Stereophile is like a Bible. The reviewers are like Gods. The Class A products have been anointed thusly and are what every human being on this planet should be striving to obtain. Do you think God listens to DeCapos?! No, he has a pair of Wilson Audio Specialties MAXX Series 2 speakers.
Obsessed? Nobody here is obsessed. You're just jealous. You don't have anything on the Class A list, do you?. No, you don't. Not a single thing and it is eating you alive with envy at those who do. I don't either. But I ...
ROTFLOL
Thankfully, the power of Stereophile Recommended List has declined over the years with the advent of Webzines, which have problems of their own.
As far as this MF product, it could almost be thought of as a unity-gain preamp without any controls or knobs. A similar product was SCE (Source Components Electronic) "Harmonic Recovery System" unit, which was solid state, which I still have around here.
The whole point is to optimize the interface between source and amp by providing easy-to-drive high input impedance load to the source and to provide strong drive (low ouput impedance) to the amp. If you stick this in a traditional system with active preamp without taking the preamp out, it's a good thing it doesn't seem to do much.
When you stick it in a system with passive preamps or CDP-direct AND the system is not particularly passive-friendly, then these devices will make a bigger difference, resulting in more weight and dynamics. The downside is the need for an extra run of interconnects, which should really be minimized or eliminated somewhow for these things to work well.
