The hi-fi rags have their recommended product listings every year. Tis the season. I’ll give credit where it’s due. I’ll pick nits where they’ve missed the mark.
Some of the misses are just egregious. I’m not a conspiracy guy. I don’t think the rags have it in for particular brands. But I DO think they’re highly influenced by manufacturers who are assiduous in tending to them.
If Milwaukee Audio has an amp it wants reviewed in XYZ, they’ll surely get more mileage by driving it to the reviewer’s house, unpacking it and setting it up. The reviewer can sit back with a cold drink and listen to the company line while NOT having to bust his backside, dragging it into place, much less fighting with weight, funky connections or menus. It would be smarter for Milwaukee Audio to do this instead of just UPS the box to the reviewer with no TLC involved.
Turntables
All the rags have pages and pages of turntables. They should! There are bazillions of LPs out there. Prices go from $595 with the bargain Rega Planar One, to the moon.
Conspicuously missing from these listings is the MoFi Studio Deck+. It runs $1400 with its excellent Studio Tracker cartridge. It’s a solidly built turntable that is the class of its price range. I have no problem with the rags recommending many brands who hand carry samples to them. But to miss Studio Deck+ is a big miss! It’s been on the market about 4 years and remains the champ of its price class.
Cartridges
Cartridges are interesting as well. The rags fall in love with one brand or another, listing 5-6 models, including mono carts built one at a time in a thatched hut for crying out loud.
I did note that Stereophile listed approx 37 cartridges in Class A, with an average price of $8141.22. Ouch! They do recognize Ortofon- as they should! There is NO BETTER brand at making a wide array of models (in Denmark no less) with unparalleled consistency. I sell Orto. I’m fine with them loving the Anna ($12k) and Windfeld ($4400). Yet I can’t believe some of the models they’ve missed. Perhaps Orto is guilty of making too many models so the rags can’t see the forest through the trees? I’ll give them some slack.
The Orto MC Quintet Black S is the best high end cartridge value out there at a grand! You get a Sapphire cantilever and Shibata Stylus for only $1k. The sound is magnificently detailed and smooth. It’s a low output model so you’ll need a head amp. No problem. Q Black will rival any cart at any price. It is only this cheap because Orto is a real biz, making carts in quantity and consistency. The guy in the thatched hut is doing onesies and you’re paying for artisan holy water. Orto does not take a back seat to the Kung Fu Master!
The Orto MC Quintet Blue is a fantastic low output MC with aluminum cantilever and elliptical stylus for $524. Q Black and Q Blue are amazing carts, outperforming anything we had less than 20 years ago.
The Orto 2M Bronze at $440 remains my fave, high performance MM (Line Contact stylus). You can run it in almost any table. I’m a bit chagrined that the rags rage on for pages and pages about $20-25k tables and $8k carts, but miss the three best cart values in our biz.
CD Players
Yes, CD Players! And SACD players- if you like. How short sighted these pontificators are! They kissed off LPs in the 80s and have come back to them. Yup. They did!
Now they’ve kissed off CDs, which is a mistake on many levels. They call it an obsolete format. Sheer balderdash. There are bazillions of CDs out there. They’re still being made and sold. The format is NOT dead, even though they may not be interested.
Now, I have no problem if you want to play LPs.
I’m fine with streaming.
I’m not interested in saving CDs to files. It takes a LOT of time and effort. The meta data is only accurate for pop music. I will not waste hours of my life fiddle fudging with the server, when all I have to do is put a CD in a tray. Or even better, an SACD.
Oh, and further. Every customer I visit who has CDs saved to a drive, can’t go half a minute before changing to another disc or song. Not one.
I love CDs (& SACDs) because I want to play THE PROGRAM. Put the disc in, and listen to the whole thing. What a novel idea in 2021?!
And seriously guys, it’s actually good for you to get off your tail, walk over to your CDs, and put one in. I just can’t believe how people will spend HUNDREDS of hours saving CDs to a drive- just so they don’t have to get up and put one in a tray. You’ve got LPs over there too. You may even have some 45s that only play 12 min. Do you remember that once upon a time audiophiles loved 78s that wouldn’t play 5 min? OK, off the soap box.
Marantz SA-10 $7500
There is no better disc player on the market, regardless of price. The rags chatter on about fancy Euro players from $40-116k. Holy cow. That stuff is jewelry! SA-10 has been around since 2014 and is the class of the field. How it is NOT mentioned in these rags is criminal. Marantz doesn’t use an off the shelf DAC. They upsample to DSD analog out. It’s called MMM (Marantz Music Mastering). It’s balanced and single ended. It plays SACDs and CDs. There is no better source and the rags…rattle on about obscure computer laden gear that will steal many hours of your life. Even their 40k darling just has a pile of Sabre chips on board. And guess what? Their uber expensive servers from companies we’ve never heard of… what are the odds that THESE guys will be around in 10-20 years? I doubt it.
Marantz SACD-30n $3000
To me, this is the biggest miss of all! SACD-30n has the same technology as SA-10 above- just not carried out as far. It plays CDs and SACDs. It uses the same MMM technology, but isn’t balanced. You can even run a streamer into it like Bluesound’s, and use the MMM tech for your streaming! It’s been out since Christmas. The mags should know about it. This is an indispensable source for a high end system where you DON’T want to spend $7500 on a disc player.
If you have a nice CD collection- don’t let those bozos talk you out of playing them. If you consider the TIME and HASSLE of saving all this music to a drive, and then getting the meta data right, and then feeding it through some DAC that WON’T sound as good as SACD-30n… there’s just no need to waste your time. Just play the silver discs already!
