Stereophile 2023 recommended gear list

[mhardy6647]

Just had a look at the 2023 recommended gear list on stereophile.com, and it appears if the item doesn't cost less than my car, it won't make the highest recommendation grade. It's quite sad that they are appealing mainly to the 'more money than sense' customer. Thank god for ASR.

The conclusion is inescapable.
If you'd have spent more for your automobile, whole new vistas of recommended components would open up for you.



As a corollary (of sorts), I'm hellbent on never paying more for a car than we did for our first house (actually, Mrs. H bought our first house, as she was gainfully employed at the time, and I was still a bum graduate student ). $41k USD (in 1983, give or take). Oh and a mortgage at 13.25%

So -- I drive a cheap car.
And, perhaps needless to say, I could probably buy one Stereophile recommended wire cable interconnect using your metric.


OK -- I'll stop now.

 

[FrantzM]

View attachment 310288

They don't go there.. Not Science rather ... this seems to me more appropriate:

Peace.

 

[fpitas]

I'd have never come up with "textural suppleness"

That may be a sign of sanity. Or at least integrity.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi
Was a S'Phile subscriber to through Apple News, I am not sure why? Perhaps to see if they will change? Fat chance!!! ... Issue after issue, a pile of rubbish...
I removed/cancelled it today... Not worth the electrons

Peace.

 

[fpitas]

Hi
Subscribe to S'Phile through Apple News, I am not sure why? Perhaps to see if they will change? Fat chance!!! ... Issue after issue, a pile of rubbish...
I removed/cancelled it today... Not worth the electrons

Peace.

I find it hard to read. The measurement sections are good, though.

 

[mhardy6647]

hmm... my (EDIT: self-imposed, so far!) hiatus from poking fun in this thread, apparently, was nasty, brutish, and short.

Textural suppleness. What an age we live in

Indeed.
I guess I need to upgrade, as several of my components manifest inescapably audible textural flaccidity.

 

[AdrianusG]

Hahaha, I used to held these Magazines in high regard, (and still occasionally) read/watch them, however since ASR i just see them more as the Playboy and such, nice for eye candy but not much else i'm afraid.

 

[CapMan]

Indeed.
I guess I need to upgrade, as several of my components manifest inescapably audible textural flaccidity.

Almost coughed coffee over my laptop as I read that

 

[mhardy6647]

Almost coughed coffee over my laptop as I read that

My work is done here.

 

[rdenney]

That may be a sign of sanity. Or at least integrity.

Sanity, absolutely not. I make no claim to that.

Integrity? No--that would be if I thought of "textural suppleness" but decided on moral grounds not to use it. Not me: I can think of times when I would definitely have used that, or similar adjectives of even more dubious connection to actual truth.

If a person does not measure performance, they cannot determine if a thing attains its objectives. Most of the time, the objectives are obscured. Maybe, for example, Prima Luna knows what they're doing but designed the recently (poorly) reviewed amp to provide its spectral coloration on purpose. (The mains noise it displayed is harder to defend, of course.) Maybe this amp attains their objectives perfectly. Or, maybe they had no objectives, and just put stuff together until sound came out, and fiddled with it until the sound seemed okay to them. In that case, the performance measure is "seemed okay". One supposes they have test equipment just to ensure that what they make won't burn someone's house down. And their specs seem to be reasonably correct, so they had to know something.

Rick "integrity would mean exposing one's objectives in plain language" Denney

Edit: Just realized the error of trying to keep up with two derisive threads at one time. But the derision is the same in both cases, so it just needed a couple of little fixes.

 

[fpitas]

Maybe Prima Luna knows what their doing but designed this amp

A cynical part of me suspects they have an overseas manufacturer that offered to design the unit, too. Turnkey and cheap, knowing that somebody will love it no matter how it measures.

 

[rdenney]

A cynical part of me suspects they have an overseas manufacturer that offered to design the unit, too. Turnkey and cheap, knowing that somebody will love it no matter how it measures.

I've read John's work for years and also that of several other of S'phile's writers, and generally I like these guys. Our friend Kal Rubinson comes to mind specifically, but I even like old Sam Tellig's stuff for its entertainment value. (This regard is not universal with all their authors, of course.) I don't think of them as liars. I do think they court their advertisers, but having grown up in a free market my internal filter already detects and deals with that issue. It seems to me, however, that at least with John and Kal, most of the time the magazine is trying to keep up with the wackiness of their audiophile readers rather than lead them into further wackiness.

