive" things. I benefit from "wealthy" people splurging, and I hope they continue to do it. I will admit to earning more than $30k/year, but it wasn't that long ago that I did, and audio wasn't on my radar. Same with the stuff I see my clients spending money on - not things I want, so what do I care if it costs a thousand or a million?

-------------------------------------

I am a carpenter, living in upstate NY near Albany. The overwhelming majority of my clientele are NYC weekenders building multi-million dollar 2nd homes. Over the years I have become accustomed to discussing materials/products that to the average Joe would seem outrageously priced. $14,000 bathtubs, $74,000 ovens, $4000 medicine cabinets, and even $380,000 for an order of reproduction old-school weight-and-chain windows that would have been around $50,000 had it been normal Marvin or Pella units. I've worked for a billionaire with 29 Ferraris.

My point is it's all relative. To the people who spent $2.2 million on an old Colonial Revival and 200 acres only to have us renovate and add 4 more structures to the tune of $7+ million, $685k barely covers just the windows in the main house. I don't envy them their wealth (and certainly not their heating/maintenance bills). I'm certainly damn grateful they chose us instead of our competitors.

There are plenty of posts in the forums from (I assume) college kids who think $300 for a DAC is insane. I used to think that too. I don't ever expect to own some of this stuff, but I don't see why people who can should get dumped on.

noamgeller's picture

Just go DIY. in the modern world of sharing knowledge through the web... the options are endless... and the community so it seems is ever growing

MatthewT's picture

Nothing depreciates like audio gear. Ten yeaar old high-end gear is still very good.

windansea's picture

Most of my gear is previously owned. Already burned in!
And I still spent more on my audio systems than on my car.

Briandrumzilla's picture

Isn’t the list price of the Niagara 3000 now $3300? Not sure when Audioquest increased their prices.

Anton's picture

For discussions like this, I recommend we convert retails prices of pieces of gear into multiples/ratios of median income.

A speaker that is 6 times the median annual income puts the price more in proper scale. Same for a speaker that costs 1/20th medium income.

Gives a good sense of scale.

splitcane's picture

I disagree with pricing criticism. Different people make different money. The Law of Diminishing Returns is at play and always has been. Achieving state of the art in anything is expensive in money, time and effort. HOWEVER, I am always disappointed to see these products listed in the winner's circle: it just doesn't seem to be much of an accomplishment to throw an unlimited amount of money at a design problem and come out with a remarkable solution, impressive as the result may be. Much more challenging is to maximize performance while minimizing price and seeing every year where those curves cross. I think this provides the most utility to the most readers. Also, it makes no sense to have a limit on the budget category and no limit on the upper end. Were I in charge, I would have a budget category based on 1 month's pay of the median USA household income (you can decide 1 person, 4 person, etc.) which puts anything in that category within reach of a good chuck of the population with planning and discipline. And I would have a cost-no-object category (presumably state of the art), based one something like 1+ year (how much time would you give up to own a piece of audio equipment?) of that same income level but still maintaining some perspective, and an everything-else category that lies between the two and is determined by the curves previously mentioned along with some sort of price / performance ratio score vs. state of the art in order to qualify. Or something like that.

mosfet50's picture

You can buy precision equipment from the big guns (Keysight, Tektronix, R&S,etc) that can measure down to picoamps with bandwidths of a gigahertz for much less than some of this equipment. The parts in those instruments are highly precision, audio is a racket today.

Stereo reviewers in slick magazines don't work for your benefit, they work for the advertisers, they bias their reviews that's why they don't give negative reviews, it would be their death knell. So the result is overpriced equipment with voodoo cables that you can't hear the difference doing double blind tests. Reviewers never do DBT's and they never publish their hearing spectrums either. That's called science. What do you think would happen if they couldn't hear the difference between a $2k amp and a $50k amp? That's rhetorical, we all know that answer!
Now manufacturers are selling high cost amps for $20k with off the shelf class D modules that cost under $1k and putting a buffer in front of it. Class D is the future, it's cheap and sounds really good when done right, the people engineering these modules are making great stuff. Class D is like class A on steroids. DIY

Ortofan's picture

... power amp, which uses the Purifi amp modules, and gave it a Class A rating.

