Recommended Components 2020 Edition

June 30, 2023 / By mobanmarket

Commercial products listed here have been formally reviewed in Stereophile, and we have determined them to be among the finest available in each of four or five quality classes: Whether a component is listed in Class A or Class D (or E), we consider it to be a genuinely recommendable product.

Each listing, in alphabetical order within classes, is followed by a brief description of its performance characteristics and a note indicating the issue of Stereophile in which its review, and in some cases Follow-Up reports, appeared—ie, “Vol.42 No.6” indicates our June 2019 issue. And so forth.

A relatively small number of products listed here have not yet been reviewed but have been suggested by one or more of our writers as deserving of consideration. Those products are rated with the letter K, used to identify new products that we hope and intend to review as soon as possible. No one here remembers what the K stands for, but we’re reasonably certain it isn’t Krispy.

Stereophile‘s Recommended Components listing is almost exclusively concerned with products currently available in the US through the usual hi-fi retail outlets, although some of them can be ordered online.

We recommend that you read any product’s entire review before seriously contemplating a purchase (and so products without reviews should be treated with caution): Many salient characteristics, peculiarities, and caveats appear in the reviews but not here. To obtain back issues of the magazine, visit our website: stereophile.com. We regret that we cannot supply photocopies or email copies of individual reviews. All full reviews are republished in our website Archives section: These are marked WWW. More are added each week, usually while you sleep.

How We Did It
We try to include in Recommended Components every product we have found to be truly excellent or to represent good value for money. The listing is compiled after consultation with Stereophile‘s reviewing staff and editors and takes into account continued experience of the product after the formal review has been published. In particular, we take account of unreliability and defects that show up after extended auditioning. The fact that a product received a favorable review cannot therefore be regarded as a guarantee that it will continue to appear in this listing.

The ratings given components included in this listing are based entirely on performance—ie, faithfulness of reproduction to the original, in as many aspects as possible. Products markedly deficient in one or more performance aspects are downrated to the extent that their deficiencies interfere with the full realization of the program material.

Bear in mind that many different tastes are represented. Our reviewers have their own points of view—something in which we who publish them take pride—yet Recommended Components is a funnel into which all of their opinions are poured: The letter grades they have chosen may survive this blending, but the nuances of their perspectives may not. You may see on occasion a very expensive and well-regarded product receive a B while a far less expensive, competing product that has deeply impressed one or more writers gets an A. We editors sometimes intervene in the assignment of ratings, to smooth those steps into a more reasonable-looking wave—but the real answer lies in making sure to read the whole of a review (and, ideally, other pieces by the same reviewer) before making a purchase decision. Of course, you can also audition it yourself.

The prices indicated are those current at the time the listing was compiled (January 2020). We cannot guarantee that any of these prices will be the same by the time this issue of Stereophile appears in print. (Note also that, in products where multiple finish options exist, the price we list is for the base-level finish.) There is a near-universal consensus that at some point in the upward climb of product prices, severely diminishing returns (performance vs price) set in. However, there is no agreement as to the price level at which that takes place. Where we have found a product to perform much better than might be expected from its price, we have drawn attention to it with a $$$ next to its listing.

Please bear in mind that deletion of a product from this list does not mean we woke up one morning, decided the thing was terrible, and banished it from our pages. In general, products do not remain listed for more than three years, for two very good reasons: There’s not enough space in the magazine for several years’ worth of products of merit, and it’s impossible to compare a component to others when your memory of it is dim—which is why a component may remain on the list if one of the magazine’s writers or editors has had continuous experience with it.

Discontinuation of a model by its manufacturer also, of course, precludes its appearance. It is also possible that fast-moving technology has left a once-cutting-edge product high and dry. We indicate with a star ★ products that we have chosen to keep on this list for longer than three years, judging them to have achieved sufficient stature to remain.

So please don’t be upset if a product you purchased on our say-so has fallen, leaflike, from Recommended Components. And if you are upset, please don’t call to tell us about it.

Individual reviewers identified by their initials are John Atkinson, Jim Austin (JCA), Brian Damkroger, Robert Deutsch, Art Dudley, Michael Fremer, Larry Greenhill, Jon Iverson, Fred Kaplan, Michael Lavorgna, Eric Lichte, Sasha Matson, Ken Micallef, Thomas J. Norton, Wes Phillips, Herb Reichert, Bob Reina, Kalman Rubinson, Jonathan Scull, and Jason Victor Serinus.

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ARTICLE CONTENTS

Page 1
How to Use the Listings
Turntables, Tonearms, Cartridges, etc
Disc Players, Transports & Media Players
Digital Processors
Surround-Sound Components
Preamplifiers
Power Amps
Integrated Amps & Receivers
Loudspeakers
Subwoofers
Headphones
FM Tuners & Antennas
Powerline Accessories
Cables
Miscellaneous Accessories
Recording Equipment
Signal Processors

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