The Absolute Sound Review of Sony SCD-XA777ES ???

The review is "worthful" with or without an associated equipment list if and to the extent that you trust the ears of Mr. Cordesman and Mr. Harley.

If you think that afiles get wacky in their preferences for equipment and its effect on outcome, you should talk to surgeons about their preferences for instruments. Yet I've never read a surgical paper in which a list of instruments was included.

The bottom line is that, by definition, the output sound cannot be good unless both the equipment being evaluated and the associated equipment are good. I agree that it would be helpful to see a list of associated gear because if it included stuff you don't like it would give you a leg up on deciding whether or not the thing being evaluated might work for you. But it would not make all that much difference because the odds that Cordesman or Harley or any other reviewer uses exactly the same setup you do is miniscule.

Therefore....if you trust their ears, and they say it sounds good, give it a shot in YOUR system and see if it yields the results you want. In the end, it is YOUR gear that matters, not Mr. Cordesman's.

And, in the process, have fun.

Hey, Whatjd,

I hope you didn't hear my remarks as a personal put-down. I, too, miss the equipment list and wonder why Miss WhatsHerFace can't find three column inches to include it now that TAS is fat and sassy again.

I'm inclined to believe that it all comes down to (1) whether the reviewer has any ears and (2) how similar his taste is to my own. Over the years I have learned that my own ears/taste are so different from Cordesman's that his reviews are pretty much worthless to me. Harley I do better with. And HP's (all genuflect before the celestial throne!), too, once one learns to read beyond his incredible pomposity.