KR said it is "a transparent, uncolored, powerful stereo power amplifier. It can easily drive most speakers to levels that exceed domestic tranquility. A bridged pair extends the power capability further still. The NAD C 298 challenges more expensive amps and should impress discerning listeners regardless of budget."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/nad-c-298-power-amplifier

The C 298 was in the running for both amplification component of the year and budget component of the year. It just didn't receive enough votes to win in either category. One might ask how many other Stereophile reviewers, besides KR, have had an opportunity to evaluate this amp?

It's not so much that such products aren't reviewed here, but that they tend to get overshadowed by the more visually enticing high-dollar offerings that are better suited to selling magazines when they appear on the cover, as opposed to the relatively plain black box that is the NAD amp, regardless of how well it performs.

ChrisS's picture

WTF are you doing here?

Get lost!

John Atkinson's picture
mosfet50 wrote:
Reviewers never do DBT's . . .

I have organized or taken part as a listener in around 100 blind tests, both single-blind and double-blind, since my first in 1977. This includes many blind tests in the 1980s and 1990s using Stereophile's reviewers and audiences at audio shows as the test subjects. As a result of that experience, I believe that it is extremely difficult to eliminate interfering variables that randomize the results.

And even when the test produces statistically significant results, such as when, using an ABX box, I showed that I could detect a change in absolute polarity with a 99% probability that doing so was not due to chance, others dismissed that result by calling me a "lucky coin."

mosfet50 wrote:
. . .and they never publish their hearing [spectra] either.

At Stereophile, both Kal Rubinson and I have disclosed our hearing sensitivity. Unfortunately, our having done so is then used as the basis for criticism. I don't think you can blame reviewers in general for not wanting to give others a cudgel with which to beat them.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

mosfet50's picture

"Interfering variables"? Then you're doing inferior DBTs. In science we correct inconsistencies and flaws in tests, we don’t throw out the test because if we do then all we have left is subjectivity. Anecdotal fallacy leaves us with people taking horse wormers thinking they will cure COVID.

Reverse polarity? You can hear that with $15 Walmart speakers. Why? Because out of phase bass cancels. Differentiate between two power cords on an amp. You can’t, why? Because no one on the planet can hear DC, so everything before adequate rectification and filtering has no effect on sound, that goes for expensive NOS tubes or anything else anyone puts before the filtration. Line filtering, fancy power cords, conditioners, toroidal transformers, etc. – all voodoo.

People criticized you for your hearing spectrum thirty years ago for a good reason and today your hearing is worse, it’s a product of aging, just like our bodies that cochlea can only move so fast and it doesn’t get faster as we age. Do your spectrum today under independent testers, I’ll bet it’s under 14kHz with dips along the way.

You don’t do DBTs because you can’t reliably differentiate between two components and things would get very bad very fast if you couldn’t tell a $5k amp from a $50k amp or even worse a $2k amp.

Audio is a mess today filled with snake oil and charlatans because reviewers won’t use science, they're afraid of it and there’s no advantage for them or the manufacturers they cater to.

I have nothing against you, you'd probably be lots of fun over a beer but this is about science and the damages to audio subjectivity has caused.

John Atkinson's picture
mosfet50 wrote:
"Interfering variables"? Then you're doing inferior DBTs. In science we correct inconsistencies and flaws in tests, we don’t throw out the test because if we do then all we have left is subjectivity.

There many interfering variables, one of which, research has shown, is the length of the blind test. With a test that lasts more than about 45 minutes, the results tend to randomize after that time even when a real audible difference exists. Some years ago I visited a well-regarded European manufacturer who used double-blind testing to investigate, for example, whether they should use an expensive part at a specific place in a circuit or use a cheap generic part. To get valid data, they would run a 45-minute double-blind test every morning for 10 days.

