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In Reply to: RE: One of the problems with ezines... posted by RGA on February 25, 2012 at 07:01:48
I don't blame manufacturers for not sending products to reviewers that don't like their product. After all, it's an expense, and who would want to spend the money to send out a product only to damage sales?
That, however, doesn't serve the reader very well. So I think complete reliance on manufacturer samples is problematic. But this I think is an issue for the magazines rather than the companies.
BTW, I suspect that editors aren't likely to direct equipment to reviewers who don't have an affinity for it, and reviewers don't seem eager to review components about which they aren't enthusiastic. That last makes sense to me, insofar as it goes -- who wants to waste time and space reviewing a product that the reader isn't going to want -- but I do think negative impressions should be reported, since otherwise it's hard for a reader to know what wasn't covered because it was bad or for one of many other reasons.
Agree with you that magazines should make their policies available in print. John Atkinson wrote an article detailing some of Stereophile's policies. This would have the effect of increasing reader confidence in the magazine, unless, of course, the policies were ethically questionable, in which case I doubt the magazine would print them.
I see reviews as more than entertainment, BTW. Like many, I no longer live near a major dealer so don't have much of an opportunity to hear new stuff. If I were contemplating a major purchase, I'd make a trip, but I'd want a short list of products to listen to. And some people don't even have that option anymore, or don't have a chance to listen to an item that their local dealer doesn't carry. Also, I think that a review can be useful even if you do get to hear a product at a dealer's, because critics listen at length, under conditions that more closely reflect the conditions at home. So buying something on the basis of what you hear at the dealer's is something of a crapshoot, and a show even more so, given the vagaries of show sound. I also find that I get a sense over time of which critics hear the same things I do and have tastes that are similar to my own. I'd say my experience has been about 50-50, in that whether I took the recommendation of a critic I trusted (I bought my Tympani 1-D's used without ever having heard them, and they were my best audio purchase ever) or listened at a dealer's about half of the things I've brought home were successful purchases. That's far better than chance, and I think the best that can be achieved unless you can arrange a home trial.
Follow Ups:
I tend to shy away somewhat on talking too much about gear that I like and what it doesn't do well. I am a "big picture" guy and I want a speaker or product that overall sounds "right."
People seem to often keyhole on the 1-2 negative comments and ride those when debating the merits of the speakers. I don't know how many Audio Note E debates I've been in and some putz will bring up that Art Said -the left hand on the piano was a little strong - as if reason enough to write the thing off. When I consider that his other speaker is a Quad (which doesn't have enough left hand on the piano) then such comparison need to be in play. Regardless big picture was it was good enough at the price range to buy em - which should tell you something.
Stuff I really like I don't want to have thrown up as the reason someone discounts the speaker - or worse they read a graph. Plenty of fine measuring speakers in Stereophile's class A rating list sound utterly dreadful in the real world - every room I've tried them in regardless of what is driving them. You take the ten best subjective speakers - THEN after you have heard the ten and deemed them best ONLY THEN do you look at the measurements - what those measurements say is what is "the best measurements."
When I audition a speaker, I'm focused on the big picture as well. Namely, does it sound like real live music. Comparing it to my auditory memory of real live music.
However, it doesn't take long before I start noticing specific aspects of the sound -- is it detailed, is it peaky, how does it image, etc. These are the kind of thing that, in concert, determine whether the speaker will sound realistic or not. And I think it makes sense for a reviewer to report these aspects of the sound, so the reader can better determine whether the speaker might be of interest to him, what its special qualifications are, etc. Forex, if a critic says "Speaker X is wonderful in most respects, but a bit bass shy," and you happen to be a bass freak, you're probably going to want to look elsewhere.
Measurements are dangerous. I grew up in the High Fidelity/Stereo Review era, and as a teenager, really thought that great-looking response curves and distortion pictures told you everything you need to know about the sound. Then, as I heard a broader range of equipment, I realized that that wasn't so. Typical measurement suites are partial, and it can be difficult to correlate the measurements with what we hear, e.g., we're more sensitive to broad low Q peaks than narrow high Q ones, and there's research that tells us how sensitive, but how do you apply that to a frequency response curve? Still, with experience, I find that the measurements, and the overall speaker design, can tell me a lot about a speaker even before I hear it. There's a stat sound, a horn sound, a ribbon sound, a mini-monitor sound, etc., and while speakers of course vary sonically within their categories, they tend to share certain family characteristics as well, because of basic constraints of practical design. You can also see design flaws and good design -- if a manufacturer departs from good practice in one aspect, he's likely to do so in another. And you can tell a lot from the measurements, though it requires I think a fair amount of experience to do so. For example, what does diaphragm self-noise look like, and sound like? Metal cone breakup? Standing waves in mylar? Arguably, two waterfall plots that look comparable to the eye will sound completely different to the ear, depending on the harmonic (or aharmonic) relationship of the resonances, their Q, etc. The mylar resonances in electrostatics don't even sound the same as the mylar resonances in planar speakers. The more experience you have, the better you can make those distinctions.
In one regard, I think, measurements are invaluable: they keep us honest. In their absence, you chase your tail. There's too much of that in audio, producers who listen to the mix on a crappy little Auratone because it better suits the lousy equipment they think their customers will have, rather than just making a good recording and leaving it to the consumer electronics people to improve their gear. They can also tell me whether the reviewer is overlooking something that would almost certainly bother me, like certain response aberrations -- but again, you have to have the experience to know that ruler-flat response isn't always desirable, and that one meter and on-axis measurements don't necessarily correspond to what you'll hear in your listening chair.
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