Myths and Suspicions

audioguy

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You said: "Exploded: Advertising affects what gets reviewed and what doesn’t." That may be true but I will never be convinced that a REALLY big advertiser will get a bad review. The example I'm thinking of is Wilson Audio in Stereophile (or is it TAS?). While I'm not suggesting that Wilson deserves a bad review, given the amount of money they must spend on those full and partial page ads they run, I would never expect to see anything seriously negative about Wilson. products even if deserved.
 

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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A number of magazines I have subscribed to over the years have expressed clear policy of, "we don't publish bad reviews. If we find something seriously wrong we let the manufacturer know to remedy it." I think the last instance of this was a boating magazine. Of course, there are magazines/reviewers at the other extreme such as Consumer Reports who have gone as far as defending themselves in the court on not being biased. So discussions like this are difficult to have if they are meant to cover the entire industry.

Having been the other side of this from product supplier point of view, I have also seen a range. I was once invited to a panel discussion with our competitors. I arrived only to find the reviewer chatting away with the rep from my competitor as if they were long lost friends. He was grilling him on where his free sweater was, etc. I arrive and as soon as I said hello, I got the dirtiest look you can imagine. He proceeded to treat me that way for years to come. He would constantly create these "shootouts" with the other company where it was clear that they had written the script for him and would refuse to take any feedback or changes from us. At the time, he wrote for the #1 magazine in tech world so his influence over us was tremendous.

At the other extreme, I had reviewers whom I build personal relationships with and they would go out of their way to get explanation to issues they found instead of quickly running with them. There was no question that we were getting the benefit of the doubt -- in this case due to personal relationship and not advertisement.

In other cases, I was given time to present at conferences created by the said magazines if I bought the first page full color ad. I did and that clearly made an influence on the tone of how I was presented.

Let me tell you a story which at first, may seem unrelated :).

I was once working for a big company which was getting sued left and right for sexual harassment. To avoid corporate liability, the company quickly brings in outside people to teach the rules to the rest of the employees. So I go to the meeting and they start telling us the rules and what to do and what not to do. Mind you, this is 1980s so people are still new to all of this. So questions arise: "what if the girl is wearing a low-cut dress. Is it really wrong if I stare at her?" "What if she is flirting, is it OK if I do the same in return?"

The trainer did his best to try to explain but it was clear that he could not hold the questions back and convince the people otherwise. So he finally came up with a marvelous answers. He said, "look, I can't tell you what a judge or jury would do in these cases. But here is my advice to you: conduct yourself in a way at work that if your mother found out, you would not be embarrassed!" And with that line, all questioning stopped. The message was absolutely clear on how to look at the problem at hand.

I call that concept the "clear line" principal and this is something lawyers tend to also advise their clients to do. That is, don't live in the gray area of the law if you have any choice whatsoever. Overcompensate and go way out to one side as to remove any doubt about correctness of the behavior.

So what does this have to do with the question at hand? Well, reviewers, knowing the doubts that readers have, need to go way out to one side to remove any appearance of bias whatsoever. This doesn't mean what seems to be sufficient to them. But what the proverbial mother equivalent would be.

If you accept long-term equipment loans, put that in your signature for every review. If you let people read your reviews before they are published, say that. If you let them correct it, say that twice :). If you give companies time to fix things, mention that. Don't wait for someone to question you before saying these things. Volunteer it. Create that clear line that you are not going to hide things that might influence my read of your work.

I just don't know how else to resolve such a conflict.
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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A number of magazines I have subscribed to over the years have expressed clear policy of, "we don't publish bad reviews. If we find something seriously wrong we let the manufacturer know to remedy it." I think the last instance of this was a boating magazine. Of course, there are magazines/reviewers at the other extreme such as Consumer Reports who have gone as far as defending themselves in the court on not being biased. So discussions like this are difficult to have if they are meant to cover the entire industry.

Having been the other side of this from product supplier point of view, I have also seen a range. I was once invited to a panel discussion with our competitors. I arrived only to find the reviewer chatting away with the rep from my competitor as if they were long lost friends. He was grilling him on where his free sweater was, etc. I arrive and as soon as I said hello, I got the dirtiest look you can imagine. He proceeded to treat me that way for years to come. He would constantly create these "shootouts" with the other company where it was clear that they had written the script for him and would refuse to take any feedback or changes from us. At the time, he wrote for the #1 magazine in tech world so his influence over us was tremendous.

