The Stereophile review by Dick Olsher, was, on balance, good, despite the reviewer using a deck (The Pink Triangle) which was not really suitable for the XG (although the original RP1 was both a good physical and sonic match for the PT). The thing that got me was the comment added by Gordon Holt at the end. I thought, what a hypocrite! I replied to the review and that was that - no further contact with the magazine.
The Absolute Sound review, though again with good comments, showed up the lack of understanding on the part of the reviewer, Tom Miller. He had, either through lack of experience or research, no grasp of some of the most obvious and basic aspects of hifi design and theory.
I replied to both reviews, though to little effect. Both reviews had nice things to say, of course, but it doesn't take much to change the tone, and showed up how personal and subjective it can be.
In the late eighties, Source-Odyssey submitted a Source deck for review to Hifi Choice. Unfortunately, and without my knowledge, they sent it with an arm on it, but the arm was the old scrapper used to set the speeds, run in the decks, check earthing, etc, and the lead wasn't the standard one either. Even then, the arm did reasonably well physically, despite some strange logic on the part of the reviewer trying to account for the good resonance behaviour.
The only other review I know of was in HiFi World (March 2012) where Adam Smith reviewed the early RP1-XG he had bought second-hand from me, some months previously.
So, take reviews with a pinch of salt - much in the same way as you would a dealer's recommendation. Base your opinion on what you think of the arm by hearing it in a system you know. If you like the sound and like the looks then forget about it and listen to some LPs.
__________________________________________________