Integrated Amps
This is one of my favorite categories. Almost all my customers pay attention to what they spend. Big surprise? It’s your money! You will invariably get more value in an integrated than separates. Separates make sense when you can break the bank, and afford the speakers, source, conditioner and cables you want. Until you can afford all that, it makes sense to save a few bucks with an integrated.
As I look through the integrateds in the rags, I’m getting upset! How can you go gonzo for integrateds running 33k, 25, 38, and so forth- and ignore Hegel? If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d have a story for you.
I see the Marantz Model 30 listed ($3000) and say- great job fellas. That’s a fine catch. But you missed SACD-30n which is even a better value! I see the Moon River 404R. Great catch boys, exquisite piece! They got the NAD M33. Wunderbar!
But no Hegel? No affordable NAD? This… is malpractice!
Hegel makes integrates that are among THE best electronic values out there. Not a peep in Stereophile about them. NAD hammers the competition sub $2k. Not a word about C-328, C368 or C-388. All are absolutely stellar pieces that anyone reading Stereophile can consider.
Preamps
Well, perhaps they’re just too slow. The new Bryston BR-20 ($6k) is THE stunning preamp-DAC introduction of the year. For Stereophile, $6k is almost entry level. Yet BR-20 will compete head to head with the Swiss preamps they salivate over for $50k+. Yes, it will! And it’s made by Bryston, one of the most iconic N American companies in our biz. Look at the gear they go ape for, and MISS the state of the art BR-20!
While I’m at it, how about the NAD C658 ($1750). This DYNOMITE stereo preamp/DAC/streamer is a great performer by any categorization. I guess it’s just too good a value for the snooty mags.
Power Amps
Oh my gosh. It gets worse. They have an obsession with Tiffany jewelry in power amps. And they’re working so hard to “discover” amps for you, that they highly over value SMPS designs. Worst of all, they ignore two of the finest amps our biz has ever produced!
We already have dozens of these amps out the door and the responses are just as strong from audiophiles in the real world as our shop dems have proven. Customers are replacing their busticated Thresholds, Levinsons, Adcoms, Rotels etc… and are thrilled!
NAD C-298 $2200
This 185×2 (.00017%THD) power amp employs the cutting edge Eigentakt design- used in the M33 integrated above. How can they miss this piece? It is a game changer for the power amp market. C-298 will do battle with any of the haughty amps on this list. Its inexpensive because it is built in quantity, in Asia. So what?! It is impedance invariant. It sounds the same from watt 1 to 400.
Yes, 400.
If they want to ignore C-268 ($950, 80×2 or 300×1)… I realize a sub $1k power amp isn’t in their wheel house. But it IS in mine!
Rogue DragoN $4000 (300×2)
The DragoN tube power amp is a slayer! It has huge power, with the warmth (vs heat) of tubes. It is a magnificent power amp at an affordable price, made right here in the US. It has huge push and dynamics, with the silky timbre you would expect.
Speakers
There are about 400 speaker manufacturers out there. Never mind that most just order drivers from Madisound or Parts Express and screw em in a box. I get it. There are soooo many speakers out there, how are the rags supposed to have a good overall view?
Really, all they hear, are speakers that a manufacturer or importer are willing to bring to them.
We, in the real world, hear a lot more. We see not only what we sell. But we are besieged by sales reps from all over who visit or send us samples. Every year we get to audition at least a dozen brands you read about. We choose speakers to represent by sound, price point, and manufacturer support/reliability. Yep. Reliability and warranty matter!
YOU might cobble together a decent sounding speaker in your basement with nice parts. But where are YOU going to be in 3-5-10 years if we need a repair? Under warranty no less! It isn’t easy to build a reliable speaker. First of all BECAUSE IT ISN’T EASY. And next, because a certain percentage of customers are flat out abusive. All speaker manufactures have to be properly capitalized to absorb some abuse. None of them like it. Most know it comes with the territory.
Bryston
The rags know about Bryston speakers. They DON’T recognize how good they are. To be fair, Bryston is not very aggressive in pushing/marketing its speakers. I think in 2020 with a new CEO, James Tanner (who actually designed their speakers!) that’s going to change.
The rags give Bryston power amps RAVE reviews, which are fully deserved. But they pretty much ignore the preamps. That too will change, I promise you, with the new BR-20.
The rags ignore the BCD-3 CD player ($4k) which is a great piece. Yep, they don’t even GET how alive the CD format is.
Bryston A2 ($3810 per pair) is a powerful and smooth performer.
Bryston Middle T ($6870 per pair) is an absolute beast, in a modest footprint.
Bryston Model T ($9555 per pair) is just a phenomenal speaker, right there with $40k Wilsons and their other overweight darlings.
Oh. And Bryston warranties its speakers for 20 years. I have sold many speakers over the years. I was with B&W for 30 years before they went insane. They quit supporting speaker repairs at about 10 years. Same for Paradigm and most other big names. I assure you… ten years goes by in a snap!
Magnepans
One of the rags rates Magnepan’s LRS ($750 per pair) higher than its bigger brother,
MG .7 ($1800 per pair). That… is seriously STOOOPID. MG.7 wins in every assessment. I get to hear them every day.
Subwoofers
What? No subwoofers? Are you kidding me? About half our two channel customers employ subs. Almost all of our home theater systems employ subs. JL Audio of Florida makes intensely serious subwoofers that can appeal to the most picky audiophile.
Preamp-Processors
The rags recognize the Marantz AV-8805 ($5000). Great job boys! It’s clearly the best prepro choice on the market for any number of reasons. It’s little brother, AV-7706 ($3000) is also a stud.
Surround receivers are sissies compared to surround separates.