[eric the red]

Excellent Dan B-thanks for the link. " High-end boilerplate"      

[Carlman]

John,
Good point, and well taken.
I'm always open to finding new levels of happiness!

[nathanm]

In my opinion TNT Audio writes the only reviews that don't sound like a bunch of spoiled guys placating the advertisers to maintain their gear habit.  And the fact that their site is ad-free seals the deal.  Still, reviews from everyday schmucks like us I find the most useful of all.  They have no agenda, they actually spent the big bucks on the thing, so they don't have any baggage to interfere with their honest opinion.  Well, brand-loyalty can be pretty high at times I suppose.  I guess if you've found something you really like you are naturally going to start losing your objectivity.  But it depends on who is reading it.

Around here there's only one audio store and I went there once to audition a possible new amp for my Norh speakers.  It was a cool place, lots of nifty goodies everywhere, but they only carry a handful of brands.  Their listening rooms are bigger than my entire apartment too!  So unless it's B&W, BAT, Naim or Rotel I can't go hear the stuff in person.  Well, there is a Manley dealer somewheres but I feel very guilty about going to audition something I cannot yet afford.

I am not sure if the first dealer I mentioned allows you to take stuff home or not, but really that is the ONLY means of evaluation that makes any real sense.  Reviews are just a way to read about other brands out there that you don't have physical access to.  

It's fundamentally flawed to describe sound in words I guess, but I guess it does serve a function.  One other thing I dislike about mags like Stereophile are the lack of pictures.  You never get to see the rooms these guys are using.  No big shots of the product (where you can see the jack labels etc.) Just one studio shot of the gear and then pure text.  A lot of times it is difficult to get a sense of scale, especially with speakers.  It seems almost criminal for your website to be selling $10,000 pieces of exotic audio equipment with little 200 pixel wide images!  That drives me nuts!  How can you make this magnicient monolith of a speaker and show it so small!?

[Jon L]

There's absolutely no doubt a good review helps.  If you read enough of'em, you get to know a certain reviewer's biases, tastes, and attitudes.  It also helps tremendously to know how they reviewed equipment you also know well.  

A good reviewer is able to give an equipment a fair chance by doing his best to set it up right and then report what he hears, exposing his own biases along the way.  Also, he reveals the specific differences he hears compared to other gears he's heard in the system.  I don't care if the reviewers have degrees in engineering or music.  As long as they know what live music sounds like and what they hear in their equipment and able to describe it comparatively, I believe I have enough sense to put A and B together and come up with useful info...

[DVV]

If I may join in, as a professional reviewer of 19 years, albeit more for PC hardware than audio, there are a few things one has to get to grips with before one starts:

1. You can't please everybody, so don't bother pleasing anybody but your own conscience;

2. If you please your conscience, you won't make serious money out of reviewing, but you sure will get a lot of people VERY mad;

3. Before you start, leave all your biases at your home, in your own system - that is the ultimate statement you can make, although if you remember the point under 2., it will probably not reflect your tastes too well simply because you won't be able to afford it;

4. If you are a reviewer with a system costing $100K+, you are on the take, period, unless you were filthy rich before you started out;

5. Before you say anything about anything, make sure you have walked it through at least three systems in three rooms, every time for at least a week (yeah, I know I'm nuts, NOBODY has that much time, it seems, but my poor self - but then, I don't have the biggest, baddest system every month a new issue appears, and I can afford a new car only once in 9 years);

6. If you want to be honest, you need to keep a lot of stuff handy, including some costly items - no matter whether you are testing a $200 integrated or a $200K pre/dual monoblock configuration. If it's good, you'll hear the difference with improving ancilliaries, but if you don't, or if the difference is small, you can take out the manufacturer no matter what his name is and how much he's worth;

7. You need to keep a very solid collection of high quality recordings if you are to give it a fair chance at showing what it can do;

8. You need to be able to call in others and have them tell you what they hear without knowing what you think, then you need to cross reference that against your own findings, possibly redo something, and

9. You need a fair knowledge of practical electronics to be able to diagnose some things. For example, if somebody tells me he can squeeze say 400 watts in impulses from his amp, and I see two pairs of say 130W output devices on a small heat sink, then I know he's scamming me. That power may be available, but it will be there for a meaninglessly short period of time, else the thing will overheat and burn out, etc.

I lost the tenth point somewhere on Mount Sinai.

One more thing - getting there is not too hard. It starts being hard when you realize people believe you; then you start worrying whether you were quite right, because if you boo-booed, somebody ends up shortchanged when he shouldn't be. This slowly turns into a nightmare over years.

