The ONE most useful source is me. Although, you have to understand what I mean by "me" which is, "you".
YOU are the one. No one else. Although if you are fool enough to believe there really is one out there, then in that case you are on your own, by which I mean hopeless, because there is no one. Only me. Which again means, you.
Why people want to believe otherwise, I totally get it. Free lunch! OPM! Who doesn’t want that?!? Except, turns out there’s a reason utopia means literally "no place" it does not exist. One trusted source does not exist. (Except for me. Which is why people follow my posts.)
That said, one thing you will learn if you do follow my posts (which you should, you will learn a lot) is that while I started out doing the hard work of auditioning anything and everything both in stores and at home, plus reading everything I could get my hands on, today I just read and buy. And yet in spite of the fact I disregard the best advice anyone will ever give- home audition!- you will notice not only am I never disappointed in my purchases, I am delighted, they perform beyond expectations, and they perform so well I hang onto them for periods of time measured not in weeks or months but years and decades.
How is this possible? Its no joke. This is for real. Check out my system and read the comments.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367What I recommend, rather than waste your time trying to find the one Holy Grail audio guru who does not exist, is develop some skills and learn to follow a process that has worked so well for so long now you wouldn’t believe. Its a bit complex and multi-step but unlike the alternative guaranteed to fail this one is just about guaranteed to succeed.
First you go and listen to a ton of stuff. Listen to everything. Listen to speakers you absolutely cannot afford, tweaks you absolutely would never even consider, everything. Only never just listen. There’s a way of listening and the most important factor is to have the guy change something and listen again. So make a point every time some guy plays you something in a store or wherever, make up some excuse to have him change a power cord or IC or whatever and play it again. In this way you come to realize the contribution every little thing is making.
Do the same at home. Move things around. Put a book on top of or under something. Try every cornball off the wall idea that can be tried easily and for free. Listen.
At the same time you’re doing this be reading everything you can find, all the reviews, all the writers. Even some of the audiophools around here. Good info can come from anyone, anywhere, any time. As long as you get out of your head the false notion anyone can always be correct then you replace it with the true notion anyone can sometimes be correct.
At some point after doing this long enough the realization starts to build in your mind that even though all these reviewers and people are biased, their skills and abilities all over the map, still there’s useful information to be had from all of them.
Take Michael Fremer for example. Mikey is a legend but he is married to a super fast articulate sound that I would be polite to call hifi. This isn’t even my opinion either. If you read enough of his reviews he comes right out and admits that is his preference. You come to learn that about him and other reviewers, you come to be able to use more sources. Not "one" but all. All is way better than one. Nevermind that the "one" doesn’t even exist.
Okay so now let me show how this works in practice. My Audio Research PH3SE phono stage was like 20 years old. Yeah. Because I did this process I was really happy and had it that long. Not only had it, enjoyed it. But everything around it improved a lot and so I was looking, curious to upgrade. Which is another element in the process. Take your time. Patience is a virtue.
Okay so I already know the top contenders just from browsing around. I start by searching around reading more reviews and comments on them. Gradually, following listener evaluations I am led to one top contender. This is where it gets serious. I go beyond reviews and start searching out every comment on every website. Finally I call and talk to Keith Herron. The rest you can read on my review of the Herron VTPH2A phono stage.
** Please note: "Listener evaluations." Precious little in this process has to do with technical considerations. **
Now being new you won’t know this but there is no way on Earth I would have even found the Herron had I followed your idea of "one" trusted source. Because Keith Herron doesn’t even like to expose his gear to "professional" reviewers. If its a bad review it kills him. But if its a good review it also kills him, because he can’t keep up with the demand and then gets a bad rep for that instead.
The same goes for everything else made by everyone else. There's just way too much gear out there for anyone to stay on top of it all. Another reason to ditch the idea of one source.
If you would come over and hear my system one of the more amazing things you would hear is incredible bass. Well, same deal there. No way I would have got that following "one" source. Only by reading, researching, following the same process above, only by that process was I able to figure out the best solution.
So that’s the bad news: there isn’t "one". But its also the good news: You’re the one.
