Bitter truth

摘要

Last year a prominent American audio journal ran a glowing review of a fairly expensive valve amplifier of moderate output power. After grumbling about the difficulty of finding the proper loudspeakers to pair it with, the reviewer gushed about how glorious it sounded. Laboratory test results were at odds with the amp's published specifications and claimed performance, quite justifiably prompting the technical tester to call into question both its design and its marketing hype.