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The Absolute Sound Or Stereophile? Which is your favorite?


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I subscribe to both, as they are (combined) for me the most complete source of information on all things high-end. I also continuously discover new music because of their reviews. I read and speak multiple languages and I can say that there is no equivalent anywhere else that I have seen to the quantity and quality of the reporting in TAS and Stereophile. Much of the reporting in other languages is either pandering to the manufacturer (reviews of X are often in correlation with  who advertises in that month's issue) or the reporting is lightweight, with the possible exception of the German magazine Stereoplay. In both TAS and Stereophile, I can read in-depth reviews and analysis, both from a perceptual and from a purely technical perspective. I will continue to read both as long as I can. 

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5 minutes ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

I haven't seen it in a while but I used to really get a lot out of the British publication Hi Fi News & Record Review. Their music section had a dizzying amount of good reviews in addition to maybe near a hundred capsule reviews each issue. It put me onto a lot of good music that I otherwise might have never discovered. 

 

 There was another U.K. magazine that in addition to new equipment reviews each month; they had in every issue, page after page of capsule reviews that they had done full reviews of in the preceding months and years. 

I remember it well, but HFN&RR stopped publication quite a few years ago, at least under that name. There's also HiFi Choice, HiFi+, HiFi News, etc. None of them come close to Either Stereophile or TAS in my opinion.

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3 hours ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

As the OP of this thread, perhaps the more relevant question is have you ever bought a piece of gear partially or fully based on what was said about the equipment in the magazines review, and were you glad you bought it?.. I have bought 3 things partly influenced by Stereophile reviews of them. Have been satisfied with 2 of the 3, especially for the price I paid. The only thing I bought that maybe I wish I hadn't, goes way back to the years of Sam Tellig "The Audio Cheapskate." He recommended the Optimus 3400 CD player. He failed to mention that it made instruments sound tiny as tiny can be, like munchkin land. Perhaps though I should have figured that, as its size ruled out it having a decent size transformer. Also he didn't mention it severely lacked resolution. Not too far into the 1990s, it was claimed that it was the only CD player that had "bloom".A little controversial. It was a little warmer than usual (perhaps to veil some high frequency distortion it had). I had a good time with it though, but when I went to a Magnavox its small warmish sound was relinquished to a drawer. No biggie. I only paid about $130 for it on sale.

I have definitely bought a lot of gear over the years based on reviews in the English language audio press (Stereophile, TAS, Hifi News, Hifi + and many others), including Thiel 3.6, Classe 15, Parasound JC2 BP, Mark Levinson 39, Thiel CS7, Bel Canto Ref1000m, Hegel h390, Devialet expert pro 220, Marten Django XL, etc...

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5 minutes ago, Digi&Analog Fan said:

Any one of those things you just mentioned that you bought, probably cost more than the total amount of money I've spent on audio equip. in my entire life, even though I've upgraded dozens of times. I get stuff cheap. Everything that has stunning sound has stunning sound for down to Earth reasons, not because someone decided it should cost a lot. Figuring out those reasons, and implementing them with ones own unique creative ideas is the most satisfying and perfect way to achieve "perfect sound". 

Fully agree and to be fair, all of the items I listed, I bought used or at least ex-demo, and I would resell my own mint condition equipment to fund the next purchase. Rarely have I spent more than a couple of thousand out of pocket on a new item, taking into account the sale of the item it rplaces. The list also describes 20 years of HiFi purchases...

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