The Outstading Product Hi-Fi News

[whsturm]

You mean my DAC's gold award and this statement might not be true? "....only by a notch behind the DAVE while costing a tenth of its price....". I'm devastated. (Kidding of course).
I think it means is that more due diligence is needed. If you can only find glowing reviews from a particular reviewer, then scaling their enthusiasm and conclusions down is probably in order (much like I think Cambridge people do with their school exams, after they discover they made then too easy).

May I ask which DAC was rated so closely to the DAVE's performance at a fraction of the cost? Sounds like a bargain!

I wrote in to one of the magazines once to ask why so many of their reviewed products scored so highly. Their answer was that they 'pre-select' and don't include many poorly performing products. Make of that what you will but I'd love a list of 'duffers' so that I could save myself the bother of listening to them...

 

[paulbysea]

These days I only look at it now and again to see which studio they have chosen to write about, which can be interesting but is often frustrating because the article is so superficial.

 

[hifinutt]

yes there was an article about one in Fowey , we love Fowey and very interesting to see there is a studio there

Sawmills Residential Recording Studio | Fowey Cornwall

On the banks of the River Fowey in Cornwall, Sawmills boasts one of the most picturesque locations for a recording studio anywhere in the world.

sawmills.co.uk

its not too far from the church where Peter Skellern was ordained , we love to visit that too

In fact, though, music was not Skellern’s first choice of career. From the age of nine he had always wanted to become a priest and in 2014 he was put forward for ordination training. Although he was subsequently diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, in October 2016 he was given special permission to be ordained as a deacon and a priest on the same day, under a special faculty from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. He was ordained by the Bishop of Truro at St Wyllows church in Lanteglos-by-Fowey, Cornwall, where he lived in his later years, in a ceremony attended by more than 120 friends and family members

Peter Skellern, pianist and singer-songwriter – obituary

Peter Skellern, who has died aged 69, was a pianist and singer-songwriter who rose to fame in 1972 with the gently romantic You’re A Lady, which reached No 3 in the British charts, and went on to have a busy career as a performer and tunesmith.

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

May I ask which DAC was rated so closely to the DAVE's performance at a fraction of the cost? Sounds like a bargain!

I wrote in to one of the magazines once to ask why so many of their reviewed products scored so highly. Their answer was that they 'pre-select' and don't include many poorly performing products. Make of that what you will but I'd love a list of 'duffers' so that I could save myself the bother of listening to them...

A little reading between the lines might help. If a product doesn't have any print magazine reviews, add it provisionally to the 'duffers' list. As a working hypothesis, that's not a bad start, though some manufacturers don't always have review product available so it's not a hard and fast rule.

 

[Warszawa]

I wrote in to one of the magazines once to ask why so many of their reviewed products scored so highly. Their answer was that they 'pre-select' and don't include many poorly performing products. Make of that what you will but I'd love a list of 'duffers' so that I could save myself the bother of listening to them...

Hard to think of a single Hi-fi product these mags haven't reviewed, isn't it. The industry must be knocking it out of the park!

 

[paulfromcamden]

As a reviewer for Hi-Fi News, my mantra is “I review the stuff the editor asks me to”!

I’ve not yet felt the need to refuse anything and I genuinely cannot remember he last time I reviewed anything that was a real duffer.

Actually, I tell a lie - I reviewed a £18.99 Tesco CD/radio micro system for Hi-Fi World that had been voted Britain’s Best Stereo System.

It was pretty diabolical but given that it played a CD and picked up radio stations for less than the cost of most LPs I buy, it seemed heartless to be too unkind about it!

I guess the other side of that as a reader is that if the magazine was full of reviews slagging off a load of dreadful old tat I might stroke my chin a bit and wondered why they'd bothered.

I notice your editor doesn't ask you review spendy cables : )

 

[matt j]

Probably because most of it is meh and sounds the same.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I guess the other side of that as a reader is that if the magazine was full of reviews slagging off a load of dreadful old tat I might stroke my chin a bit and wondered why they'd bothered.

I notice your editor doesn't ask you review spendy cables : )

I think that’s the point. Who would pay for a magazine filled with ‘don’t buy this’ reviews?

