Peer Review of the Reviewers: Critique/Praise Audiophile Reviewers

Discussion in 'Leaderboard, Overboard, and Deals' started by kapanak, Oct 31, 2015.

  1. Tyll Hertsens

    Tyll Hertsens Grandpappy of the hobby - Special Friend

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    The bastard!
     
  2. lukeap69

    lukeap69 Pinoy Panther

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    LOL at the Hawaiian shirt! Made my day for sure!
     
  3. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I would like to know how people feel about the inclusion of "professional" quality photographs in a forum review?

    Actually, I enjoy some of those photos, and could accept that it is the guy's other hobby, and he feels that, if there are going to be pics, let there be nice pics. On the other hand, other subtexts (subpics?) are... In my dreams I write for glossy hifi mags, and I want my review on the front page of you-know-where and... well, and what?
     
  4. Xen

    Xen Friend

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    I don't mind "fancy" photos, but there also needs to be utilitarian photos. Utilitarian ones clearly show all 6 sides of the object, especially for components like amps, DACs, preamps, etc. Need to clearly see all angles of the front and rear or anywhere else that has input, output or control surfaces. Even the bottom, as I like to see how the thing will rest on a surface and whether there is anything I need to keep in mind for placement (vents, locking mechanisms, etc).
     
  5. BlueElephant

    BlueElephant New

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    I quite like the fancy photos. It provides at least some visual beauty to the items we use which are otherwise just jammed into a pocket or our ears. The fancy photos also provide more images of the diff angles of our gear which may come in useful prior to any purchase. If people are going to spend 3k on a noble prestige iem it clearly shows we/some of us value the visual aesthetics of our gear as well
     
  6. GelockS

    GelockS Friend

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    I knew there was a reason I always used that line in my reviews!!! It was there, in the back of my mind, every time.... :p
     
  7. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    I agree. I also like Herb Reichert's reviews. He seems like a regular guy that likes good sound and has loads of common sense. I appreciate the "budget" recommendations in a magazine full of ridiculously overpriced equipment.
     
  8. Claritas

    Claritas Friend

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    I rely most on friends nearby and many others online, mostly from CS/SBAF but also a couple of guys from the HF classical thread. One of the nicest things about this hobby is when you and a friend know each other's tastes well enough that, regardless of your different preferences, you can foretell what the other person will enjoy. Amongst reviewers, Tyll, joker, keanex, and Lachlan stand out. (I also enjoy reading Brooko's reviews, but we seem to be hearing different things.)

    I trust Tyll a lot regarding sound and measurements. Delete the modifiers and you get quite close to the truth. So if Tyll says something's a small problem, it's probably really a deal-breaker. Once you take that into account, you can derive even greater benefit from all his kind labor. I don't consider Tyll the best judge of fit and build quality because he's willing to excuse fit issues that I'm not and he probably doesn't use any one headphone often enough to encounter serious build quality problems. He's simply too busy being a superb educator to pay attention to those factors.

    Lachlan is less a reviewer for me than an investigative journalist. His exposés have saved me several hundreds of dollars. He is strongest on looks, fit, and build quality but we have different tastes in sound signatures (possibly genre-dependent). Given resources and time, he could become an important voice.

    joker's website is an excellent resource. I've donated to his site and hope to do so again. He's very experienced, and his breakdown of sound signatures is very useful for beginners. I've bought several decent IEMs based on his reviews without regrets. It's important to be aware, however, of his preference for somewhat brighter or slightly V-shaped FRs.

    keanex is an honest guy with good ears who's also a fine writer. When I'm vaguely curious about a product I haven't heard, I often start with his review. He's one of the few voices of sanity still active on the other side.

    I had rather not call out any bad reviewers right now. For the most part, they're obvious. Nor would I want you to think that anyone in particular is bad because I have neglected to mention them on account of an oversight.

    I would also note that a good review need not necessarily follow Marv's 7th commandment guideline to state a clear preference. In a great many cases, one is faced with tradeoffs and neither choice is strictly better.
     
  9. keanex

    keanex Martian Bounty Hunter - Friend

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    Thanks @Claritas, that means a lot. I appreciate the kind words.
     
  10. Claritas

    Claritas Friend

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    You're most welcome. Really, I ought to be thanking you because you totally deserve it!
     
  11. energizerfellow

    energizerfellow Friend

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    Excuse my ignorance on this one, but who is JA?
     
  12. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    Probably John Atkinson (Stereophile).
     
  13. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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  14. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    He used my old HD650 review as an example. Haha, I had no idea. Made for a funny read. :D

    Don't know where he got the part about not hearing the LCD-2 or 3 though? Apparently reviewers aren't the only ones who can speak out of their arses. :D

    But TBH I never expected that HD650 review to become so famous or amass so many views. I think I originally wrote it in maybe 20-30 minutes and didn't think more of it. I'm not even sure it's a proper review but I've even heard so called "youtube reviewers" read from it paragraph by paragraph while doing "their" review. I was shocked.

    The HD6X0 is still a great headphone though, no doubt about that. But I am a little bit disappointed in Sennheiser for not moving the game on more than they have. You'd think with all their resources they could tweak the HD6X0 driver to be a bit faster and with tighter deeper and more layered bass. They kind of tried with the HD700 but we know how that ended.
     
  15. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    I do not think I trust anyone's preferences 100% but there are some reviewers I respect, and would never ignore. Tyll comes on the top of this list in spite of the fact that Focal Utopia are not the world best headphones. I learn so much from his site and his reviews. I also bought two mid-fi headphones/IEMs based on Tyll's reviews: ATH MSR7 and SE535. Both were great choices.
    metal571, I like his style and respect his opinions.
    Zeos is in a category of its own: on a positive side he is entertaining and he pointed me to HD600 and HE500. But he is able to make noise for 20 minutes without saying one useful or coherent thing, his reviews of IEMs are so incompetent it hurts.
    And then there is Michael Lavorgna, an inhabitant of the Anus Mundi of audio reviewers. He may have neighbors there, but he has no equals.
     
  16. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    :):cool::D:bow:
     
  17. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    When I found out the Lavorgna was finally fired from Audiostream, I went to their page and found the last piece published there under his "leadership: https://www.audiostream.com/content/audio-without-numbers by Herb Reichert

    Here is the quote:
    "I regard self-proclaimed audio objectivists, ones that parlay a few quasi-imaginable cultural abstractions and a middle school smattering of Newtonian Physics, into entitlement and authority -- as the self-declared enemies of poetry, love, and humanist culture. If they simply Googled 'logic and the world' they would quickly discover the Enlightenment Paradigm (Voltaire, Locke, et al.) they cling to was rejected by scientists and philosophers—before 1930 (Einstein, Heisenberg, et al.). "

    The only thing obvious in this article is that indeed the author knowledge about Einstein and Heisenberg position on objectivity in science comes exclusively from Google search.
    Lavorgna is gone but it looks like there is still a lot of dirt to be scrubbed.
     

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