2014 Recommended components fall edition from Stereophile

Mark Jones said:
I definitely have a love/hate thing going on with Stereophile's list
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Same here. More on the "hate" side though...or maybe more on the "what are they thinking"? side. I'm no expert, but some of the recommends seem blatantly skewered or biased or way off the mark and I'm just talking about a little of the stuff I've experienced that they have listed. Makes me wonder about all of it. The Ortofon 2M Red vs AT95E sticks out to me, it seems like they almost have it reversed.
Good thing they aren't the last word in this stuff. *chuckle* Our ears are the last word..ok, that and our bank accounts.:)
 
I hope you guys realize that it's impossible for anyone to put out a list of recommended components that everyone would agree with.
 
I actually think John and Stereophile do a great job considering the difficulties involved in putting such a list together eg. compiling from lots of different reviewers. Nothing is perfect.

Plus I will guarantee you it's the best selling issue of the year.
 
Myles B. Astor said:
I actually think John and Stereophile do a great job considering the difficulties involved in putting such a list together eg. compiling from lots of different reviewers. Nothing is perfect.

Plus I will guarantee you it's the best selling issue of the year.
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Agreed, but I still love it and hate it!
 
MtnHam said:
Way too many conspicuous absences of quality gear to be taken seriously. Stereophile's advertisers get what they pay for. Others get ignored.
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This subject will never be settled but John has produced voluminous statistics that clearly show no link between advertising and reviews. Are you suggesting that Stereophile doesn't accept advertising?

And what reviewed equipment has been omitted? Stereophile can obviously only recommend components that were reviewed.

Why other components aren't reviewed happens for a variety of reasons. I know quite a few Stereophile reviewers and not one of them is told what to review. They are free to chose whatever gear interests them. Not to mention, the magazine only has so many reviewers and so many pages to dedicate to reviews. So where's the conspiracy?
 
Agree with Myles, the mag can only review equipment that has been submitted for review by the manufacturer. They don't send it, it's not going to get any press.

But, I'm pretty bored with some of these components which repeat year after year. I know some will say that nothing has surpassed them and that's true as far as what's been tested, again if a manufacturer doesn't send it we will get some repeats of equipment year after year after year.

Regarding ad's in the mag, take a few minutes and count how many pages contain an article about audio equipment verses pages with advertisements. Ad space out weighs content space and each year it slants a little more towards ad's. Is that a good thing for those that pay for this mag, I personally wish for more content vs filling up a mag with 1/4, 1/2 or full page ad's

But it does make for good reading while on the throne of power.
 
+1
Myles B. Astor said:
This subject will never be settled but John has produced voluminous statistics that clearly show no link between advertising and reviews. Are you suggesting that Stereophile doesn't accept advertising?

And what reviewed equipment has been omitted? Stereophile can obviously only recommend components that were reviewed.

Why other components aren't reviewed happens for a variety of reasons. I know quite a few Stereophile reviewers and not one of them is told what to review. They are free to chose whatever gear interests them. Not to mention, the magazine only has so many reviewers and so many pages to dedicate to reviews. So where's the conspiracy?
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CPP said:
Regarding ad's in the mag, take a few minutes and count how many pages contain an article about audio equipment verses pages with advertisements. Ad space out weighs content space and each year it slants a little more towards ad's. Is that a good thing for those that pay for this mag, I personally wish for more content vs filling up a mag with 1/4, 1/2 or full page ad's
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Once upon a time in the land of purity and HP was king of the jungle, TAS took no money for ads from manufacturers. That business model collapsed on it's face. Magazines have to generate ad revenue to survive. We have talked about this before. Your subscription to any audio magazine is subsidized by the ads contained within. No ads = no magazine. It's fun for some of you to constantly pick on mags like Stereophile as well as the other web-based media, but everyone is doing the best they can whether you believe that or not. And because high-end audio is more fractured than the tower of Babel, magazines simply can't keep everyone happy with the choices they make for the gear that is reviewed-it's simply impossible.
 
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