Was that a Sarah Palin skit on SNL :)
 

mep

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With regards to sexual harassment, it is only harassment when the woman doesn't like you. The "right" guy can get away with anything. The wrong guy is screwed if he looks cross-eyed at a woman. I liked it better in the old days before "Tail Hook" which really started the whole sexual harassment dealio. We all were/are still collectively punished for what happened there and I didn't even get to go. Tail Hook had a reputation for what it was that everyone knew about. It was kind of like you or I going into a strip joint and complaining there were naked women inside and we professed to be offended about the nudity.

When I first entered the military in 1972, our Airmen's Club used to have strippers every Tuesday night. It was advertised in big letters on the huge lighted sign outside the club - "Tonight, live nude strippers!" When I first started working at a U.S. Navy shipyard in 1978, the Chief's Club had strippers everyday at lunch time. My how times have changed.
 

The Smokester

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Jun 7, 2010
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I thought this would be good for discussion this morning. Not officially published until July 1:

http://ultraaudio.com/opinion/20100701.htm

Jeff, I sympathize with what you are trying to say in this article but it is logically hard to argue a negative, particularly if the negative potentially applies to yourself (e.g. I am not a biased reviewer). A natural and unintended reaction to this on the part of the naive reader is "Methinks thou dost protest too much".

It would be much more effective to declare a reasonable reviewing policy, live within it by a large margin (as arim recommends) with full disclosure when you can't, and let others be the judge.
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Jun 30, 2010
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I miss Julian Hersch. Seriously, I don't believe reviews are often overtly influenced by advertising because it is impractical and because people generally want to believe they have more integrity than to trade their professional ethics for an ad placement. Indirectly? Maybe. In either case, that's not the problem with reviews today. The problem is a total lack of discipline. There is seldom any research, measurement, or even structured listening involved. Even weak attempts at objectivity are seldom made. The typical audio review, here in the early 20th century, is the result of one listener, with all his personal biases (brand, price, technology platform, detailed design approach...) fully engaged, expressing one opinion. A user review may be little more than purchase justification, but this kind of professional review is not much better. Call it pre-conceived notion justification. Will a reviewer who is a huge believer in computer audio feeding active monitors/sub powered by mass quantities of A/B solid state-generated headroom fall in love with a turntable into an SET tube amp driving big horn loaded speakers, or even give such a system a fair reading? He will try, but ask yourself the simpler question: Is (s)he human?

No, measurements do not tell the whole story. And gathering together a half-dozen staffers, friends and/or music lovers to listen and compare for awhile without looking at the beautiful casework and the familiar logos does not make for a statistically valid test. But it would be a huge leap forward from what we most often get today, which has all the validity of a movie review. Do you like heavy drama or Pixar? Choose your reviewer well and you will always be reinforced.

P
 

MylesBAstor

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I miss Julian Hersch. Seriously, I don't believe reviews are often overtly influenced by advertising because it is impractical and because people generally want to believe they have more integrity than to trade their professional ethics for an ad placement. Indirectly? Maybe. In either case, that's not the problem with reviews today. The problem is a total lack of discipline. There is seldom any research, measurement, or even structured listening involved. Even weak attempts at objectivity are seldom made. The typical audio review, here in the early 20th century, is the result of one listener, with all his personal biases (brand, price, technology platform, detailed design approach...) fully engaged, expressing one opinion. A user review may be little more than purchase justification, but this kind of professional review is not much better. Call it pre-conceived notion justification. Will a reviewer who is a huge believer in computer audio feeding active monitors/sub powered by mass quantities of A/B solid state-generated headroom fall in love with a turntable into an SET tube amp driving big horn loaded speakers, or even give such a system a fair reading? He will try, but ask yourself the simpler question: Is (s)he human?

No, measurements do not tell the whole story. And gathering together a half-dozen staffers, friends and/or music lovers to listen and compare for awhile without looking at the beautiful casework and the familiar logos does not make for a statistically valid test. But it would be a huge leap forward from what we most often get today, which has all the validity of a movie review. Do you like heavy drama or Pixar? Choose your reviewer well and you will always be reinforced.