Even the listener’s knowledge that he is taking part in a test can be an interfering variable. I discussed this in my 2011 Richard Heyser Memorial Lecture to the Audio Engineering Society; see www.stereophile.com/content/2011-richard-c-heyser-memorial-lecture-where-did-negative-frequencies-go-measuring-sound-qua.

Over 45 years of working for audio magazines, my experience has been that while sighted listening tests as practiced by all reviewers can occasionally throw up a false positive – reporting a difference when none exists – that is preferable to reporting false negatives – saying there is no difference when one, even small, actually exists. You appear to disagree, so I think it appropriate to ask why you are reading Stereophile at all? Or any audio publication?

mosfet50 wrote:
Reverse polarity? You can hear that with $15 Walmart speakers. Why? Because out of phase bass cancels.

With respect, you are not comprehending what I wrote. I was not discussing the cancellation of bass when you wire a pair of speakers with one in opposite polarity to the other. Instead I was talking about hearing to a statistically significant degree a difference between a signal in correct polarity and the same signal in inverted polarity.

mosfet50 wrote:
People criticized you for your hearing spectrum thirty years ago for a good reason and today your hearing is worse, it’s a product of aging, just like our bodies that cochlea can only move so fast and it doesn’t get faster as we age. Do your spectrum today under independent testers, I’ll bet it’s under 14kHz with dips along the way.

You demonstrate an excellent example of what I wrote: ” I don't think you can blame reviewers in general for not wanting to give others a cudgel with which to beat them.” But no one criticized my hearing 30 years ago. I last published my hearing sensitivity a couple of years ago. I test my high-frequency cutoff every time I test a loudspeaker, by listening at what frequency I no longer hear the test signal. These days, at age 73, my cutoff varies between 13kHz and 13.5kHz depending on the time of day.

Floyd Toole and Sean Olive’s work has shown that the high-frequency cutoff is less significant than sensitivity notches in the upper midrange, such as those due to gunfire. I do have a slight loss of sensitivity in the mid-treble region, but this is still well within the limits of “normal” hearing, according to the audiologist who last tested me.

When I joined Stereophile, the late J. Gordon Holt’s hearing cutoff above 11kHz. But in all the listening tests we did together, Gordon was one of the most perceptive listeners I have encountered.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

mosfet50's picture

We don't throw out the baby with the bath water, everything you said is resolvable because DBTs are scientific investigation and we constantly improve algorithms. That’s how science works, because people did the test wrong doesn’t mean they are the perfect unimprovable test model and the problems they encountered aren’t resolvable, science isn’t stagnant, it’s in flux.

Your answer is to not use science but to use human subjectivity. This is flawed for several reasons - we never know how off base one’s perspective is or how often they are wrong in their assessment. What subjectivity does is free the reviewer from the burden of accountability and error, this, of course biases the review and favors the reviewer over the review. We never know how good or bad a component is and our entire perspective is built on one thing, faith in the reviewer. Now cognitive dissonance enters into the picture and when we actually listen to the component we are very likely biased by the reviewer’s perspective. Read what psychologists have to say about that.

Can “occasionally” throw up a false positive when none exists? You don’t know that it’s occasionally because you don’t know how often it occurs, it might happen every time.

False negatives? No, it doesn’t work that way, you review an amp, if you don’t hear something that might be there then the shortcoming is your error, not the error of the DBT and you can as easily make the same error in a subjective test. You’re making my point for me and you’re running into trouble with your own subjectivity.

As for Gordon Holt, I didn’t know him or how capable he was or wasn’t, all I have is your opinion. Again, you’re asking me to accept your subjectivity by bringing up his name and hearing spectrum. This is called “Anecdotal Fallacy”, “my uncle Louie lived to be one hundred and he smoked and drank every day.” We don’t know your uncle or the facts behind his life all we have is your subjectivity. Your intention is to show that because his hearing fell off, that you’re fine with your limited hearing. That’s not true either, he may have been exceptional, that doesn’t make you exceptional, one does not establish the other.

Because you can pick out one aspect in a DBT, reverse polarity, component polarity inversions, whatever doesn’t mean you can do it across all platforms consistently. That’s called Fallacy Composition, it is the inference that if something is true for the fractional part it is true for the whole.

