Quote Originally Posted by RGA View Post
That class rating does more to get people to wind up with terrible systems than any other single thing in the entire industry IMO. Hyperbole? I don't think so.

First this and other rating systems are hugely problematic - and hell I see the problem on JUST the things I've owned or from the brands I've owned - so that means it is probably happening with EVERYTHING.

Soundhounds carries a class A rated speaker - several in fact and class B rated ones - in every case the class B rated speakers are preferred - and it's NOT close.

For over a decade Stereophile was rating various integrated amps class A and class B - FINALLY they get a Sugden A21a a decade into it's run 3rd generation. On Audio Asylum - the reviewer notes that it would be his choice in the price class and the best amp in the price class. The longest selling integrated amplifier in the history of the world is MISSED by the biggest U.S. magazine for THREE DECADES!.

The Brit magazine awarded a lesser amp over the A21a because of lack of features and watts. But they admitted it sounded the best. But the other amp is the one that gets plastered in the next issue of "Editor's Choice" amp shooutout winner - this implies that it was the best sounding amp - it wasn't. The same magazine gave my OTO 4 stars - despite saying it was "easily" the best sounding amp in the test - again features and power.

And AGAIN - only ONE guy at Stereophile makes the decision as to where stuff goes on their listing. Art Dudley said the AN E should be given a new class rating of A++ but it got a class B (never mind that John Marks called it the most memorable experience he's had in all of hi-fi), Wes Philips called it the best reproduction he's EVER heard, and a contributing technical editor also bought them.

No they give the class A to speakers no one there would touch with a 50 foot pole with their own money.

I sort of see Hi-Fi Choice's rationale (and perhaps it is JA's reason too) - idiosyncratic products like 8 watt tubes and fussy with SS speakers have a higher chance of sounding poor with systems most of their reader's own.

I posted this analogy of B&W getting huge press while being less good IMO than lesser known much better sounding lower priced products.

The analogy I like to make would be rottentomatoes a website the culls critics across the country and gives a movie a fresh tomato or rotten tomato rating.

There may be a film (think speaker) that virtually all the critics like. The overall Rating for X movies is 98% fresh. This is THE movie to see.

Movie 2 gets 85% Fresh and 15% rotten. Still good but nowhere near the marks of the first film(think speaker).

But looking deeper at the individual reviews and you see a little more information.

Assume both films (speakers) had 100 critics evaluate.

The first film(speaker) had 100 critics who on a scale of 5 stars 90 of them give the film 3/5 (which is the threshold to pass) and 8 give it 4/5 while the other 2 give it 2/5.

So 98% liked the movie (speaker) enough to recommend them. No one Hated the speaker but no one LOVED the movie (speaker) either.

Movie (speaker) 2 had more dissenters. 15 gave it 2 to 2.5 our of five - however 80 awarded it 5/5 claiming it the best movie (speaker) of the last 2 decades (speaker), while the other 5 gave it 4/5 rating.

The majority rules and statistics favour the first movie - and rightly so - there is MORE of a chance you will walk away thinking that it was a GOOD movie (speaker) but film(speaker)2 has a much greater chance that you will walk away thinking this is the best movie (speaker) that you have seen (heard) in the last 20 years or ever.

Polarizing movies and speakers or anything else such as food run a greater risk of offending the palette but they also have a much greater chance of heightening the reward.

McDonalds has been hugely successful largely because they make a very bland product - bland is largely inoffensive to the taste buds and can appeal to a large number of the population. Thai Spicey soup or Salmon has much stronger taste that many people could gulp up everyday while others scrunch their face up and are ready to hurl just smelling it. The Filet of Fish is inoffensive but it's no Sockeye cokked over fire in white wine.

I personally don't want to own or watch or listen to the 3/5 above averaged but unlikely to be a genuine star kinds of movies/speakers. It may sound "good" but I'd rather risk my time on the stuff that could be a 5 star shake me to the core experience - even if I have a slightly higher risk of getting something that is not to my taste.

This is why a film like Forrest Gump beats a Pulp Fiction at the Oscars. The latter has a much much higher chance to offend the audience while the former is mainstream inoffensive and charming and sweet. More people have a much higher chance of liking Forrest Gump (obviously since it won). Pulp Fiction though in critic circles tends to be regarded considerably as the better film and one of the best of the decade or ever made. Pulp has more risk to be disliked but it also has a higher chance to be on your top ten or 20 of all time list.

While a B&W tends to be well regarded gets good reviews I don't recall reading a lot of wide support that they shake people to the core and they were the best sound ever heard at a show, or wow I can't believe that they transformed my view of the audio industry.
I skimmed through your response - as I essentially know your views on Stereophile's rating system already. However a few points need to be made:

1) Too many people stupidly assume that because a product gets a 4/5 or a Class B rating, then they should dismiss it in favour of a 5/5 or Class A rated product in their price range. Stereophile, What HiFi? etc all tell readers that you may well prefer the 4/5 or Class B product depending on system synergy and your individual tastes. So an AN-E being rated Class B really is no big deal. As you mentioned at least one Stereophile writer thinks the sound is Class A, while JA is not convinced (different musical tastes and systems).

2) My issue with the Miniwatt rating is that Class D really is a very low rating - essentially products that are very cheap and fun to listen to, but not High Fidelity by any stretch. So that would make me conclude that it is probably just good for the price as opposed to a good example of what SET is capable of. So not a SET amp that I want to use to judge SET technology by.