foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
That isn't journalism, it's satire.
Review integrity
- Thread starter orangeart
- Start date
That isn't journalism, it's satire.
Genuinely bad products, no.
Products which don't perform to the expectations based on price? Maybe.
How many people here have bought something which attracted a negative review? (or even mixed review)
I recall buying some speakers after I had been given the time for an extended demo session. I liked them clearly. They had no brand reputation so I couldn't go off the "you won't find a bad brand X product".
After, they got reviewed in a magazine, giving 3 stars. I'll be honest. I felt deflated, more because it was almost a challenge to my judgement.
Then I accepted that they weren't actually worth the original ticket price, and just got on with enjoying the speakers.
I recall buying some speakers after I had been given the time for an extended demo session. I liked them clearly. They had no brand reputation so I couldn't go off the "you won't find a bad brand X product".
After, they got reviewed in a magazine, giving 3 stars. I'll be honest. I felt deflated, more because it was almost a challenge to my judgement.
Then I accepted that they weren't actually worth the original ticket price, and just got on with enjoying the speakers.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
You don't. IME nearly all audio equipment marketed as 'Hi-Fi' is competently designed and works fine and the differences are marginal at best. You may well go mad trying to tell the differences between some power amplifiers. A few products (ESLs, Kef Reference series, Sennheiser HD600's) stand out and become benchmark products and some product classes are reliably amazing (>£500 MC Carts), the rest is, quite frankly, much of a muchness and frequently compromised in one way or another, no matter what shilling you may read in places like this. Then you have Linn, whose current new pricing is as much of a work of satire as the cable wars. I'm still completely unconvinced that records sound significantly better on my £3000 turntable than on my old Manticore Mantra. But I wouldn't lose sleep over it. I currently have a Topping E30 as the sole source for a Quad QSP and a pair of Kef Reference monitors in the lounge. I am tempted to spend £800 replacing it with a Cyrus XP+. I suspect the differences would prove negligible but I'll probably still do it though. That's a new bike or a week in a cottage right there. We're all mad.
Really good point & they should also be more watchful of brands which bring out new models constantly to gain reviewer time.
Many of us live with products for years & value reliability.
Tony L
Administrator
I hardly ever buy new and I’ve certainly never followed the ‘flavour of the month’ nonsense. Even back in the height of the 80s ‘flat earth’ the vast majority of my system was second hand. I’ve been caught the other way though and been less than enamoured by ‘5 star’ products. The most obvious I guess being the Xerxes which was hugely hyped and one of the few things I bought new only to find it had sub-Ikea build quality (I actually bought it as I had at least a hundred 12” singles that were a PITA to play on a Linn!). The Linn K9 was another, a thin and forward thing to my ears, not a patch on a FR101, M25FL, Nagaoka MP11 Boron and other carts I used at that period.
With 20/20 hindsight I actually made a huge mistake getting sucked into the ‘belt drive is king’ thing at all and should really have upgraded my first system Lenco to a 301, 401, TD-124 or whatever which could be had for peanuts at the time and to my ears have a solidity and integrity I really value (and realised I’d lost when I went on a cyclic upgrade path after dumping that admittedly noisy GL75, though it took me a long time to be able to articulate what exactly had gone). I’ve got a bit sharper over the decades, as one does. I’m now far more confident in my own taste and better understand what it is/is not. This is one reason why I found reviewers such as Art Dudley, Sam Tellig etc of value as they are on about the same page as me, and I had enough experience of my own by that point to realise it.
The only ‘average’ review item I can bring to mind is my Deltec PDM3 DAC. It got a fairly lukewarm response at it’s launch price of £2.6k, though to my mind was an absolute bargain at the £325 bankrupt stock price I paid! I’ve no idea what it is worth in performance/price terms, but it was a very clear step up from what I had sonically and I never look at it with a view to changing. Everything else in my system is so old as not to be relevant as any rave reviews were back in the ‘60s or ‘70s, or the kit is so obscure you never see it even mentioned (e.g. my Verdier preamp).