Cheers,
DVV

[KeithR]

People in rural areas may be lucky to have any dealer.  Therefore, many folks depend on reviews for what to buy.

My take is this--reviews are helpful, if you know the bias of the reviewer.  For instance, Sam Tellig and I aren't even close to the same idea of music.  Anything he likes, I tend to dislike.  MF, Triangle, Mc, SF gear just isn't my cup of tea.  If Sam put on some Dave Matthews, I would roll over right now.  He plays string quintets, opera, and classical.

John Marks is the same way--very much classically oriented.  I bought the Rowland Concentra II he loves so dearly, and it wasn't special to me at all.

Michael Fremer is my kind of guy, although his reviews sometimes are a bit at ends with eachother.  He always spins a variety of music which is refreshing.

Jonathan Valin of TAS and i have similar attitudes towards music, which is reflected in the pieces that I like.  For example, the Kharma Midi Grands...best speaker I have heard in a long time.

JA likes very ruthless, detailed stuff--Wilsons, Revels, ML gear, etc.  Not my cup of tea either.

Reviews are a guide, not the answer, and are really helpful for 90% of the population out there to figure out what to audition, not what to buy.

[randytsuch]

People in rural areas may be lucky to have any dealer.  

Like LA?  

Randy

[JLM]

See my post above.



Reviews should be , objective, and relevant:


Through

Complete break-in as per vendor recommendations.

Test in a variety of rooms/sets of equipment/music.


Objective

Use definable terms and measurements.

State the test conditions (room, equipment, volume levels)

Include opinions of others.


Relevant

Use/compare with popular/well known equipment/music.

Use "real world" sized/designed rooms.


And stop wasting our time waxing poetically about everything but the piece of equipment.

jeff

[lcrim]

I worked as a designer (lighting) in the theatre several careers ago.  The reviewers in that arena held a great amount of power.   While the public may want to know if the money they will be asked to spend at the box office is a wise investment, the reviewer needs to provide more than a consumer rating.  The best reviwers (those with training and background), become the enforcers of standards.  While the "theatre is a temple" it is also a financial entity that must pay its bills and provide its investors with a return.  The concept of "buying a review" is not unknown.
With regard to reviews of audio equipment and recordings,  many reviewers do get lost in the attempt to impress with esoteric, descriptions and the quality of their "reference" system, I still learn from those who know more than I do.  
We all know bullshit when we hear it.   I think that the best reviewers provide a measuring  stick about what constitutes quality.  I needed to learn these measuring sticks to provide myself with a way to tell good from less good.
I never realized the wide range of stuff available,  both hardware and music.  Sites like this one and reviews are ways I can gain knowledge I could never get by myself.  My tastes keep changing, hopefully improving but no guarantees.
In the end, I think that I am beginning to tell good equipment from less good.  I think that this adds to my listening pleasure.

[JLM]

Richard George from TNT is one reviewer I value because I'm familar with many of the pieces he uses in reviews or know enough others who do.  His outlines the same each time: introduction, description, positives, negatives, and conclusions.  His style has included the opinions of others, doesn't wax, and speaks in terms I understand.

When the reviewer can list all the pieces he's reviewed on one hand or the reviewer is covering a piece he helped to develop or he used to work for the vendor, I turn off.

Yes, those of us living in the audio hinderlands depend more on reviews.  With the internet and all the cottage manufacturers seen at these forums there remains few options to hearing various pieces of equipment.  Audio clubs, internet friends, and the various audio fests are about all that's left.

The bricks and mortar audio stores are becoming dinosaurs.  We only have two pure audio shops left in Michigan that I'm aware of and they're both very small with limited offerings.

Maybe vendors should sponser mobile showrooms instead of the store fronts.  In the medical field trailers are used that have "pop-out" sides like many 5th wheeled recreational vehicles.  The mobile show could consist of 3 vehicles; the showroom, the bus to live in, and a semi to haul equipment for on the spot sales.  Advertise that you'll be in the area for 3 - 4 days and spend the rest of the week resting and doing paperwork.  Audition times could be spilt into open times on the weekends and "by appointment only" on other days.  

It seems like other than L.A., N.Y., Chicago, Atlanta, and Toronto the whole of North America is an hinderland for serious audio.

[JohnR]

Maybe vendors should sponser mobile showrooms instead of the store fronts.

Well, we have had a few audition items go around to members of this site! There's the GR Research Criterion, the Dezorel filter organized by audiojerry, Bolder cables has an audition pack doing the rounds, Rick Craig is about to send a pair or two of speakers around IIRC... oh, there was the AKSA GK-1 roadtour which was in the HD days.