ASR might not be sustainable if Amir depended on advertisers and subscribers for his living. Most of us are too cheap.

(But, yes, lots of luxury brands contract out all design and manufacturing, keeping for themselves only marketing and sales support.)

Rick "back to reviewing engineering proposals with even more wackiness than anything I see in S'phile" Denney

 

[CapMan]

My work is done here.

This comment appeared on another forum I visit where measurements were being discussed ….

“A frequency curve tells you as much about music as a picture does about landscape. It's a representation and not the real thing.”

 

[fpitas]

This comment appeared on another forum I visit where measurements were being discussed ….

“A frequency curve tells you as much about music as a picture does about landscape. It's a representation and not the real thing.”

As long as you are blissfully ignorant, it's a pithy statement.

 

[rdenney]

As long as you are blissfully ignorant, it's a pithy statement.

...that applies to all playback systems, no matter how skillfully implemented.

But those black-and-white photographs of landscapes are on the art creation side of the equation. If those original photographs are printed in a book, the book will be evaluated on how closely it matches the silver print made by the photographer. And it won't be perfect, but it might be close enough to be indistinguishable in a real viewing situation. Recorded music heard in one's living room or on their headphones is never like being in the concert venue, for no other reason than the surrounding experience of being there and how that colors one's perceptions. The point of the landscapes is not to replace that experience, but to evoke some of the feelings one might feel in that landscape. Again, that's the art creation. So, the work done by the musicians is one part of the art, but the work done by the producers also contributes to the art. Playback is a separate reproduction process involving an affordably scalable distribution medium, like that art book.

Not separating the creation of the art from its distribution technology is the usual problem of metaphors. And, yes, it depends on ignorance of that distinction to sound pithy.

Rick "the point of critical review is to expand horizons, which empowers users to make their own decisions, not merely to condemn products less than the state of the art" Denney

 

[fpitas]

Recorded music heard in one's living room or on their headphones is never like being in the concert venue, for no other reason than the surrounding experience of being there and how that colors one's perceptions.

True, but music recorded in the studio can sound just like the recording engineer intended. You may or may not care about that, but that is after all the idea of high fidelity.

 

[mdsimon2]

Okto dac8 stereo (A+) and Okto dac8 pro (A) continue do very well in both the Stereophile recommendations and objective measured performance, at prices well below pretty much everything else in their respective categories / grades.

Michael

 

[boxerfan88]

They have a big section dedicated to the differences in sound between the various classes of amplifiers:

Class A Best attainable sound for a component of its kind, almost without practical considerations; "the least musical compromise." A Class A system is one for which you don't have to make a leap of faith to believe that you're hearing the real thing. When SACD and hi-rez files became available, we introduced a new Class, A+, for the best performance in those digital categories. Class A now represents the best that can be obtained from the conventional 16/44.1 CD medium. We also created Class A+ categories for turntables and phono preamps, to recognize the achievements of the Continuum Caliburn and Boulder 2008, respectively.

Class B The next best thing to the very best sound reproduction; Class B components generally cost less than those in Class A, but most Class B components are still quite expensive.

Class C Somewhat lower-fi sound, but far more musically natural than average home-component high fidelity; products in this class are of high quality but still affordable.

Class D Satisfying musical sound, but these components are either of significantly lower fidelity than the best available, or exhibit major compromises in performance—limited dynamic range, for example. Bear in mind that appearance in Class D still means that we recommend this product—it's possible to put together a musically satisfying system exclusively from Class D components.

A = bestest, billionaire class
B = best, millionaire class
C = cheap n good
D = compromised
E (off the list) = carp

 

[Ron Texas]

Stereophile is a subjectivist publication that happens to do some measurements which are nowhere near as rigorous as what are done here.

 

[RayDunzl]

"Textural suppleness" seems to have been liberated from the vine...

"textural suppleness" - Google Search

"If one criticism can be levelled at them it is their facility: an easy sweetness of fruit and textural suppleness which sometimes makes one ..."

"Wine Spectator 91 Points Deep, rich and potent, with a seam of elegance and textural suppleness that bodes well for the future, offering a core of dark ..."

"There is precision and energy matched by textural suppleness that has rarely, if ever been seen. Handpicked estate fruit. Cool fermentation with cultured ..."

"The result is textural suppleness to complement the acidity, and a surprising ability to age. (Recent tastings of 1977, 1983, 1989, and 1991 all continue to ..."


It comes at much less expense with wine, so, maybe if you combine yer cheap gear with some bottled textural suppleness, you'll have a weiner.