FOLLOW-UP

CH PRECISION M1.1 POWER AMPLIFIER - At Stereophile, every reviewer takes a different approach to reviewing, and so they inevitably reach varied conclusions.

- JIM AUSTIN

Our work, though, is partly based on shared principles. As in reviewing wine, for example, our own tastes matter-a lot-but certain universal (though subjective) principles matter, too. This fact becomes especially interesting in follow-up reviews, in which shared principles hold even as personal preferences collide. 

As long as it's done by a different reviewer, a follow-up review always adds one new thing: another reviewer's perspective. Usually there are other differences, too: a different reviewing system, for example, and a different room. With complex products-including the CH Precision M1.1 power amplifier, which I'm reviewing here-it may be used in a completely different way. A re-review may result in some new sonic insight-a new perspective on how the product sounds, something the original reviewer overlooked.

Sometimes there's an ulterior motive for doing a follow-up review-something other than a desire to present a different perspective. That is the case here. The CH Precision M1.1 power amplifier was first reviewed in our July 2019 issue.² It is now 2024, more than four years later, and the M1.1, despite its merits and despite still being a current product, has fallen off our Recommended Components list.

Assuming the product didn't somehow get worse over the last four years and that the state of the art of audio amplification hasn't lately advanced very fast, the M1.1 belongs on the list. To be confident, though, a Stereophile writer must listen to it again.

That onerous task fell to me.³ Michael Fremer wrote that original review, in the context of a different system, and he used the amplifier differently. His speakers were very similar: He reviewed the M1.1 with the Wilson Alexx.