P

Excuse me but weren't dear Julian's reviews the work of a single person using meaningless measurements such as THD generated from his OWN lab? Do you think he did that for free? How much did he collect for that?

And do you remember that Julian never ever listened to the gear being reviewed and went totally by the measurements because everything sounded the same?

And Julian was so out of touch with audio that it wasn't funny. Take for instance when he was at a mid-80s NY Audio Society meeting and someone asked him about tubes vs. transistor debate. His response was that tubes were noisy. Someone pointed out that wasn't totally correct and Julian admitted the last time he had heard a tube amplifier was around 1960, when transistors came out. He hadn't heard a tube product in over 25 years!

And I'm really sorry to burst your bubble but those magazines sold their covers too. How much impartiality does that show? And they wouldn't review equipment from manufacturer B because it would offend manufacturer A who paid them big ad bucks.

SP certainly has reviews with JA doing the measurements that are far more valid than anything Julian dreamed of.
 

kach22i

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It's hard to give a bad review, who really wants to be the bad guy?

We all love music and stereo equipment, I would think even more so for a reviewer. So why would any reviewer be motivated to slash and burn his own hobby?

The everyone has an opinion aspect, and the personal bias or Human Factor comes into play. However I think most people reading realize it is one opinion they are reading and not fact, more like an editorial at the end of the news hour.

The people who design and make the equipment did their best, the product is their baby and they worked long and hard on it, their life savings are often in it. Any and all comments are personal, and might never be taken as objective, after all a review is a subjective piece.

The truth can be brutal, the honest truth even more so.

I've read reviews where you really have to read between the lines to perceive anything negative, it's a sort of game. It's like music with just the high notes and none of the low notes, you hear only half the song or story.

I think that if there is something wrong, the reviewer should say so, and give the maker a chance to fix it. After that it's up in the air, I mean if there is a second flaw, not a manufacturing flaw but a design flaw, how long should the reviewer wait? Wait until a second edition of the piece comes out so that a favorable review can be written? Should negative reviews just not be printed, so that print space is taken up only by the stuff which passes the sniff test?

How come a bad reviews for a restaurant can still generate more business because of name recognition, but a bad review for a stereo maker can be the kiss of death? Don't seem fair.
 

kach22i

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Julian's reviews the work of a single person
I think that I have both a Counterpoint pre-amp and Museatex pre-amp review from around 1990 taken from Stereo Review. I may have to go back and see if these statements hold up with those two articles.

I still have to scan the articles, broke down and bought a new All-in-One /scanner, it even does 11x17.
 

MylesBAstor

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I think that I have both a Counterpoint pre-amp and Museatex pre-amp review from around 1990 taken from Stereo Review. I may have to go back and see if these statements hold up with those two articles.

I still have to scan the articles, broke down and bought a new All-in-One /scanner, it even does 11x17.


Maybe be Mark remembers the reviews.

Of course, those dates are after the ones that I mentioned and do wonder if Julian did the Counterpoint review-and was it of their tube or ss products? I think Barney Pisha also wrote for SR at the time (though I might be mistaken and he wrote for Audio) and covered some high-end audio products.
 

FrantzM

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The less that is said about Stereo Review in this discussion the better ... More later ...

Frantz
 

Gregadd

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OTOH many magazines plainly state they have no interest in reviewing bad products. That is they choose products which they have already auditioned and think might be of interest to their readers. There is a difference between a "critic" and a reviewer. The critic sees himself more as a policeman of the arts. His mission is to ferret out the negative. The reviewer merely brings things to the readers attention allowing them to make their own decision.
The real quandry for the reviewer is what to do when a big name lays an eggg. If Dace Wilson puts out a bad product that the reviewer knows will be purchased based on brand loyalty, does the reviewer have only obligation to report that to his readers? Hopefully the answer will be yes.
 

MylesBAstor

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OTOH many magazines plainly state they have no interest in reviewing bad products. That is they choose products which they have already auditioned and think might be of interest to their readers. There is a difference between a "critic" and a reviewer. The critic sees himself more as a policeman of the arts. His mission is to ferret out the negative. The reviewer merely brings things to the readers attention allowing them to make their own decision.
The real quandry for the reviewer is what to do when a big name lays an eggg. If Dace Wilson puts out a bad product that the reviewer knows will be purchased based on brand loyalty, does the reviewer have only obligation to report that to his readers? Hopefully the answer will be yes.

