Best Place for Negative Reviews?

"Listen for fun and read to learn" should be, IMHO, Listen for fun and learn to read. :-) Sorry, couldn't resist.

Dusty,

Reviews are very useful for features, charts and test measurements (less reliable for the reviewers impression of sound quality - unless you can read between the lines).

What Hifi magazine is a probably the most sober guide I have seen.

trust more the products that have been around for some time and enjoy wide succcess.

trust products that are used by discerning customers, such as industry professionals. (i.e. if it is audio then why not pay attention to what artists and recording studios purchase - read mix magazine etc.)

do not trust hyperbole

do not trust magic

do not trust claims that have no physical or conventional scientific explanation (products with precious metals and precious materials but no lab chart showing just why they do sound different)

trust companies that sponsor the Audio Engineering Society over those that don't

trust design practices of modern mainstream electrical and acoustic engineers over those that totally oppose conventional wisdom (admittedly conventional wisdom gets turned on its head from time to time, but this is an exception rather than a general rule)

Of course it is always appealing to have a unique contrarian exclusive and anachronistic product. Armed with something very different from the conventional, one can, as Tom Petty put it, more easily "feel good to be king". An ecstatic review helps to further the pride of ownership in something unique or quirky.

This is probably one of my favorite examples of a review of a great product. The conclusion is "a $998 speaker system that was terrific on a wide variety of music."

hi shadorne:

you forgot to include : trust your ears.

just listen as much as you can, where you can, when you can.

if you can't listen to a component in your own system, you may be disappointed when you purchase it.

The idea that reviews are more for entertainment sounds accurate. I know that listening is an entirely subjective experience, so I would never be able to take the advice of someone I've never even met for guidance about the quality of a component.

On the other hand, I also agree with Sleepysurf that to get a general idea about a component's the best thing to do is search the web for discussion posts and user reviews. As with any kind of data collection, it's also best to drop the top few positives and bottom few negatives to get rid of the lobbyists though.

But just like movies and music, there are certain people whose tastes line up very closely to mine, and their recommendations are taken with more than a grain of salt. These people are usually my good friends. Unfortunately, I don't think I've found a reviewer at this point who I would say my tastes line up with enough to trust anything she writes.

-Dusty

when i first started reading the "little" stereophiles, many reviews would compare two (or more) very similar components price-wise leaving everything else in the system the same.
these real-time A/B tests and the resultant impressions imho
gave the reader an immediate sense of the writer's honesty, musical tastes, and a ruthlessness that could not be mistaken for "gee, thanks so much for your advertising dollars; here's a lovely review of your new preamp". i remember plenty of angry debates in the "manufacturer's comments" section, too. very enjoyable reading, and good ammo when you went out to hear a $5000 piece of electronics or speaker system- now you're either enthusiastic regardless of the lofty price-tag or wary and armed with some questions and perhaps some revealing cd's you brought along.