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Review integrity

I find Hi fi mags interesting as it gives me an idea of what’s out there and any new trends. Sometimes I listen to equipment that has received rave reviews in the press and it sounds no different to a whole host of competitors. If I like it, I like it. Regardless of price, hype etc. And visa versa.
 
I may buy What Hifi if I am looking at a product I don’t know much about, say a TV or DVD player or Streamer but to be honest I get better insight on here.
 
I do buy HFN occasionally, but pass the cable reviews by.
Speakers are my first love, followed by amplifiers.

If a new LS3/5a arrives I’ll see what Ken Kessler has to say.
Otherwise I give magazines a miss.
 
I don't doubt Noel Keywood's integrity, but I do question his judgement.

In the CD era, I once went out and bought Paul Messenger's "CDs of the year".
Oh dear, if that's what he is using to base his judgments on...!

On the topic of 'they've heard loads more kit than us', I've lost count of the times I've come to wrong conclusions based on initial impressions or using things without optimising other bits of kit. I would also say that I have vastly more experience that them of fiddling with the internals of things and figuring out what affects the sound and how. I would say that counts for a lot more than black box swapping.

Gave up buying mags many years ago, the occasional glimpse of one (on the cistern at my mate's house) doesn't tempt me back.
 
To my mind reviews are only of any relevance if you have followed the reviewer for years and feel aligned with their tastes, e.g. I paid attention to Art Dudley, Sam Tellig etc at Stereophile as they like the same sort of kit as I do, so if they like a new product chances are I will at least be vaguely interested by it. Other than that I read loudspeaker impedance plots and that’s about it. I still subscribe to Stereophile, though I miss Art and find the magazine quite thin pickings these days as I’ve very little interest in the vast majority of new kit. The columns, record reviews and interviews are interesting though.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I think it’s one of these stories that has grown in the telling. Not sure of the actual facts, but I believe he might have fessed up to doing this once, but it has transmogrified into something he habitually did, in fact they were all at it, nobody ever listened to anything, ever, just made it all up, bunch of cheating barstewards, wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them, hanging’s too good for em, and don’t get me started on the Welsh...

and breathe.
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IIRC, he had heard, liked and favourably reviewed the Exposure X, so when an Exposure pre/power came in for review, he thought 'Well, it'll probably sound much the same, but with a bit more oomph', and wrote a review along those lines.
 
Martyn Miles said:
I do buy HFN occasionally, but pass the cable reviews by.
Speakers are my first love, followed by amplifiers.
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There’s the rub. If the cable reviews aren’t credible, how do we value the reviews on things that we know can make a difference?

This is a personal stance BTW, not an attempt to turn this into one of those threads.
 
Tony L said:
To my mind reviews are only of any relevance if you have followed the reviewer for years and feel aligned with their tastes, e.g. I paid attention to Art Dudley, Sam Tellig etc at Stereophile as they like the same sort of kit as I do, so if they like a new product chances are I will at least be vaguely interested by it. Other than that I read loudspeaker impedance plots and that’s about it. I still subscribe to Stereophile, though I miss Art and find the magazine quite thin pickings these days as I’ve very little interest in the vast majority of new kit. The columns, record reviews and interviews are interesting though.
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Well, this partly answers the question I pose above. Do these favoured reviewers of yours review cables, or boxes of dirt for that matter, ever?
 
Whaleblue said:
Well, this partly answers the question I pose above. Do these favoured reviewers of yours review cables, or boxes of dirt for that matter, ever?
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Not noticed any dirt boxes, but likely the odd cable review. I’m not any kind of religious crusader/Taliban representative when it comes to cables. I have found I can tell certain ones apart blind, and I’d never use crap as I can so easily afford not to, but I’m not trying to sell anything to anyone. I have nothing to prove to anyone on the topic so it just doesn’t drive me into the sort of impotent internet rage we see from so many here and elsewhere. That said I can’t even remember Art Dudley’s views on cables, I just remember his love for classic idlers, valves and vintage horns, and that his grasp, taste and understanding of music was on a whole other level to the anti-cable Taliban here. As ever you can always tell more about an audiophile by looking at their record collection than their system. Some kit opens doors of discovery wide open, other stuff blinkers and shuts minds!
 
A long thread that I have barely skim-read. So maybe mentioned already.....

Bad reviews could land the reviewer in hot water, in a worst case - court. Things have changed somewhet with the www, but it used to be the case that no employer ever gave an ex-employee a bad reference for entirely this reason. There was either no reference, a blank page or, I am assured that it was HR code, a reference stating that the person was a good time-keeper.
 
Stereophile reviews seem fairly balanced. Art Dudley's review of the Croft Integrated (that I own) is a good example. Art loved how it sounded. John Atkinson measured it and described it "at best, inadequately engineered, and at its worst .. just plain inadequate".

https://www.stereophile.com/content/croft-acoustics-phono-integrated-integrated-amplifier

As @Sue Pertwee-Tyr suggests above anything that's clearly a dog probably doesn't get submitted for review. I know this is often how it works in the music industry.

I guess where this all breaks down is rave reviews of £1000 usb cables and such...
 
Allan Probin said:
I would have more confidence in online and magazine reviews if they published even the occasional damning review. I can’t even recall the last time I saw a review in which something was described as merely average.
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There is probably a paucity of genuinely bad products out there. Also, if you're a magazine publisher, it often makes more sense to publish no review than risk rubbing advertisers up the wrong way with a bad review. I don't think reviewers are lent on to lie, whether it's music, films or audio products they're reviewing
 
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