Changing variables in a review

[andromedaaudio]

I actually do not know a single audiophile who ever claimed his system / approach doesn’t enhance anything. How is that even knowable?

I know of many , basically all ( incl myself )claim their system approach / cable choice is the way music is presented in its most accurate form .
Discussing / debating these choices is useless basically

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike you or anyone is not here to defend any product but to help. i look up to you ina big way not joking you are somewhat of mentor of sorts.
many posts I make are not meant to imply I know but only view as most do. facts are facts and it seems the maker actually made changes after the review
keep in mind a dart amp is low on global or negative feedback it’s a double ended sword in doing So. The very thing that in some ways yields the amazing sound effects of the amp limits its system compliance. a dart amp and most all of there products are above most at there price point in the sky. It’s a product with out flaws and makes no compromise in looks as well as sound. Did you know the face plates were so Finely made he had many that were to be thrown out. Imagine that so his intent is to truly make the absolute best audio product period. one system he has is klipshorns
a very high level efficient speaker. Even with this playing music loud it still was hundreds lol f watts at peaks
so there is no doubt of its high wattage output overall
in the future all try to avoid prodycts you presently use lol.
merry Christmas to all and happy holidays to all
let’s hope health reasons well in all
of our lives.

of course you are right, i overreacted and apologize. it's a sensitive subject to me, and i need to be more self aware that i step back from my feelings and find a better way to express myself. thank you for your respect to me now and in the past. it does mean alot to me.

 

[Kingsrule]

really?

do we just ignore the manufacturer's response? it's been posted a few times. we just take the static measurement as truth? it's truth for what he is testing. but it's not music, it's a static load. which gives us a data point. but an incomplete picture.

here is a link to the the response here on WBF. it's also in the comment section of the magazine review for those who care.

darTZeel NHB-468 mono blocks in my system

Congratulations Mike. Remind me to never listen to 468s so I don't decide that my 108 is completely inadequate ;)The new 108s have a similar design to the 468s... really just a lesser version.

www.whatsbestforum.com

i suppose we just can never un-ring the bell. it's out there and people parrot it.

Mike..
In Herve's reply you linked he said:
It is true that during measurements, our embarked software did not behave as intended.

Since then, a fix has been made.


Have you had the fix done to your 468's and if so any sonic changes?

 

[K3RMIT]

of course you are right, i overreacted and apologize. it's a sensitive subject to me, and i need to be more self aware that i step back from my feelings and find a better way to express myself. thank you for your respect to me now and in the past. it does mean alot to me.

Mike you never need to apologize to anyone here much less me. your point is made.

 

[Kingrex]

[/QUOTE]

An accurate power cable will convey all the mains noise to our equipment and the noise generated by any piece of the equipment to the whole system. It this what we want? A power cable that transparently makes our gear sound different when the mains is noisy and surely divine at late hours when mains is at its best? Or do we want power cables that absorb noise and just pass the 50/60Hz power signal?

A tricky question: should we consider that a piece of equipment that is extremely sensitive to power cable type is poorly designed or masterly designed?

Some equipment is more sensitive than others to mains noise. This is true. The equipment I have owned that was most affected by mains noise was indeed poorly designed. I say as such because competent technicians rebuilt the internal grounding and the noise went away. The apparent noise that is.

I have had my scope meter on 30 or so homes. I always see between 2% and 4.5% harmonic distortion on the 3rd and 5th. Usually 70% on the third with the remaining on the 5th. I would assume most equipment should handle this. People who make gear, please chime in. Should equipment be able to handle this?

 

[Kingrex]

This thread was about changing variable in a review. It hit me last night what I see as a misinterpretation that caused arguing. I believe people are conflating the idea of a "review" and "tuning" or "changing" with each other.

When tuning you indeed only make 1 change at a time. Otherwise you don't know what did what created what change.

When reviewing, change it up as you like. Try anything and everything as you like. Just be aware what topology is in place as you listen to the voicing.

 

[K3RMIT]

Some equipment is more sensitive than others to mains noise. This is true. The equipment I have owned that was most affected by mains noise was indeed poorly designed. I say as such because competent technicians rebuilt the internal grounding and the noise went away. The apparent noise that is.

