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24.20.10.236
.. - I bought model X and see 5 reviewers loved model X." - Richard Austen Dagogo reviewer.
Kudos to Richard, who posts regularly on this site, for calling it like he sees it and for contributing to the discourse here.
Follow Ups:
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...-that none of his customers would buy anything he carried unless it had received a positive review.
I guess they don't trust their own ears?
The dealer carried a lot of esoteric gear and went out of business pre-covid.
My dealer was Soundhounds in Victoria and Terry ran the shop for 45 years until he died a few years ago (they are still operating).
They went to the audio shows always seeking new brands to carry. Some brands sell and some don't regardless of the reviews.
He noted that 90% of the people who walked into the store were "pre-sold" on what they wanted to buy from advertising and reviews. 10% actually spent serious time listening and tended not to buy the stuff the reviewers were raving about.
That was me. I had a set of what would be called "Mid-fi" speakers in Wharfedale E-70s (Vanguard Edition) a three-way 70 litre 90lb speaker with a bullet horn tweeter and 95dB sensitive speaker that hit close to 119dB. It's a fun pop/disco dynamic speaker with good bass down to 40hz. For a 1990 price of $2,000.
The reason I became a listener over a magazine reader is that I kept reading the magazines touting dynamically input 2-way standmounts with no bass and no ability to play pop or rock music well and costing MORE than the Wharfedale's - yes they imaged better and maybe had less colouration but it seemed like a big trade-off to gut the bass and dynamics and impact etc. You paid more and got less.
I sort of equate it to cars. A Toyota Camry is uber reliable (boring maybe) but it works and probably gives you 300,000 relatively trouble-free miles for $30k. You want me to buy a Mercedes at $90k - okay say I - I don't mind paying 3 times the price so give me all of the reliability of the Camry for $30k - and then ask me to pay $60k on top to get the fantastic performance and luxury interior. But that's not what happens - you pay 3 times the price for a car that falls apart 5 times more often and costs 5 times more to fix and has lower resale value because the whole world noticed what piles of utter crap their cars are.
Audio I somewhat the same. Pay more I want more and I don't want to take two steps back to only get one step forward somewhere else.
I owned the KEF LS-50 a review darling - I reviewed it too - it's a mighty fine loudspeaker - but I moved it along and kept my other speakers.
At the time it was $1500 and you could also buy the Cerwin Vega CLS(CLX) 215 and these are massive kinda red-light-district looking loudspeakers with two 15 inch woofers per side. But here's the thing - they will outperform the LS-15 on 99% of music sold - they have actual bass, they have actual dynamics, they sound much bigger and have much more impact so if you play the Rite of Spring or AC/DC or Lady Gaga - music will sound more captivating in my view.
The dealers who carry what gets good reviews run into some problems because IMO a bunch of boring-ass dynamically poor loudspeakers at pretty high dollars get raves from people who listen and review gear with frou·frou Diana Krall and Nils Lofgren and Miles Davis and their idea of hard rock is Dire Straits. Pop/rock/trance/dance/Hip Hop/rap etc sells 99% of the music. So the dealers sell the brands that really don't do any of this music as well.
Terry's approach was different - what he did was he carried the brands the reviews raved about - the brands that sell themselves - McIntosh, B&W, Dynaudio, Denon, Marantz, Magnepan, Quad. The gear that always gets rave reviews but nobody who worked there would ever buy for themselves. When I spoke to another dealer the first question he had for me about Line Magnetic was "what are the margins, and are they well known" - It's all about "how many of these can I sell and what's my profit on the unit) so they had no interest at all in anything they would have to "sell" (demonstrate too much) because McIntosh has blue meters looks cool is really heavy and has been around for 50+ years. Terry noted these brands pay the bills. He didn't like them but he sold them because again - 90% of people come in and know what they want before they listen.
Indeed, he noted that many customers just view the dealer as a used care dealer - so you may as well carry and sell what the customer wants or else the guy down the road will sell it. The customer is always right after all.
But he also realized that carrying a few lines of stuff he and his employees liked had value because there is that 10% of the market out there who doesn't want the stuff that sells and the review magazines were touting - they actually wanted good sound quality. It helped that the store was big enough back then to have a wide selection and so if a brand didn't sell too well it didn't matter all that much.
And because he sold so many brands they never had to hard-sell anyone because they probably carried something you would like. I always felt those small dealers with 2-3 speaker lines and 2-3 amplifier lines were pushy. No selection so the first words would be - "oh your amp is mediocre you should listen to ours." And that would be followed up with "see here in this magazine they gave our amp Editor's Choice or product of the year, or 5 stars" etc. And I think - when was the last time I agreed with the Academy Awards on Best Picture?
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I think we all seek it*, in some form or another, to justify or rationalize our taste or our expenditures.
Must be a human thing.____
* Well... maybe almost all of us.
;)
all the best,
mrh
Edits: 03/05/22
Peak affirmation
Nt
I look through some of them to get actual objective information about the products. The boring part where they tell you what it is, how it works, how much it costs etc etc. I ignore the subjective parts of the reviews
I've known three audio reviewers and their approach is decidedly different as to the second part. Isn't the enjoyment of music entertainment?
The intention is to help folks narrow down the choice of what gear to audition for themselves - ideally in their system. Fully knowing the systems used and stated priorities of the reviewers.
Reviewers can also acquaint us with new equipment that we might not be aware of. They can give us a sense through their ears of what these products are like and consequently whether or not they might appeal to us. In the best circumstances they can teach us about the ways that this pursuit can expand our perception of musical performance. Here I'm thinking of some of HP's ground breaking observations about the soundstage and the nuances of dimensional reproduction. Terms like breath and air that are commonly spoken of now but were certainly not recognized before.
myopic jargon no less.
Jargon, as you say, is another term for the language that folks have developed to articulate the things they hear. A reviewer's medium is print so in order to describe the nuances of music reproduction, and then try and discover the how and why of that, terms needed to be defined.
The words needed to describe sound existed before audio recording and playback existed. Certain members of the audio press made a living by inventing new jargon on a monthly basis. Jargon that was airy fairy enough to sound enlightened but said little to nothing of substance.
..the perspective that you are speaking about. As he says, he was the first to review Line Magnetic and Kingko products. A good reviewer educates as well as elucidates.I would respectfully disagree with you about the soundstage stuff being groundbreaking. IMHO it took the focus off of balance, touch and tone, and put it on effects. The good news is that there is plenty of room for all of us in the hobby to seek out the type of sound that we prefer. It's a big tent.
Edits: 02/16/22 02/16/22
Whatever qualities you most value aside, the point that I wished to emphasize was that some audio reviews advanced our understanding of what could be revealed in the field of home audio. I'm sure you will agree that this was, if not groundbreaking, nonetheless a significant contribution to this discourse that we engage in.
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That was a long time ago. Do you remember the year?
CES 2000
Did Crump and Curl have rooms at both CES and T.H.E. Show?
I fixed Crump's TT at T.H.E. Show that year. They were in the room next to ours. Curl said Bob was going to throw that VPI loaner TT into the pool. Elliot messed up the set up. It was no big deal. Crump and Curl had the best candy bowl.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
The first year I was with Crump and Curl, maybe it was 2001, who the hell knows, they had all digital. Number Cruncher DAC, monster Bar B Q amp, Blowtorch preamp. That room won for best party that year. The second year Curl introduced JC-1s, all isolated on my stuff. The electronics were isolated on a super size Nimbus Platform I built for the show. The second year I also had mucho iso stands in the really big Tenor/Rockport room in the Tuscany.
Edits: 02/19/22
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