I’ve been doing this so long now I know exactly what I like and I don’t really need any outside influences, but where I do I tend to go with ‘historical consensus’ rather than ‘current review’. History filters the classics from the landfill quite effectively.
Beobloke
pfm Member
Years ago when I worked as a designer, we submitted our then new product to a magazine and it was given a glowing 5 star review.
A year or two later the same magazine put it into a group test and gave it 3 stars.
That confused us, I can tell you...
Del monaco
Del Monaco
They are very forgetful some of these hifi reviewers, especially in WHF.
Martyn Miles
pfm Member
Speaking of Reviewers, I used to like Martin Colloms.
He ‘introduced’ me to the Spendor BC1 and I never looked back.
They’re still with me.
Then he left HFN and I recall seeing a Wilson speaker review by him.
What put me off was the ( almost half a page ) discussion on the jumper leads between the top
and bottom cabinets.
He tried this make, and then that make, etc.
I don’t think I finished the review.
Get a life, I thought.
You’ve lost the plot...
He ‘introduced’ me to the Spendor BC1 and I never looked back.
They’re still with me.
Then he left HFN and I recall seeing a Wilson speaker review by him.
What put me off was the ( almost half a page ) discussion on the jumper leads between the top
and bottom cabinets.
He tried this make, and then that make, etc.
I don’t think I finished the review.
Get a life, I thought.
You’ve lost the plot...
S-Man
StrivingON
That's obviously how much progress there is in the performance of hifi kit over a year or two!
After 5 years it would have got -2 stars
The great failing of hi-fi magazine reviews is their lack of relevance to me. This is for various reasons:
- like nearly every reader, I'm not in the market for items that cost >£10000 apiece
- the reviewer has never heard a recording played in my room, and I have never heard one in their room either
- musical tastes of many widely published reviewers have precisely nothing in common with mine.
A magazine could address the last two of these by having a standard set of (say, 20) recordings, available to readers, which would cover all genres. All reviews would be required to use a subset of these, including at least two classical recordings, and the subjective reviewer's job would simply be to report how well they were reproduced.
Then the " measurists" could add their bit and all potential readers, whatever their musical taste or technical insight, would find something useful in the review.
I can dream...
- like nearly every reader, I'm not in the market for items that cost >£10000 apiece
- the reviewer has never heard a recording played in my room, and I have never heard one in their room either
- musical tastes of many widely published reviewers have precisely nothing in common with mine.
A magazine could address the last two of these by having a standard set of (say, 20) recordings, available to readers, which would cover all genres. All reviews would be required to use a subset of these, including at least two classical recordings, and the subjective reviewer's job would simply be to report how well they were reproduced.
Then the " measurists" could add their bit and all potential readers, whatever their musical taste or technical insight, would find something useful in the review.
I can dream...
Darren
So gentle when he tries to understand.
I remember that!! He swapped the standard 'tails' between Wilson WATTS and their Puppies for a special pair from Randal Research - he thought the difference to be substantial.
Beobloke
pfm Member
The last time I saw a live orchestra I was very disappointed. Didn’t sound realistic at all and the imagery was all over the place...
Chris81
pfm Member
Come on, they are reviewers, there are designer out there who have never heard a orchestra or string quartet live.
Del monaco
Del Monaco
It can be like this. Rattle wanted to develop a better sounding venue but it appears that the idea has been dropped now. Unsurprising in the current climate.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Most, if not all, reviewers are huge music fans too. I’d frankly be stunned if you could find one who didn’t regularly listen to all sorts of live music, including orchestras or string quartets.
Martyn Miles
pfm Member
I’m pleased you remember the details.
I couldn’t really remember much, but now I recall it was the Watts and Puppies.
the caretaker
pfm Member
Well? I'm not sure about 1k usb cables? But there is a definite improvement in the sound using a £40 usb cable against a £10 usb cable..and yes it's just data! But it cant be..if it was then they would sound the same..I have a flash looking chinese usb and it sounds tinny! I cant explain why or how..