Testing your hearing while testing a loudspeaker is not a valid hearing test.
“Normal” hearing - for a 73 year old.

The magazine is cheap (62 cents an issue, by your own ad), if it was expensive I wouldn’t get it. I do look at the ads to see what manufacturers are offering and occasionally check record releases.

Jim Austin's picture

I haven't felt the need to get involved here because John is doing such an excellent job. But I will toss in a couple of thoughts. You wrote:

As for Gordon Holt, I didn’t know him or how capable he was or wasn’t, all I have is your opinion.

Many pages of writing by Mr. Holt can be found on these very pages--and yet you have not taken the time to study them. And of course, it's not just JGH; it's also John Atkinson, who was chosen by the Audio Engineering Society to deliver the Heyser lecture in 2011 on issues closely related to these (among others). I've written about these issues, too, and quite recently. So have many others, compellingly. Complaints identical to yours have been fielded and answered at least since the '70s, and many minds have changed. It's certainly possible that if you read all this--studied it and came to understand it--you'd still believe as you do. But you are ignorant of all this and likely will remain so, willfully. That's okay--your choice. It's probably unrealistic, though, to expect the folks to welcome you and your tired, familiar arguments and educate you when you won't take the time to educate yourself.

Best Wishes,

Jim Austin, Editor
Stereophile

mosfet50's picture

The technical editor of a magazine arguing AGAINST science!

You missed the point I made about Mr. Holt. It's not significant whether I know of him or not, what's significant is that Mr. Atkinson implied that because Holt's hearing fell off at 11kHz there was no problem with his hearing falling off at 13 to 13.5 kHz. Read my reply, his implication fails common logic. Again, Mr. Holt, as I said in my response, may have been exceptional, that has zero bearing on Mr. Atkinson’s abilities, hearing or lack of both. One simply does not validate the other.

As far as other complaints and minds that have changed, you're making the same mistake he did - Anecdotal Fallacy, I don't know who the "many" are and his responses stand or fall on their own merit, that which doesn’t stand to reason falls. I wasn't at the conference he gave, I don’t know how many people accepted his argument and how many discarded it but it’s not pertinent here, this was his opportunity to support his premise. Your implication that this is a “tired” argument is a fragile ploy attempting to dismiss a valid scientific perspective. However, I do find it interesting that both the editor and the technical editor are here attempting to defend such a “tired” argument.

“The lady doth protest too much, me thinks!”
Shakespeare

His arguments falsely assumes that problems he sees with DTBs are unresolvable, which is to say that scientific investigation is unresolvable and unimprovable. His argument that DBTs can miss differences (false negatives) ignores the simple fact that subjective assessments can also miss the same negatives!

How anyone can argue against science and for subjectivity is completely beyond basic logic and reason. Your response never addressed my rebuttal and I find it ironical that someone promoting subjectivity over science is actually asking me to “educate” myself when they are basically arguing that the world is flat simply because they believe it is.

ChrisS's picture

...if you can taste the difference between Pepsi and Coke!

They only care about which taste you prefer and what product you are going to buy.

Nothing to do "science" bullshit.

It's marketing.

ChrisS's picture

...more Woody Allen movies.

You might figure out you're like one of his characters who finds himself in an absurd situation where he is totally inappropriate.

And doesn't belong.

John Atkinson's picture
mosfet50 wrote:
His arguments falsely assumes that problems he sees with DTBs are unresolvable . . .

Please do not put words in my mouth. I haven't said that. What I have pointed out is that performing a double-blind test where the variables are restricted to just the one you are investigating is difficult. But as with the European manufacturer's tests I mentioned, they are resolvable if you have the necessary time and the resources.

And if you remember your statistics classes at university, a test that produces a negative result does not mean there is no difference, only that if there is a difference, it was not detectable under the specific conditions of the test.

mosfet50 wrote:
what's significant is that Mr. Atkinson implied that because Holt's hearing fell off at 11kHz there was no problem with his hearing falling off at 13 to 13.5 kHz

The point I was making is that the ear is not a microphone - the ears are attached to a brain, which means that "listening" is more than simply "hearing."