You might argue that the occasional clunker would add some light and shade, and it’s a fair point. But unlike websites, which aren’t so limited in space, there are only so many pages for content in each print issue, so every bad review potentially denies a good product a review.

 

[Rockmeister]

I miss HiFi World with actual measurements. You could see in the review text some cautious words about defects that the graphs exposed

If you are miss HiFi world with actual measurements, can we have photo proof?

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

If you are miss HiFi world with actual measurements, can we have photo proof?

I’m guessing that, given Noel Keywood bore a passing resemblance to Wallace, miss HiFiWorld might look something like:

Piella Bakewell

Piella Bakewell is an antagonist in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, serving as the main villain of A Matter of Loaf and Death. She is also the ex-wife of Bernard Grubb, and the former owner of Fluffles. She has white earrings, white necklace, pink high-heel shoes, pink dress, blonde beehive, red...

wallaceandgromit.fandom.com

 

[Allan Probin]

I'd love a list of 'duffers' so that I could save myself the bother of listening to them...

Yes, I agree but unfortunately review sites don’t work in favour of the consumer like that. If you were interested in a particular item, you did some investigation, you found a hand full of reviews, all super positive, none that were negative, how could you go wrong? Well, what you don’t see are the reviewers that had reservations and didn’t post a review. As a potential purchaser you’d definitely want to know that for a complete picture, but effectively it gets buried.

 

[artoly]

May I ask which DAC was rated so closely to the DAVE's performance at a fraction of the cost?

Gustard A26. I have never heard a Dave, and make no claims, except to say I'm enjoying it for now.

 

[paulfromcamden]

Yes, I agree but unfortunately review sites don’t work in favour of the consumer like that. If you were interested in a particular item, you did some investigation, you found a hand full of reviews, all super positive, none that were negative, how could you go wrong? Well, what you don’t see are the reviewers that had reservations and didn’t post a review. As a potential purchaser you’d definitely want to know that for a complete picture, but effectively it gets buried.

It's just how it works. I used to know someone who did PR for EMI's classical division. If they realised a release was a bit of a stinker they would have to send out review copies but he'd ring round the reviewers and politely ask if they wouldn't mind terribly perhaps just forgetting they'd ever received the CD...

 

[Alex S]

As a reviewer for Hi-Fi News, my mantra is “I review the stuff the editor asks me to”!

I think that amounts to the same thing. Not knocking it though.

 

[chartz]

Actually, I tell a lie - I reviewed a £18.99 Tesco CD/radio micro system for Hi-Fi World that had been voted Britain’s Best Stereo System.

I remember that one. A good laugh
And it wasn’t even an April issue.
I miss HFW. But I enjoy HFN&RR almost as much with KK’s column, Tim’s vintage reviews and of course Adam your reviews (especially, among others, because I spent the last 20 + years reading you. My fond love for B&O vintage stuff was your and Tim’s doing).

May somebody correct the title please?

 

[Beobloke]

I notice your editor doesn't ask you review spendy cables : )

I made my position clear on those on day one!

 

[gez]

I think that’s the point. Who would pay for a magazine filled with ‘don’t buy this’ reviews?

You might argue that the occasional clunker would add some light and shade, and it’s a fair point. But unlike websites, which aren’t so limited in space, there are only so many pages for content in each print issue, so every bad review potentially denies a good product a review.

I don't know how true it is, but I read a post on another forum by someone who claimed to be a reviewer in one of the large mags. Basically they said, we don't print bad reviews because it achieves nothing. It a) upsets the manufacturer and so you never get products from them again to review, b) it doesn't help the consumer as they'll just buy one of the "well reviewed" items anyway whether the bad reviewed product was printed or not.

They said, they gave the manufacturer the feedback privately so that they could choose to make changes or not. Ultimately they claimed that "things just evened out" and the well reviewed products sold better and that people "read between the lines" or just ignored a product that hadn't been reviewed and so they sold less well without the need for a damning review.

As I say that's what I read, and I may be getting some of the details of the post wrong, as I don't have it to hand and I read it quite a long time ago, but definitely the statement was that if they received a product that they reviewed and it was poorly received, they wouldn't print a bad review.