The worst sentence in audio writing

Whenever people resort to personal attacks I know I've just run over a sacred cow.  Feelings just got hurt.  I'm sorry, I don't really mean for that, but I do think that many times we are subject to something akin to an ascending scale in music.  We hear it over and over again so we think we've reached some place a thousand octaves higher than where we started.

Yes, it is possible to make things more revealing, but no, most of the times when I read a reviewer using a similar phrase what they mean is that this piece of gear, usually speakers, have noticeable peaks and valleys.  And so the cycle of reviews continues.  Every piece of gear reviewed is better than the last, but only within it's price bracket.

Often, but not always, to my ears and experience gear is different, and rarely better and when you find truly better buy it and don't let go.

@erik_squires, I think you are conflating two separate arguments - (A) whether it is possible to increase the resolution of music reproduction in a sonically neutral fashion? The answer to that is absolutely:- by lowering the noise floor, as has been said, by lowering intermodulation distortion, by increasing dynamic range, by improving channel separation etc; and (B)

Do audio reviewers exaggerate the scale of differences they perceive? In response to that question yes, I think some frequently do, especially in regard to high end audio where the differences can be meaningful but often of quite a small magnitude.

@yoyoyaya 

I feel I'm conflating it because reviewers conflate it. We live in a world of S/N of 100 dB or more. 
 

As I've agreed above, yes there are instances where reducing noise or improving how the speaker works with a room can actually yield improved detail at your listening location, but usually when I read that sentence it is nothing so benign.

...I think the phrase mentioned is a 'fall back' taught in Reviewers' Skool:

"If all else is 'meh', use Stock Comment #2C in your handbook."

After all the equipment of various types over X years, things have just Got To start to 'blur' into each other....

Editor needs 1~1.5K words about Item #483 by midnight, or they run with the stock "RIP, Fred 'retired' infill piece' to CYA the mag....

"This was an amazing amp....(...amazing that I was able to stay awake during listening..) that, despite it's shortcomings...(...willingness to put your privates into The Vice...but gives' one 'the out'....)...exhibits a velvety black background." 

(...because I had to be woke up after the first hour by the cleaning staff....).

Reading between the lines is so much more....'entertaining'.  Write Nice, or the client will pull their ad contract, and mgmt. will jump up yer tush and begin to speak for you...esp. with the aforementioned 'RIP/Ret.' piece....

That, and mags are assembled months ahead of the cover date....so the Big Fear is to review well an item that the competition mag just called "eh, meh'....

Mho, the reviewers have to be bending elbows at the same watering hole...if only to keep from stomping on each others' printed insteps'

*taptaptappitytap....*    hmmm...."Cortana, have I used the previous phrase before?"  

>Yes, you've used the exact wording 251 times. 463 variations, 1,974 referrals to that phrase or it's varia<

"...hmm, thanks..."  *damn...*...

If you can't say something nice, say nothing.
Except where print, and the distribution of, comes into play.

Then Nothing

Is Death.

The reviews are more often than not similar to a horoscope, where we can read into them what we want.