November 2008

Bonus Points

  Those of you who subscribe to The Absolute Sound will receive what we think is a nice bonus this year-a special Buyer's Guide issue of TAS that is to be mailed out in late October. This new special annual issue will be delivered to subscribers free of charge (and sold on newsstands).

The Buyer's Guide is chock-full of buying advice, set-up tips, how-to articles, best-sounding-disc recommendations, system-matching insights, and a compendium of our top picks in each product category complete with mini-reviews. Although the Buyer's Guide is aimed largely at newcomers to high-end audio, we think experienced audiophiles will also find much of value. The issue includes a code that enables you to download, for free, a special booklet entitled "System Set-Up Secrets." The booklet, excerpted and adapted from my book The Complete Guide to High-End Audio, is packed with insider tips for getting the best performance from your system.

The Buyer's Guide will be prominently displayed on newsstands for six months; in it we hope to share our passion for high-quality music reproduction with a larger audience who may not be familiar with high-end audio. TAS Senior Writer Wayne Garcia is the issue's Editor, and I can tell you that he's done a magnificent job.

Many of you responded to my invitation in the previous issue to participate in the TAS Forum on avguide.com. The Forum is quickly becoming the place to get questions answered, pick the brains of the TAS staff and readership on products or setup, or simply express your audio opinions. I receive many more letters than I can publish in the magazine. If you've sent a letter that hasn't been published, there's a way to make sure your letter is seen by other TAS readers: Post it on the Forum at avguide.com. This method is instantaneous and sure-fire, and unlike a letter to the editor in a print magazine, can generate immediate replies.

Many reader letters address the issue of the high cost of high-end components. Despite the suggestion that our coverage is skewed toward the top end of the price spectrum, a recent reader survey indicated that 35% of you thought the review products are "too expensive," 7% responded "too inexpensive," and 58% thought our reviews hit "just the right mix of price points." We've made a concerted effort to cover entry-level and mid-priced products such as the Aram Solo Mini and the $995 Triangle Titus loudspeaker, both reviewed in this issue.

What causes the letter writers to rail, however, isn't the lack of affordable gear; it's the presence in TAS of ultra-high-end gear that is priced far outside the means of the vast majority of the TAS readership, never mind that of the general population (and the TAS staff). A case in point is the letter from Peter John Leeds in this issue. He's incensed that I suggested that the Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 (reviewed, coincidentally, in this issue) is worth its $148,000 asking price. Mr. Leeds states that $25,000 for a pair of loudspeakers is "quite reasonable," but $148,000 is purely "an exercise in shock and awe." It's a strange argument. To 99.9% of the population, $25,000 for a pair of loudspeakers is light-years beyond "shock and awe." Conversely, $148,000 might, to a segment of our readership, be a "quite reasonable" sum for a world-class loudspeaker.

Mr. Leed's contention appears to be that there's nothing about the design, build-quality, technology, or performance of the X-2 that justifies the price. After listening to music through the X-2 for the past five months, examining its technology, and visiting the factory to see how it is built, I must disagree. This doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that I could afford to buy the X-2, but that shouldn't be the criterion by which we accept or reject products for review.

There will always be designers who push the envelope of what's possible in music-reproduction technology. And there will always be customers who appreciate that effort and have the means to own the best products of their kind in the world (and readers who don't have the means to own the best but still enjoy reading about it). The existence of such products doesn't diminish the musical enjoyment you get from your own system. Moreover, if TAS doesn't review such products, who will?