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Absolute Sound - do we really need another review like this?


I own the OPPPO 105 player purchased 3 years ago and still very satisfied with it.
There are TONS and TONS of glowing reviews of this unit and apparently oppo is working on a replacement model.

In this current February 2017 issue of Absolute Sound, there is yet another review (a brief one) on this unit.

Kind of long in the tooth and totally futile. Sounds like the following Scenario:

oppo: hi stereophile, look, we are still a few months away from putting out the 105 replacement, could you run something just so that we can keep the flame alive before the new model come out?


 Sorry but that went trough my head reading this review of the still-stellar and reviewed to death Oppo 105.

Cheers all !



soniqmike
sun-warrior's avatar
sun-warrior
28 posts
 
As far as the cliche that product-based magazines, at least S'phile & TAS, only review items that have been advertised, here's at least one note in contrast:

* While I've seen monthly ads from Chord Electronics in S'phile and, also I believe, TAS, neither magazine has yet reviewed the wonderful Chord DAVE. I love that DAC immensely, best of the 20-or-so I've tried over the past 10 years, and don't care if either magazine praises it or not. I know what I know.

But I'm just curious to see what they might say...even if Chord pays for ad space.

Dave, who calls that idea a cliche based partially on his 10 years as a computer magazine editor from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s where he was never never never told or encouraged to write about a product just because the company advertised in our pages
chayro
2,925 posts
 
I didn't read every post here, but it seems the OP was saying that the magazine is shilling for Oppo to sell more units before a new model comes out?  If that's what he's saying, it makes no sense because Oppo has no 105s left to sell.  My old Pioneer finally died and I really wanted a 105, but they were impossible to get new.  
oregonpapa's avatar
oregonpapa
4,867 posts
 
I've been a Stereophile subscriber since the J. Gordon Holt days. 
Same with TAS. 

I've been tempted to not renew my subscription to Stereophile though. A couple of the reviewers almost never miss an opportunity to include some snarky left wing political statement in their reviews. Plus, TAS is a much more professionally put together magazine. 

Frank
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,412 posts
 

Frank, you’ve been a subscriber to TAS since the J. Gordon Holt days? Just kidding---me too. I discovered Gordon in ’72, I believe it was. Just in time for the high-end explosion that was spreading across the country; Audio Research had just made it out to the West Coast, and small, single employee/owner shops were opening to sell perfectionist systems to we baby-boomers. We all wanted better than the electronics stores and chain stores (for myself in N. California, it was Pacific Stereo in Palo Alto, with their Japanese receivers, Dual record changers, and Bose 901 speakers) were selling.

Gordon Holt had a clearly-defined set of criteria by which he judged music reproducing equipment, and had technical knowledge which informed his opinions. Harry Pearson and his Absolute Sound had opinions all right, but technically informed they were not (Bill Johnson told a great story about Pearson’s ignorance at one of his in-store seminars I attended). Audio magazine was different than either, but at it’s best a sort of a mix of the two. I miss Gordon, and I miss Audio Magazine.

There is sooo much equipment available these days, it must be quite perplexing for young audiophiles (if that’s not an oxymoron) to choose from amongst it all. The old advice of finding a good dealer is still good advice; I found mine in Walter Davies, now of Last Record Care products renown, in ’72 the owner/operator of the just-opened Audio Arts in Livermore, CA. Still the best dealer I ever dealt with---Eric.

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