Critic's Corner: RE: the odds of 60 consecutive components being "excellent" by Arthur Salvatore Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry.

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Posted by Arthur Salvatore (R ) on May 11, 2015 at 11:42:58

In Reply to: the odds of 60 consecutive components being "excellent" posted by DAP on May 10, 2015 at 23:05:52:

I disagree with this methodology. The selling price of the component has serious relevance and must be taken into account.

"Excellent" should mean the top 10% performers within any particular component/price category, such as amplifiers in the $ 1,000 range, or speakers in the $ 5,000 range.

Audiophiles are looking for exceptional value/performance in each range, the upper 10%, and audio magazines are supposed to assist them in this quest, which is why they subscribe in the first place.

However, the one exception would be "Class A", which is "the best". That explicit definition should always limit the number to a handful, at most, even if there were hundreds of qualifying components, so it would be even less than 10% in this one instance.

In general, before something is legitimately "recommended", there should be something "exceptional" about its performance, either for its selling price or in absolute terms.

Finding 60+ consecutive exceptional audio components (or any product) is not feasible with any legitimately critical reviewing method currently known to me. That is why it has only happened in a commercial audio magazine and no where else to my knowledge.

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