I have and it's no fun. Nor is it any fun writing it though HP made it fun in dissing gear in the early days of TAS. And with space becoming more and more limited in print publications, the audio magazines have to make a decision on whether or not it's worth publishing a negative review.

For instance, I didn't like writing a negative review of the Koetsu Rosewood Signature but it just didn't cut the mustard at that time. Same for the Richard Gray AC line conditioner. And there have been a few others along the way--including a few LPs :)
 

FrantzM

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Hi

I apologize in advance for my ignorance. Can someone explain to m the reviewing process, pertaining to High End Audio .. If OT let me know and I will open a thread on the subject.

A few questions:
How does a reviewer acquire the components?
What are the requirements for a person to be a reviewer?
Does the magazine establish reviewing protocols both administrative and technical?
Many more questions but these are the on to come to mind ...
 

kach22i

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What are the requirements for a person to be a reviewer?
From what I've been rudely exposed to in the past, the ability to create a PDF and post it on the Internet.;)

Seriously, do you mean an "in print reviewer" or "on-line" magazine?

There are fine examples of both, and bad examples of both.
 

Bruce B

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Also, I've seen industry accomodation pricing at 50 - 80% off!!! I know peoples opinions are swayed greatly by cost vs. value.
 

MylesBAstor

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Also, I've seen industry accomodation pricing at 50 - 80% off!!! I know peoples opinions are swayed greatly by cost vs. value.

I'd like to know who offered the 80% (maybe it was a B stock or something they really couldn't resell???). In my 30 years of reviewing, no company has ever offered me that sort of discount. The industry standard is 50% (as in pretty much other profession) with discounts ranging from 40 to 60% depending upon the company.

While we're on the subject, lets also talk about the restrictions that manufacturers place upon reviewers-the biggest being have to sign a form stating that they will not sell that piece for a period of a year. So if something else comes up in 6 months, you're stuck with what you have. And when reviewers sell gear (for what they paid, no more), someone is getting a hell of a bargain on Audiogon!

The we can talk about all the money that the magazines (and not all do) pay their writers. I doubt few here would work for the hourly wages reviewing pays (figure out three months of listening on average to a piece of gear and getting paid $100); Stereophile pays the most around $1200/piece--but one is not going to live on that either). And not to mention, paying one's own way to CES and other audio shows.

So it's not all fun and glory for reviewers :) Or it's like being a trainer-where everyone goes oh isn't it great that you can work out for free anytime? Yeah, right. Try getting up every day @4:30 AM and having some energy to work out by 1 PM!
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Excuse me but weren't dear Julian's reviews the work of a single person using meaningless measurements such as THD generated from his OWN lab? Do you think he did that for free? How much did he collect for that?

And do you remember that Julian never ever listened to the gear being reviewed and went totally by the measurements because everything sounded the same?

And Julian was so out of touch with audio that it wasn't funny. Take for instance when he was at a mid-80s NY Audio Society meeting and someone asked him about tubes vs. transistor debate. His response was that tubes were noisy. Someone pointed out that wasn't totally correct and Julian admitted the last time he had heard a tube amplifier was around 1960, when transistors came out. He hadn't heard a tube product in over 25 years!

And I'm really sorry to burst your bubble but those magazines sold their covers too. How much impartiality does that show? And they wouldn't review equipment from manufacturer B because it would offend manufacturer A who paid them big ad bucks.

SP certainly has reviews with JA doing the measurements that are far more valid than anything Julian dreamed of.

The Julian Hersch bit was a joke, Miles. That's why it was followed by "Seriously." Here: :). The rest of the was quite serious. Present company, and all other exceptions excepted, but they are exceptions. Much of the audiophile press - both print and internet - is devoid of both measurement and sound listening methodologies. They may as well be wine reviews, and I don't think it's good for the industry or the hobby. It is, at the very least, uninformative for potential buyers. There are plenty of measurements that could be taken that would be much more useful than THD, and there are ways of listening "subjectively" that would be much more telling than one guy's sighted listening providing one guy's personal opinion. But sadly, it is rarely being done.

P
 

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