Rich-I read through some of the latest edition and have a question or two for you. You reviewed a $200 phono section and pretty much dumped on it. You reviewed a $600+ Dual table and pretty much dumped on it too. Now I’m not surprised given their price that they are not SOTA contenders, but why bother to review them in the first place? I would think that anyone who reads your reviews would steer a wide berth from these products.
A fair question, although to be clear I didn't dump on the Azur 640P (I was actually very impressed with it, given its price point), and I didn't intend to dump on the Dual (but I wasn't as impressed with it as I was the 640P).
But to answer your question, there are two parts: I can only review that gear I can get my hands on, and perhaps more importantly, I feel it is my job to describe what I hear as best I can, warts and all. If I say that everything sounds good, people may question my credibility/impartiality, and it leaves me nowhere to go when something really is good.
My understanding is that some mags will cancel reviews of products they don't like. In my opinion, this does a disservice to both the reader and potential buyer. If a review of product X doesn't appear in mag Y, is it because mag Y thought that the product stank but didn't want to say so, or is it merely that mag Y hasn't had the opportunity to review product X yet? Also, as a potential buyer, I would want to know the short-comings of a product I'm considering.
Also, I don't think there are too many people on this forum that are interested in $200 phono stages and $600 turntables.
I don't doubt that for a millisecond! But Vinylphile's readership extends far beyond the realms of this forum (and you never know, people with a great investment in digital might be interested in playing at the cheaper end of the analgue market...).
There has been quite the debate about the quality of the QRP pressing of the Tea for the Tillerman LP that you reviewed. You pretty much gave it a big thumbs-up while lots of other people have given it a thumbs-down.
Agreed. I wrote my review before I had heard an original Island pink label (which I now have, thanks to Gary). I think my description is accurate, but I also concur that an original pressing would be better. But the QRP pressing *is* much better than the only comparison I could lay my hands on at the time of the review.
- I just could not sleep at 5 am, so I went down to my studio and grabbed my iPad to learn what was going on at WTF.... I read your post, downloaded the issue and enjoyed it a lot a lot (have not finished it yet). Nice work, relevant content and gentle reading. Thanks!
