Best Place for Negative Reviews?

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.

you forgot to include : trust your ears.

I agree. Armed with your own set of test CD/LP's I think you can't go far wrong. The danger is when the demo is made with unfamiliar pieces. Danger being that the music is selected by the person making the demo; therefore it is likely to be particularly well suited to the system reviewed. A great system will outshine others on a wide variety of music even if another system will outshine it in one or two particular instances (because it happens to enhances some specific weakneses in a recording).

There are no negative reviews because today's gear are all so wonderful. Bright speakers are "fast". Veiled amps are "romantic"..etc. Sad state of the high end press, they have turned into pimps. I too, enjoy reading the old Stereophiles.