Equipment reviews, are they credible?

The best indicator of credibility is the quality of the review itself.

I think a reader bears the responsibility of considering and working through for him or herself the questions that you've raised. It's no different than reading someone's advice in a thread; you know how to distinguish good, thoughtful advice from the bad.

If you think that people need to be "protected" from bad reviews, then I think this is hopeless. Set up a voting system or whatever, but (1) it's no more credible than the review itself, just adds another layer of opinion on top of opinion, and (2) readers will still filter the data through rose colored glasses anyway.

Zaikesman, I also like audioreview's format for quick scanning through to find the good ones.

As for a rating system, I've seen them work well on some bulletin boards for guaging which threads are worth a look. I've noticed, however, that on Amazon.com high ratings often go to very short but favorable revews. I suspect that it's because people who like the reviewed item want to support to the good reviews, just as people like to write positive reviews to taut their gear. On rollingstone.com, you'll often see an album get three (out of five) stars in the editorial review but five stars in the readers' rating (anyone with a modem connection can rate the album). So it rolls into more of the problem of self-justification that Nrchy pointed to.

I do like your idea about creating incentives for people to write better reviews in the first place. My suggestion would be for audiogon to add questions to the review form like "what equipment did you compare this against?" "what other similar equipment have you owned?" "how long have you owned the piece?" "Name the three greatest weaknesses of this piece?" etc.

These questions would encourage writers to include more information that would help us understand where they are coming from. They could also get the reviewer to confront common questions that a reader would ask as he or she writes. Most importantly, I think it will allow the reader to get a sense of the reviewer. Even if the reviewer enters "none" for weaknesses, you know something's rotten. More disclosure and information means more context for the reader to understand the review. Let the reader be the judge, but it helps the reader to have more information about the reviewer.

Going even further, I would say, don't let reviews be posted unless the author fills in all the blanks. It forces the writer to take some time with the review and discourages hastily dashed, "This is the best CD player ever. The end."

Of course, there will still be reviewers who'll just go enter "N/A" for every blank and write little more than "This is the best CD player ever. The end." And it doesn't stop people who have an agenda from posting. But I think it will be more obvious among the many reviews which writers have taken their time to craft the review an which ones havent'. In other words, we may not cut down the fluff, but it'll be more clear to the reader what is fluff.