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

mosfet50's picture

“What I have pointed out is that performing a double-blind test where the variables are restricted to just the one you are investigating is difficult.”

What I have pointed out is that they are just as difficult in subjective testing but the difficulty is masked by subjectivity. The listener is not held to any standards or references, he hears what he thinks he hears, now we’re back to the earth being flat because I think it’s flat!

“And if you remember your statistics classes at university, a test that produces a negative result does not mean there is no difference, only that if there is a difference, it was not detectable under the specific conditions of the test.”

Once again, the specific DBT itself was inferior, NOT the science of DBTs, we modify the algorithm, we correct the anomalies we don’t discard the process for non-scientific solutions. – we’ve been here before and it’s just as possible with subjective testing!

Again, just to be clear this is what you said:
“reporting a difference when none exists – that is preferable to reporting false negatives – saying there is no difference when one, even small, actually exists.”

And my response was that it is just as possible in a subjective test to believing there is no difference when one exists, even a small one.

“if you have the necessary time and the resources.”

Just to be clear you’re saying that you don’t have the time and resources to do DBTs and that’s why you do subjective testing, is that correct? Not that DBTs have unresolvable problems?
So why, if this is true, did you site what you felt were problems in the first place if you knew they were resolvable? You gave every indication that the problems you believed DBTs had are why you don’t employ them, now you’re saying it’s a time and resources issue?

Frankly, I simply don’t believe it is a time and resources problem.

“The point I was making is that the ear is not a microphone - the ears are attached to a brain, which means that "listening" is more than simply "hearing."”

What?? If something is outside of your hearing spectrum you can’t heart it! a priori

So basically there was no reason to bring up Holt in the first place!

ChrisS's picture

No one, anywhere, does DBT for audio reviewing.

ChrisS's picture

Why would anyone do something that's totally inappropriate for audio reviewing?

No one is obliged to do anything for you.

mosfet50's picture

I get the magazine I get to critique it and you don't get to tell me what I can and can't do.

Who are you, the hall monitor?

ChrisS's picture

You're like that joke from "Annie Hall".... "(T)wo elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know; and such small portions!"

mosfet50's picture

non sequitur

ChrisS's picture

...as you being here.

DougM, too...why complain about the price of stereo equipment when you can't afford anything.

mosfet50's picture

First you tried to bully me, that didn't work, then you made the false assumption that I have issues with reviewers because I can't afford equipment, that's not true.

You haven't said anything to refute what I said, when can I expect that.

It's a discussion, I have nothing against you or anyone else, it's about science and the damages of subjectivity in audio.

ChrisS's picture

...bullied by Woody Allen movies....)

Your lack of manners, belligerence, and inflammatory accusations make you unwelcome.

mosfet50's picture

However, telling someone to "get lost" is.

Everything I said I can support with science,. I have not name called or spoken rudely to anyone, including you.
You, on the other hand, have not been so polite.

ChrisS's picture

...accusatory. I just responded to you in kind.

John Atkinson is much more of a gentleman than I and way, way more knowledgeable than both of us.

Drop the "scientism" and read his responses to you carefully.

You might learn something.

If not, leave.

mosfet50's picture

Once again you're making the same mistake. You have no idea what my background or education is.

ChrisS's picture

...DBT's when reviewing audio equipment.

No one.

You are making the mistake thinking that consumerism is "science".

It's not.

You are not going to Mars.

It's marketing.

It's shopping.

No one gives a f**k about your education or background.

You're just a Sheldon.

Man, a bloody rude evangelical ignoramus!

ChrisS's picture

This isn't public property.

You can't come into someone's backyard and take a shit.

MatthewT's picture

Angry, smug, bitter and self-defensive all the time. Why is that?

ChrisS's picture

...level of understanding of the "scientific method" would help.

And manners.

Geez, this pandemic (and age) is making me really crotchety...!

MatthewT's picture

But "enjoy" anything is the last thing obejectivists seem able to do.

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