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Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!

It’s almost sad, really.  Some reviewers I’ve been reading for decades, when showing their rigs on YouTube, have absolutely horrible rooms.  Weird shaped; too small w/o acoustic treatment; crap all over the place within the room or around the speakers; and on and on.  
 

Had I known about the listening rooms they use to review gear in the past, I would not have placed such a value on what they were writing.  I think reviewers should not just list the equipment they used in a given review, but be required to show their listening rooms, as well.
 

Turns out my listening room isn’t so bad, after all.  

 

 

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audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 

@mikekuller yes, Herb's room is certainly not something to write home about, but he has the gift of critical listening. His reviews are outstanding, always an enjoyable read. He and the late Art Dudley are/were my favorite writers.

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audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 

Art Dudley appeared to not use much if any acoustic treatment in his home listening environment.  Look at some of his videos, where he has those large Altecs in a room with no treatment I could see.

mahler123
3,374 posts
 

The number one thing that I want to know about reviewers, particularly when they are past 70, is their hearing test.  Most of us in the hobby are around that age and we all have some frequency loss somewhere.  It just doesn't make sense to hear Reichert or Valin or Fremer go on about how they went to the original Same Goodys and then accord them Golden Ear Status.  However if I know that their deficits are similar to mine then I can put their reviews in a meaningful context

terraplane8bob's avatar
terraplane8bob
70 posts
 

I recall posting a reference to a thread about "simple tweaks" to our systems and mentioned one of the easiest tweaks for people who normally wear glasses was to simply remove them !   Apparently the idea is still met with derision judging by this post in the current thread about reviewer's listening rooms.

" remember that one over the top review when jonathan skull announced to the world he removed his eyeglasses when listening and voila, everything sounded better and different!!! 🤣😂"

Noting that the reflective qualities of Michael Fremer's record collection could be responsible for his listening environment, I don't see that a pair of glasses being regarded as a reflective surface only inches from our receptors [ears] wouldn't make a meaningful difference as well.   I wonder if the engineers who designed the famous Neumann KU-100 microphone in the shape of a human head ever considered a special model wearing eyeglasses ?

Try it even if you don't regularly wear eyeglasses and if you don't hear a difference may I suggest a visit to a hearing specialist ?  It definitely makes a difference !

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