The review wehave been promising is up

@soix - agree with your points; and yes not a word about the Baetis in any way shape or form. Hifi-Advice on the otherhand does a pretty good job of providing comparison context in reviews

I want to say, I am good with @audiotroy ’s comments. Across each one of their posts it says they are a vendor. This is honesty, up front. They have exposure to different brands… they choose to carry some brands and not others… it is hard not to think they carry brands they think sound good. 
 

But for me, the bottom line is they are up front that they are a vendor. So you can decide what that means to you. I get very angry when a vendor does not show that up front… that is disingenuous.

So thank you Audio Troy.

my take, just one person’s opinion, a person who likes this place...

@audiotroy is an aggressive, vocal seller here in this forum, jumps in and sells on numerous user threads... and though they disclose who/what they are when they post, in my opinion, what they do here is NOT OK -- let’s take it to an extreme... someone posts a question here on how to make a set of vandy 2ce’s work in their room... then seven retailers jump in, say ’hey man, ditch those lame-ass speakers, i sell these great xxx-yyy-zzz, greatest thing since quad esl’s, they will embarrass your crappy old vandy’s’ -- see the problem that arises? .... there is good reason why in the good ol’ days (not that long ago actually), when industry folks did this ho-ing here on the users forum they were quickly told to stop it... in my view, we shouldn’t lower our standards to where this behavior is accepted ... just cuz they say they are sellers doesn’t make it ok that they pollute the discussion threads repeatedly

as for TAS and how/what they write in reviews ... we should still read these, as any published info, even if colored by commercial incentives, can be indeed useful info -- but we should just understand how this industry works, it has been this way for decades since stereophile and tas and many others have gotten popular and become ’brands’ of their own as industry publications aimed at the consumer ... they are advertising driven, that is their bread and butter, we the end users are the targets of the advertising... it is a mutually beneficial eco system where reviews are used to support advertising, in turn to sell gear to end users, usually through retailers online or physical... published reviews, even relatively weak, low-accountability ones without comparisons like those in TAS, are real work to do, and these people gotta eat, be paid for their work, so it is just how the game is played... tas needs to survive financially like any other publication and its not easy ... we as subscribers pay almost nothing to read it... in my view, there is no fault in this, we as consumer just need to clearly understand the ’wiring diagram’ and see these reviews for what they are, and not be naive.... once understood, we can understand better why there are so few negative reviews, negativity on any product is stated extremely subtlely, few comparisons are made - it makes the money machinery work ....

this is no different for youtube reviews, asr reviews, part time audiophile reviews -- each has their economic/financial wiring diagram... all try at some level to be honest, have integrity... but there are always degrees of this, life is shades of grey, no clear cut black and white, nobody is pure... we as users just need to be aware of this...

sorry for this long one...

Getting back to the subject at hand.  Has anyone who actually spends their hard earned money heard this piece of equipment?  I'd love to get an impression from a user that plunked down $7500 to see if they feel satisfied with their purchase.  

jjs49 I completely agree with you. Retailers and manufacturers should not use this forum to sell their wares. It is OK to raise awareness and be helpful in sharing information or knowledge, but we can all see when lines are crossed into territory where their self interest in selling is blatant and tiresome. This discussion forum would be overrun with every other post being to sell stuff if all industry people here did what these guys do.