First of all, Stereophile rates Class A gear within each product category — not by price. Class A, B, C, and K are performance tiers, regardless of cost. This rating principle is clearly stated in Stereophile’s Recommended Components section: ‘Class ratings are based on performance, including performance on the test bench.’ Read it and educate yourself if you’re still in denial.
It also goes on to say: ‘There is a near-universal consensus that at some point in the upward climb of product prices, diminishing returns set in: Doubling the price may get you only a 10% — or 5%, or 1% — improvement.’ I don’t expect the MXN10 to perform identically to a Mola Mola, and I’ve heard the difference. But you also need to acknowledge that the MXN10’s performance is strong enough to justify its place in Class A, based on the reviewers’ assessment. The other good example is TAS compares a $1k streamer with built-in DAC favorably with a $38k combo which includes Aurender N200. This indicates again, in today’s market, the diminishing return point is get much lower than ever. Judging performance of audio gears based on pricing is no longer valid.
Second, this invalidates all of your prejudiced opinions based solely on price. I don’t wish to continue debating this with you. I can assure you that any MXN10 owner could easily demonstrate that there is no deficiency in soundstage performance, as you have speculated. In my system, the MXN10 preserves the soundstage of the original recording quite well. With proper speaker setup in my listening space, the soundstage is wider than the speakers, as tall as the performer, and offers reasonable depth with pinpoint imaging. The depth is slightly less than that of my reference streamer, the Volumio Rivo Plus, but not far behind.
