Peer Review of the Reviewers: Critique/Praise Audiophile Reviewers

No one's mentioned The Merv yet, probably because we're afraid of being a bunch of sycophants. But seriously, I think Merv is one of the best audio reviewers I've ever read. It's tricky in the sense that someone you know is always going to have an advantage. Getting information out of any review is very dependent on how well you know the reviewer and can see where they're coming from. And it all goes back to why it's important to have a community of friends, because the more we share information about each other the more we can absorb from each other's gear impressions.

But Merv's reviews back at the beginning of Changstar are the reason I made an account.

 

I have no idea what you all think about this, but do you like when reviewers do some kind of volume matching when comparing source/amps? (Even if its not a perfectly scientific one.) I've appreciated on headfi how Brooko does volume matching when comparing daps. (I'm not sure if he always does.) I have a hard time not respecting a reviewer more when, after volume matching, they say that they had to try very hard to find any sonic differences between daps. After reading that, the rest of the review becomes about useful things like usability, etc.

 

The truth is no matter what you think you hear, you're going to find it very difficult to pick which adequately neutral DAC is which a statistically significant amount of times in a level matched ABX double blind test. Sony did this publicly in the 80s to sell their PCM Adaptor for Betamax by throwing it into excellent analog chains. What starts to matter is stuff like price, potentiometer quality, gain settings, etc. Does it run off of USB power? Is it R2R for people that give a shit or claim to hear a difference? Is it an all in one transportable unit? Does it have DSD support for the naive fool who fell for Super Audio CDs? Measurements too. DACs are cheaper than cars and you might just want the best one.

 

How about Headfonia, headphonics or inearspace?

 

Purrin/Merv's reviews are great. Straight to the point, informative, unbiased. Ever since discovering Changstar and his reviews (amongst others), I've never felt competent enough to post a detailed review of anything.
Tyll is great obviously. Almost all reviews on SBAF are really good actually. Don't agree with all but it's honest enough that I don't need to have my guard up for mindless hyping and other garbage.

On HF, ClieOS does nice reviews on IEMs/Amps, although he restricts himself to mainly entry-level Asian gear.
Joker's incredible IEM list is pretty decent as well, simply for its ease of reference with its rating format. It was my audio bible coming into this hobby.
Tomscy2000 reviews things quite rarely, but he's a fountain of knowledge.
SGS is great. I've never had a single instance where I've disagreed with his impressions. Most of his reviews are positive but based on my experience so far I trust him.
Project86 is decent-ish. Hype-y at times.
Moedawg seems like a pretty cool guy but to me he's an advertiser for certain manufacturers rather than a reviewer.
Average_joe is(was) great. Really in-depth reviews. Mostly subjective impressions but very Impartial so I have no issues with it. Vanished recently though.
Brooko has perhaps the neatest review templates anywhere. His reviews can be slightly over-positive at times, but generally I trust his reviews.
Twister is so-so. Used to give everything a 4-5 star rating, super positive about everything. His recent stuff has been slightly better though.

Headfonia is annoying. They need to cut down on all the flowery language and just get straight to the point. Paragraph after paragraph of prose with 1-2 short statements about the actual important stuff. I actually enjoy it reading their stuff on certan, rare days. Most of the time not though.
Headfonics is a lot better. More informative, more direct. Impartial.
Lachlan comes more from the general consumer POV but is very honest and trustworthy.

 

Along with the usual suspects (Tyll @ IF, Lachlan, joker @ IF, H-F, theheadphonelist), I also really like money4me247's reviews on head-fi. He is a straight shooter, and although his reviews are really long, I find myself reading the entire things (if not multiple times, haha). I've talked to him a lot before and I think he speaks exactly what's on his mind without buying into hype. One of the best parts of his reviews is the fact that he not only tries to post measurements with his own rig but he also offers copious amounts of comparisons with other gear (sometimes these comparisons take up so much space that he can't include them in the actual review and so he makes another thread or post to include them!). I actually read a lot of his posts several years ago when I first found head-fi through MLE's gaming thread, and it's crazy to see how his ears and experience have increased in such a short time.

And although not everyone may agree, but I really like 24bit (Michael Piskor)'s reviews on headfonics and reddit. Actually I like headfonics the most of any professional review site, though lately almost all of their reviews have been pretty positive. I notice that with 24bit you sometimes need to read between the lines on some of his headfonics articles, but he offers plenty of comparisons along with both positive and negative feedback.

http://headfonics.com/2014/08/12-flagship-headphones-compared-the-totl-guide/

He's much more up front with his opinions on reddit though.

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/3iapyf/after_owningreviewing_many_flagship_headphones/


As for other review sites, I find most of them laughable at best and nigh criminal at worst. I think the worst offenders are 6moons, darko @ digitalaudioreview, and headphone.guru.

Their "reviews" are generally nothing more than PR propaganda with little to no comparisons. When comparisons are offered, the gear in question are usually compared to much less expensive gear so that neither piece loses face. Here is a perfect example of the type of ignorance you can expect:
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/07/hifiman-he-1000-headphones-review/

Other reviewers are pretty hit or miss. I know some people don't respect wirecutter's reviews, but I appreciate the fact they give plenty of comparisons and an insight into their methodology, whether you agree or not (good example: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-400-over-ear-headphones/)

CNET reviewers are a bit hit or miss, but generally have too much hype and very little criticism for my taste.

Headfonia has great pictures but I find their reviews are all over the place. Some authors offer more criticism than others but it's hard for me to keep track.

So now the only audio websites I frequent are SBAF, IF, headfonics, theheadphonelist and lachlanlikesathing.

 

I like that 24bits is passionate about the hobby, but some of his behavior/drama over on reddit has been cringe worthy... He's gotten better but first impressions and all that jazz.

And while I may not agree with a lot of what he has written, at least he does seem to have a genuine opinion instead of just taking a sip from any of the love/hate circlejerks that seem to plague this hobby.

 

Not sure if most people have read it before but reddit/HF user SanjiWatsuki posted probably my favourite article on how to parse audio reviews:

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones...ing_headphone_reviews_aka_how_to_cut_through/

 

Same here. I was pursuing satisfying setup around my HD800 and dac for speakers . Fail-fail-fail through suggestions from head-fi led me to CS where there were measurements and pointers why something would sound like they do. You can feel it if you'r exposed to cold hard truth.
Purrin's opinions were the ones standing out first as having some sense and weight.

 

That's awesome! I hadn't read that before.

 

I wonder if I still have the code for my lame Chrome extension that attempted to heuristically perform a similar process. I never got it to a point where I was happy with its performance. I originally intended for that to turn into a senior project which attempted to apply NLP (natural language processing) to predict headphone measurements, but it was too hard and I scrapped it.

 

regarding purrin's last comment (post #51) Response #1 - how do you know if you're an audiophile? (I am asking this as a personal question from me, I am not referring to anyone else). Of course I love music, it is my passion in life, not only to hear other artist's music, but as a musician myself. I am always looking to achieve the best possible sound quality I can get with what I have, and in the future if I have more money, strive to get better gear to try to achieve better sound quality. I want to know if I am an audiophile. What makes an audiophile an audiophile? I know I want to consider myself as one, but am I?

 

thank you for the compliment purrin - I am a proud audiophile!

 

Indeed

 

Tyll! Purrin is making fun of you!

 

Hadn't seen that before. Very funny (and I suspect fairly accurate).