A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

That was pretty brave of Mr Fremer to weigh in like that since most industry people who speak up here are savaged by the AudiogoNers who know so much more.

I have said for years that it is unwise to question the integrity of reviewers simply because they do it for a living. If I were in the position of needing open heart surgery I would prefer to have a professional do it! Even if that person had written in the JAMA or the NJM. Do you want a professional plumber to fix your pipes, or mechanic to fix your brakes? Why not get someone with experience to write reviews then?

I never understood the connection between advertising and corruption. Does that mean Newsweek and Time are both corrupt, okay so I picked a couple of bad examples!!!

People who complain about the corruption of writers in Stereophile or TAS will be the first to complain when the price triples due to the new policy of not accepting advertising.

Mr Fremer points out ONE example of companies or products that received a favorable review without buying it, but there are hundreds of other examples. These accusations simply ring hollow, like Wilson speakers!!! That was a joke!!!

It is very frustrating to see so many people who have NO experience with a product write as if they have some level of credibility. All too often people are tearing down a product they have never heard, or only heard in a poor enviroment, what is the point of this??? It is these people who are the liars, not the people who review for a living.

No magazine could survive if they simply gave a pass on or even worse, a good review to a poorly designed or executed product. Simply disagreeing with a persons opinion does not make them wrong, or the disagreer right! Is that a word?!?

Magazines would be a lot more useful and dare I say, productive if readers understood this and responded accordingly!

It's only a hobby!

Fsarc; i did miss the perspective of Hardesty's Watchdog articles. He does not represent them as reviews.

my opinion is that his whole 'Watchdog' premise is very wrong-minded. Being the self-appointed 'audio police' without doing the in-depth listening work to support his conclusions is self-delusional at best; and mis-leading to the reader...which is worse.

If Hardesty wants to judge the factual content of review comments without in-depth documented listening then he should stick to making theoretical conclusions; and not confuse the reader with references to his listening experiences; which are not documented. Either his comments are actual reviews; or they are factual critiques.....but not both unless he wants to DO THE WORK OF A COMPLETE REVIEW including a description of his listening context.

He should have a disclaimer on his Watchdog articles which explains exactly his experience or lack thereof with the particular product.

when you make yourself judge and jury the price for credibility is high. no self-respecting magazine would make such strong statements without doing considerable homework and providing appropriate support for their conclusions.

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Here is more interesting reading where Hardesty discusses some speaker criteria he does like. It is a glowing interview of Pat McGinty. I will tell you that I own a set of Pat's speakers.

http://www.meadowlarkaudio.com/pdf/McGinty%20Interview.pdf

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(1) Assuming there is a good chance that someone at Wilson will read this thread, I would like to seize this opportunity to suggest that you reconsider the aesthetics of your products: in my opinion, the looks of your speakers are needlessly holding you back (X and Y need not = hideous and hilarious).

(2) Some here seem to be bothered by the style of Michael Fremer's response, believing that his words amount to name-calling and are unusually aggressive. Like frequent A-Gon contributor Jtinn (a friend whom I respect greatly) who sometimes gets criticized for his posting style, Mr. Fremer is a New Yorker (and if I'm not mistaken, originally from Brooklyn). In my experience, if someone spits in a New Yorker's eye, the response is swift and not pretty. Which is probably about right.

I can't believe this thread is still going? Normally the powers that be would have pulled it by now. I guess the Wilson company hasn't emailed to complain yet. ;-)