2. amps-preamps
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Audio reviews: too many analogies, never simple, but most of all, never clear.

How many reviews have you read were it takes at least 2 paragraphs for the the reviewer to actually give 
hint this article is actually audio related or even gives mention to what he or she’s reviewing. Get to the subject matter. Leave out your less than perfect dramatic writing skills and lets start hearing about the actual review. I’d rather hear about comparisons between audio components than analogies between wine and taste related to transparency and how that gives rise to what they are getting ready say. What does wine have to do with audio transparency, nothing! Also they have a tendency to talk more about recordings that I’m sure 99% of the readers of the article have never heard of, or would ever listen to.
And when you looking for some sign of what they actually think of the components they’re reviewing they never give you a straight answer; it’s always something that leaves, at least for myself, asking, well where’s the answer. 
hiendmmoe
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,229 posts
 
I thought Millercarbon's 5/2 post was a parody of the bad reviews the OP was describing.  As such I thought it was quite good.  But apparently he is serious about the NY Times and the decline of western civilization.  Here's the Wikipedia page for The New York Time Manual of Style and Usage.  It's basically an alternative to the Associate Press, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker and the Washington Post who have their own style guides.

Don't take audio reviews seriously, they are purely for entertainment purposes.
berner99
216 posts
 
If you are really clear on what your sonic preferences are and start by only reading the part of the reviews dealing with that, they can be invaluable.  Obviously you need to read a number of reviews.
213runnin
914 posts
 
My but it's funny how just about any topic can get peoples' dander up.  Do you get paid for your work?  So do reviewers, deal with it, they are not the Great Satan.  

This is what you get with capitalism, it's not so bad.  Learn how to read critically, or go read 5 star Amazon reviews instead.

Professional reviews never pan a product because they don't review a component that is crap.  They return it and decline to review it, it's a professional courtesy.  

There was an antidote for lousy sounding products, it was called auditioning it for yourself at the local dealer.  But we all drove them out of business by buying Chinese knock offs online, so now we're stuck with trying to return it if we don't like it.  At least we saved a buck on that pirated speaker cable.
glupson
7,842 posts
 
"How many reviews have you read were it takes at least 2 paragraphs for the the reviewer to actually give
hint this article is actually audio related..."
I am not sure about audio journalism, but in some areas people get paid by the amount of material.

Along with that, the magazine has to fill pages with something so a "column" needs to be a page, two, or three long. If they wrote only relevant things, whole magazine would be two pages text and 84 pages advertisement.

More than all of that, how much is there really to write in a review of an audio product? How do you describe "better" or "worse" to someone far away reading in her/his armchair? Assuming there are reviews that do say something is not good, and I have not seen one in a while.
larry5729's avatar
larry5729
1,008 posts
 
I would like to know how many in this group are dealers.  I think they should require all dealers to identify themselves so we can determine the bias.
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