What makes someone a professional reviewer?
We get paid to write reviews, we are willing to hump lotsa different gear in and out of our systems and spend several hours ferreting out all the details of a component and how it compares to something else (unless you write for TAS), and we’ve had the advantage of the perspective of hearing a lot of equipment in our own rooms and systems. Plus, we can write well enough to both convey thoughts and concepts in a way that people actually like to read.
That out of the way, personally if a manufacturer would go to the trouble/expense of shipping a current and former version of a review product I would’ve been happy to write about the differences (I actually did that once). But, that’s rarely offered and would greatly increase the cost to the manufacturer with shipping costs and such. But, and much more doable and what Soundstage.com always required, was that any reviewer had to at least have a comparable piece in their review system so there was at least one applicable point of reference. Anyway, trying to do what you’re asking would fall mainly to the manufacturers and not the review publications unless a reviewer happened to have the previous iteration of a component, which happens but is relatively rare.
|
@emrofsemanon Id encourage you to read reviews from Soundstage.com. We were always required to do a thorough review of all the basics you’re looking for and also be able to compare it to a component in a similar class. It’s a no BS site, and I was always able to write whatever the hell I heard with no outside influence or editorializing. It’s a straight-up and honest publication. FWIW.
|
here’s the issue. very few of the reviewers you know make their living reviewing. They are published, yes. Might even get a few bucks for a piece. but they have real jobs. Its a hobby
@itsjustme That’s absolutely true, and it certainly was with me. But it’s also true that we’ve gotten to hear lots of gear in our own systems and in our own rooms so we have lots of experience in a real apples-to-apples comparison environment that we know well. That gives us a big leg up on people who usually only get to hear equipment in varied systems and rooms that introduces far too many variables combined with rapidly-fading aural memory that severely taints the audition and decision process. Any piece I reviewed I had a comparable piece to compare it to in my review system. Plus, every reviewer needs to be able to express in words the things they hear in ways that prospective buyers can relate to and use to help make more informed purchase decisions. Deride us as just hobbyists if you will, but we’re all in the same boat as you and most of us just want to provide useful information to others in the hope it could possibly be helpful. And trust me, we ain’t in it for the money cause we’d mostly all starve if that was the case. My advice — find reviewers who you trust and seem to be real and use them for useful information, because their impressions can be extremely helpful especially in this world of disappearing dealerships. Just my $0.02 FWIW.
|
So - If you are looking for industry pricing and write nice-nice ask to review…Reviewers love equipment more than music - analytics versus emotion
@sts You couldn’t be more wrong. Go ahead and ask any publication to write a review and see how that goes. Then actually go through the whole review process from humping the boxes into your room, unboxing it and setting it up in your system, go through the burn-in process, evaluate the product in the context of several different genres of songs and then compare it to something competitive only to realize many of the things you “thought” you knew were in fact incorrect and then listen all over again. Then get all the product specs, measurements, etc. together and the write all that up together with a comprehensive, insightful, and interesting piece that’d hopefully be useful for someone to read. Then box the thing back up and hump it to UPS or FedEx to have it sent back to the manufacturer. Until you’re willing to do that, don’t make it sound as if it’s like doing nothing to get dealer pricing. Trust me, on a per-hour basis you’re better off working at a diner. And I know plenty of fellow reviewers and to a person it all starts with a love of music, but we happen to also like to find equipment that makes that music more involving and sound its best. You know nothing of what you speak. Go ahead — I dare you to try to write a professional review and see how that works out for you. Until you do that, I’d suggest you keep your completely ignorant and uninformed opinions to yourself. Thanks.
|
+1 @jl35
at this point it is safe to say that most reviews are flawed and not an undeniable reference for purchasing anything. they are constrained from mentioning anything remotely detracting about the sound and in fact barely describe the sound character at all. they simply cannot bite the hand that feeds them
That was not my experience. In 15 years of reviewing I was never constrained from saying anything negative. Over that time I only wrote one negative review, not because I was constrained but because if a product reaches a level where it gets a review it’s likely gotten very good feedback or comes from an established company that knows what its doing and doesn’t produce bad-sounding products. Point is, reviewers almost without exception get gear that sounds good, which is the main reason you don’t read many negative reviews. Reviewers don’t want to review crap products and magazines/sites don’t want to review them either. Plus, in this day and age it’s hard to even find something that just sounds bad. That said, a reviewer should absolutely point out areas where a product might be a bit compromised, which is why I always found product comparisons to be the most interesting part of any review as it provides extremely useful context for the reader.