I have had my scope meter on 30 or so homes. I always see between 2% and 4.5% harmonic distortion on the 3rd and 5th. Usually 70% on the third with the remaining on the 5th. I would assume most equipment should handle this. People who make gear, please chime in. Should equipment be able to handle this?
[/QUOTE]
Have you ever tried to measure the dc psu feed of any device ? it might change your assumption a bit

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike..
In Herve's reply you linked he said:
It is true that during measurements, our embarked software did not behave as intended.

Since then, a fix has been made.


Have you had the fix done to your 468's and if so any sonic changes?

the review was from Stereophile Oct 19'. review completed a few months prior, so the finished review was sent to darTZeel, who wrote the response and the fix implemented prior to completion of my pair, which i received Nov 19th, 2019.

so i don't have any before/after experience with the fix. and cannot explain what exactly was fixed, but i am guessing that it relates to the special circuit and responding to static loads. but i'm speculating.

your could ask Mr. Fremer about it. i've never seen him mention it. my hunch is that it is transparent to real world listening.

 

[bazelio]

Audiophiles in general assume reviewers know more and can provide some sort of guidance due to the vast expirience of having heard a lot of amplifiers.

Yes! While there is something to be said for experience with variety, most seasoned audiophiles have similar experiences through meets, demos, swaps, etc. Reviewers certainly help to keep Roget's afloat, however. You really ought to give them that.

 

[andromedaaudio]

I think if you find a reviewer that floats your boat it can be of help.
But i think there will be certainly instances of :

" May the highest advertisement budget win "

 

[Cableman]

Audio Precision advanced audio analyzers have signals to emulate the behavior of music in measurements. Many designers and manufacturers use them during development, but they are not used in reviewing.

For example, Multitones : https://www.ap.com/technical-library/using-multitones-in-audio-test/

Oh so they DONT make music. Yup. Agreed

 

[Cableman]

I think if you find a reviewer that floats your boat it can be of help.
But i think there will be certainly instances of :

" May the highest advertisement budget win "

Stopped reading these idiotic reviews years ago. They are irrelevant other than advertising the product. I realised that finally when someone reviewed something I was working with and they clearly had not put it through its paces properly and wrote pretty much utter drivel. Eyes now wide open to these corrupted fools. But I still read the mags occasionally coz it keeps me abreast of what’s out there.

is there even one decent reviewer out there nowadays. One?

 

[K3RMIT]

Stopped reading these idiotic reviews years ago. They are irrelevant other than advertising the product. I realised that finally when someone reviewed something I was working with and they clearly had not put it through its paces properly and wrote pretty much utter drivel. Eyes now wide open to these corrupted fools. But I still read the mags occasionally coz it keeps me abreast of what’s out there.

is there even one decent reviewer out there nowadays. One?

You post in a circle , you say the reviewer for an amp is wrong . Then say who is honest it can’t be both can it. many reviewers are doing the best they can given
the restraints there under. Read between the lines
if you can understand them. yes I agree many are a waist but still something can be learned
did you know some have others use the said item to be reviewed as well as them to help get a full picture. if one turns down many items to review how long until no one asks them anymore
same if you trash them. if the reviewer is smart he or she stays the hell away from forums period. i feel sorry for the man who came here to try and educate us on his methods. I’ll bet he don’t come back anymore.

 

[PeterA]

Stopped reading these idiotic reviews years ago. They are irrelevant other than advertising the product. I realised that finally when someone reviewed something I was working with and they clearly had not put it through its paces properly and wrote pretty much utter drivel. Eyes now wide open to these corrupted fools. But I still read the mags occasionally coz it keeps me abreast of what’s out there.

is there even one decent reviewer out there nowadays. One?

Yes. WBF member @tima.

 

[stehno]

Stopped reading these idiotic reviews years ago.

Me too. Even in the final years of subscribing, I rarely if ever opened the covers.

They are irrelevant other than advertising the product. I realised that finally when someone reviewed something I was working with and they clearly had not put it through its paces properly and wrote pretty much utter drivel. Eyes now wide open to these corrupted fools. But I still read the mags occasionally coz it keeps me abreast of what’s out there.

is there even one decent reviewer out there nowadays. One?

