I'll wait and read the review when it comes out. How do you know these prototype speakers aren't on the market or haven't been sold to a select few customers? If you are going to sell speakers or widgets in the $80 - $100k range, you don't go build a warehouse full of them and wait for the orders to roll in, you know. Do you think if I contacted the manufacturer and offered them $100,000 for a pair I would get them? What do you think the odds of them saying no would be after I flashed the cash?
We're talking about a single paragraph about a pair of speakers JV has had in his possession for long enough to work on a review. This is much the same as a writer for an automotive magazine making a brief comment on a preproduction sports car he or she had a chance to drive.
TAS and Stereophile are hobbyist magazines that approach the same subject from completely different perspectives. There are no universal rules that stipulate how one must write about any hobby, let alone audio.
As I have said before, if we all held news outlets accountable to the same standards some us seem to expect of the audio magazines, the world would be a better place for it.
