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In Reply to: RE: Alas review Standard is falling posted by fmak on March 22, 2014 at 02:18:14
There are simply practical limitations. A reviewer is limited in a practical sense to comparisons to gear he has or is nearby and the owner will allow him to mess up his system for a comparison.
Ultimately a review is to give you an idea of whether you should follow up the review yourself. In that case you should make the comparisons for yourself. A review should not make a decision for you.
Follow Ups:
a reviewer does not have the right tools, he or she normally borrows them or gains access to them. Otherwise, the review should not be published by a 'prestige' magazine.
Even free web reviewers have access/exposure to a range of high end gear
"a reviewer does not have the right tools, he or she normally borrows them or gains access to them"
...at which point, the reviewer gets accused of having too many products on long-term loan.
There's no winning strategy with comparisons, IMO. Every comparison is going to be wrong (the comparison product will inevitably be too cheap, too expensive, too obscure, too populist, too different, too similar, too old, too new, too not the product owned by the disgruntled, and so on). If you use the same comparison product every time (because you own the comparison product), it's partisanship, but if you use a different comparison product every time (because you want to set the product in context), it's payola.
My take on this is to perform comparisons in camera unless there's a specific reason to do otherwise. It may not be the most transparent solution, but it's the least wrong in most people's eyes solution.
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Editor, Hi-Fi Plus magazine, Lun-duhnn, Ingerland, innit
I agree, but then some reviewers stand on higher horses than others and that was my point. Why compare a $7000 or more dac with a $3000 'reference' product?
(nt)
I don't stand behind any horse that doesn't do what it purportedly promises, in this case a paid for 'authoritative' review.
You expect too much. You don't just ask for gear to use just as a comparison. It isn't that simple for most, if any reviewers.
fair comparisons of similar products. Even web reviewers of free sites do it.
Clearly our standards are different.
Start your own review magazine. Be sure not to spam anyone.
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