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RE: Good reviewers...

"Good reviewers don't need to be accomplished musicians, but they need to be very familiar with the sound of live, unamplified music, attending concerts regularly."

I suppose that could be true. Since you mentioned him, I'll have to try to find some old Julian Hirsch reviews and see what I think, given the intervening years and the hopefully decent level of experience I've gained during them. :)

But as an accomplished musician, I can say that there are nuances in the sound of various instruments that most people don't detect, and that only someone who is rehearsing or performing on a daily basis will hear almost immediately. Take 10 violin players playing ten different violins, and you'll have at least 2 or 3 that have a sound which sticks out from the others, either in a good or bad way, and more subtle differences among the others. So, that's one aspect of critical listening that requires an intimate familiarity with the sound of instruments, and which, in my view, can only be learned by being a musician, simply because of the time spent listening to them. (Speaking of violins, a microphone comparison recording that I did way back in the day included a violin sample. Man, did I pick the wrong violinist - he was a very fine player, but his violin wasn't representative of the sound of the instrument. It was one of those 2 or 3 mentioned above. I'm still kicking myself. I digress.)

On a related point, as a trumpet player, I've never heard a loudspeaker that sounds like a trumpet - any trumpet. So when reviewers talk about the "realism", or other such adjectives often assigned to audio components, it's almost laughable (no offense intended). Give me a dozen high-end speaker models, mate them up with a dozen high-end amps, and put on the best quality trumpet recording you've got. Then listen to a real trumpet in that same room. There's no comparison.

This is by no means a thorough reply or explanation, it's just some observations and comments to consider.

:)

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