I think you guys are missing some rather huge points with the Stereopile or other professional reviewers worth: Many of them have credentials which let one appreciate that they do in fact know what a particular track should sound like, as they where either in the studio behind the mastering board or even playing an instrument on their demo material used to review new gear with. I respect the reviewers with these credentials more then I do any Joe Blow who comes to this or any other audio site with their prep-school vocabulary and fat bank accounts from their silver spoon background, which can fool themselves and others into believing that they are somehow in the know. A further fact is that pro reviewers get to play with more gear in a month that even neurotic audiophiles will play with in a year, if not their lifetimes for most. We need "experts," without these professionals there would be nothing but subjective and ego driven conjecture (some of which we see here above), there probably wouldn't even be a hobby as the average audiophile just doen't have the time, money or energy to do for themselves what pro reviewers do for them. I'm not saying one should take the reviews as gospel, nor should one disregard personal tastes for "correctness" or a neutral presentation, but to brush off the worth of pro reviews and rakings is pretty short sighted, me thinks....
++++StereoPhile Class A components+++++
Any of you guys who have listened to more components than I have, or maybe anyone who has been in the industry: I see a lot of posts mentioning "stereophile class A " etc, so I assume this recommendation carries a lot of weight. (After purchasing my Audio PHysic Virgo II's, I saw that they were class A in stereophile, so I felt like I agreed with what they were saying.) Are the reviews completely independent? With the vast array of components out there, can they really cover all of them? Do you guys really agree with the class A and B thing? Thanks for the perspective....Mark