cakyol,
Have you never heard of Mola Mola? They're not all cheap, and plenty are over 3k.
Have you never heard of Mola Mola? They're not all cheap, and plenty are over 3k.
Honest Amp Reviews: Impossible?
So, I’ve noticed a flood of class D junk hitting the market over the last several years. They come from many different brand names from people you’ve never heard of before like "VTV", to popular Internet-in-the-know brands like PS Audio to famous names like Marantz. One thing they ALL have in common: the complete inability to find honest reviews online for these products.
For example, let’s take for instance the Stellar series from PS Audio. Class D junk with the usual attempt to improve euphonics with some kind of input stage. They call this scheme class AD, I guess to differentiate all the other brands that do something similar. However, you’ll never see a review site point this out; they’ll comment briefly on the design and then dutifully call it class AD afterwards as if it isn’t just a class D amp like many others.
Next, the reviewer will invariably lie about the sound. This lying usually takes the form of lying by omission. They’ll gush about how beefy and controlled it is, how neutral it is, how wide and natural the soundstage is, etc. What they WON’T mention is how lifeless, flat, boring and ultimately fatiguing they ALL are. The buyer who doesn’t know any better has to find that out for themselves while he slowly grows to distrust anything a reviewer has to say about anything. So, the only way to actually get value out of a review is to see if a certain amp has the positive attributes you are looking for while trying to painstakingly research any problems it might have because the reviewer won’t mention them.
In addition to the lies of omission, there’s the usual con of giving certain gear to certain reviewers who will appreciate / like the piece. That Stellar will NEVER be put up against a Dan D’agostino or a Pass for example. This could be valuable to the buyer to see how a lesser amp stacks up against a high end one, but it’s not, apparently, useful to the reviewers. Why? Why is telling the whole truth about amps -- all gear really -- taboo?
For example, let’s take for instance the Stellar series from PS Audio. Class D junk with the usual attempt to improve euphonics with some kind of input stage. They call this scheme class AD, I guess to differentiate all the other brands that do something similar. However, you’ll never see a review site point this out; they’ll comment briefly on the design and then dutifully call it class AD afterwards as if it isn’t just a class D amp like many others.
Next, the reviewer will invariably lie about the sound. This lying usually takes the form of lying by omission. They’ll gush about how beefy and controlled it is, how neutral it is, how wide and natural the soundstage is, etc. What they WON’T mention is how lifeless, flat, boring and ultimately fatiguing they ALL are. The buyer who doesn’t know any better has to find that out for themselves while he slowly grows to distrust anything a reviewer has to say about anything. So, the only way to actually get value out of a review is to see if a certain amp has the positive attributes you are looking for while trying to painstakingly research any problems it might have because the reviewer won’t mention them.
In addition to the lies of omission, there’s the usual con of giving certain gear to certain reviewers who will appreciate / like the piece. That Stellar will NEVER be put up against a Dan D’agostino or a Pass for example. This could be valuable to the buyer to see how a lesser amp stacks up against a high end one, but it’s not, apparently, useful to the reviewers. Why? Why is telling the whole truth about amps -- all gear really -- taboo?
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- 77 posts total
I am guilty of chasing giant killer reviews. My new favorite reviewer is Soundnews.com from Hungary (headphone related). I actually bought 2 pieces last week based only on his reviews. After reading a lot of his reviews I agreed with this reviewer’s point of view on many things. So only based on the reviews, I bought a $500 supposed giant killer headphone amp and the other was a feature rich DAC (almost a giant killer). Which is supposed to be better than my existing more expensive DAC. The great thing for me is that I own the giant headphone amp that is being killed with the $500 upstart. That is same quality but tiny price. So I can confirm for myself. However, I have a feeling this reviewer is going to be correct. I will be doing a headphone amp faceoff with a $3000 Benchmark HPA4 vs a $424 Topping A90 headphone amp. In the non-headphone world, there are some giant killer products that are being put into giant systems. There are posts on A’gon about those experiences. A few weeks ago, some guy posted about putting in a Benchmark LA4 into his $100K system. I think he replaced a $20K preamp. I am waiting on the next giant killer (maybe), more powerful Purifi amps. Not this first batch. |
Ask yourself, ’Is there even such a thing as a bad ’professional’ review? When was the last time you saw one that was even mildly critical? Now ask yourself, ’Why is this?’. Why are they just like whitewashed job references now? At least the ad-free consumer magazines aren’t afraid of panning sub substandard goods. Heck, here in the UK, Which? magazine even has a ’Don’t Buy’ category! I just wish they did more audio reviews. https://try.which.co.uk/which-brand-2/?source_code=911CUJ&Incl_CustomerList&gclsrc=aw.ds&... |
@madavid0 https://soundnews.net/ This site is gear toward headphone gear which have a lower price point than high brow A'gon gear. |
- 77 posts total