Recommended components on Stereophile Magazine.

Trust your own ears only. Use Stereophile or any other magazine for that matter for referance only. Not all equipment get along or sound good togeather no matter the class.

I stopped reading any audio catalog or magazined a long time ago, and that payed off in audio diamonds.

Even if their rankings are accurate, and I'm not necessarily saying they are, how about all the excellent components that didn't get reviewed and don't even show up on their radar?

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a whole world out there that isn't showing up in Stereophile and many of these products may be worth consideration.

The Stereophile recommended list includes only a small percentage of products available. Stereophile may be worth a glance from time to time but you've got to keep this in mind when wearing out its pages.

No, no and no again. You can find gear from smaller companies that will never be reviewed in Sphile. Gear that simply far exceeds much of the stuff in class A for mega $$$.

Sure, the class A stuff is fine sounding and some of it great, but you can do as good and even better for far less money. I have owned quite a few units making class a and through much experience have learned one can do better and pay less.

System matching is so very important as the system works as - a system. Each part blending with the others producing sound that is greater then the individual parts or perhaps less if poorly matched.

All the blah blah blah about class A this and class AB that that, and so very few of us who worry about such things have little more than the most rudimentary grasp of why it even matters. Those who say, "trust your ears" are on to something.
For those who care about such things as class A beyond ego inflation - jump over to Randall's site aikenamps.com and read his piece titled "The Last Word on Class A" - although in reality we all know it'll never be the last word, but you'll pick up knowledge you'll not get reading Stereophile.