I'm sure there's a remnant out there somewhere. There's always a remnant, right? But even they would need to be scrutinized. Peter Moncrieff was supposedly one such reviewer. He supposedly had tremendous listening skills - a basic requirement, right? I've only known one reviewer, Garrett Hongo, that possesses such superior ability to discern what he heard and it's something to behold.

Based on my experiences with product and Moncrieff's reviews, he seemed right on the money time after time. In fact, my current speakers I purchased solely based off of his review. Saw the speakers out on the web, heard of them many times but never listened to them so I did a desperate google search and came across Moncrieff's extremely positive review and purchased them post haste and sure enough they are a tremendously musical speaker IMO.

Moncrieff was rarely kind to highly-touted well-known manufacturers of products that came up short. Oh, and discovered a few years ago he's no friend of MQA.

Rumor has it manufacturers, distributors, other reviewers, and now at least one digital format creator would sit around the camp fire telling scary Peter Moncrieff stories.

These are the kind of reviewers this industry so desperately needs.

 

[BlueFox]

Magazine reviews aren't any different than someone posting a comment on this forum. Both are just someone's opinion, and there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[Cableman]

You post in a circle , you say the reviewer for an amp is wrong . Then say who is honest it can’t be both can it. many reviewers are doing the best they can given
the restraints there under. Read between the lines
if you can understand them. yes I agree many are a waist but still something can be learned
did you know some have others use the said item to be reviewed as well as them to help get a full picture. if one turns down many items to review how long until no one asks them anymore
same if you trash them. if the reviewer is smart he or she stays the hell away from forums period. i feel sorry for the man who came here to try and educate us on his methods. I’ll bet he don’t come back anymore.

‘His methods’ were a disgrace IMHO. Who cares if he came in here to try to justify his flawed and embarrassing evaluation process. If you wanna still defend him /its on you.

‘Many reviewers are doing their best’. Are they. Are they really or are those who work in the most ‘prestigious’ rags having to make concessions for big bucks big advertising manufacturers.
These rags have a tendency to favour larger operations. The small guys barely get a look in yet the latter often make products that slaughter the former when comparatively priced. Do you think that’s fair?

do you think it’s fair that some distributors seem to get a disproportionate amount of hilariously positive reviews across their entire product range while others struggle to get a mention.

it’s not me whos trying to square the circle, to bend over backwards, to ignore the festering rot that set in and still goes unspoken ; and if our recent experiences in here are anything to go by will continue to be excused coz you know ‘he’s an educator’.

 

[Cableman]

Me too. Even in the final years of subscribing, I rarely if ever opened the covers.


I'm sure there's a remnant out there somewhere. There's always a remnant, right? But even they would need to be scrutinized. Peter Moncrieff was supposedly one such reviewer. He supposedly had tremendous listening skills - a basic requirement, right? I've only known one reviewer, Garrett Hongo, that possesses such superior ability to discern what he heard and it's something to behold.

Based on my experiences with product and Moncrieff's reviews, he seemed right on the money time after time. In fact, my current speakers I purchased solely based off of his review. Saw the speakers out on the web, heard of them many times but never listened to them so I did a desperate google search and came across Moncrieff's extremely positive review and purchased them post haste and sure enough they are a tremendously musical speaker IMO.

Moncrieff was rarely kind to highly-touted well-known manufacturers of products that came up short. Oh, and discovered a few years ago he's no friend of MQA.

Rumor has it manufacturers, distributors, other reviewers, and now at least one digital format creator would sit around the camp fire telling scary Peter Moncrieff stories.

These are the kind of reviewers this industry so desperately needs.

This guy gets it.

 

[Cableman]

Magazine reviews aren't any different than someone posting a comment on this forum. Both are just someone's opinion, and there is nothing wrong with that.

What’s wrong is people being duped into believing their veracity.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Cable man , whats your point .
If there are no advertisers there are no magazines .
101 economics , which results in to having to find some sort of balance .
Sounds perfectly normal to me , some magazines read more like an add altogether, others put in a lot more work measurements etc