most of the text in a review has nothing to do with how it sounds. they are mostly fluff that includes company history, the new technology and why it should sound better, room and system setup, and maybe a little about how it sounds
This I absolutely agree with and has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. Too many reviews contain 80%-90% background info, specs, etc. and only dedicate a couple paragraphs on how something sounds. Plus, in this day and age when anyone can go to a company website and get a lot of this information I’d rather a review to just include a link for the component under review and refer the reader to that to get certain info unless there’s something notable about a product’s design, specs, etc. that warrants further explanation. Anyway, that’s my take FWIW.
|
Note that reviewers live in a world of allegedly quantifiable differences as they have access to myriad items that the great unwashed do not. That said, and having said that, your and my ears hear different things and I for one have proven to myself the value of my tastes over all, as I tend to use my own earballs to make audio decisions.
@wolf_garcia Exactly. And that’s why the product comparisons in reviews are so critical (and why I hate TAS reviews as they don’t bother to do them) as they give you relative context that at least to some degree enables you to calibrate your hearing versus the reviewer’s.
|
There is no way to "calibrate" your hearing
Yes, there absolutely is. By triangulating the sound of components you’ve heard, other reviews of products used for comparison in the review, and the reviewer’s perception of other components you can glean some valuable relative information. Of course it always comes down to your own ears, but by combining information from reviews along with other information you can at least get some indications of certain sonic characteristics of a component that can be helpful in a reader deciding what they might or might not want to consider or audition. To dismiss a review because the reviewer may hear a bit differently than you or have different tastes or because you haven’t heard any of the equipment in the review is shortchanging what you can take away from a review with a little more thought and reading. I’ve bought several pieces using reviews in this way and have never been disappointed and have found I got just what I was looking for and expected. It’s a useful skill to have as good high-end dealers are disappearing and being able to hear equipment before buying is getting harder and harder.
|
You simply won’t ACTUALLY know the sound of a thing unless you give a component time in your system...If a lot of reviewers say the same thing about something you can make reasonable assumptions
@wolf_garcia And that’s the whole point. I’m not saying it’ll be certain that this will necessarily coincide with your hearing, but it certainly gives you a possible indication of what you might expect to hear or want to audition. Nobody’s saying the reviewer should be the final arbiter of what you should think because that’s ALWAYS up to you and your ears, but if you read consistent impressions by reviewers you can certainly include that in your arsenal as to what you might or might not be interested in. To me, that’s as far as the benefit of reviews should go given all the variables involved, but I hope you can agree that used for the information they can potentially offer within their limits they can still be very useful.
|
|
@patrickdowns I totally understand your skepticism and concern, and I can only speak from my own 16 years of reviewing, but I honestly think the corruption you’re alluding to is the exception rather than the rule — or at least I sincerely hope it is. Anyway, I can speak from my time at Soundstage! that I was never offered any free product or was incentivized in any way what to write except just to write about what I really heard. As I’ve mentioned before, by the time a product reaches a level of public interest that it merits a review it’s already gotten high praise or is from a well-established manufacturer, so the odds of getting a piece for review that sounds outright bad in any way is between slim and none. THAT’S the main reason you don’t read many negative reviews. Period. I only wrote one negative review in 16 years, and it ain’t cause I wasn’t ready to write more, it’s just that the products I was offered to review were by and large very good or excellent products. That, and nobody wants to review crap, so crap tends to never rise to the level of even getting a review. I think this could be the case of a few bad apples can spoil the bunch. But, that said, I’d say use your own internal BS meter to judge whether you can trust a reviewer’s opinions or not. Me, as a reviewer, if a review doesn’t make explicit comparisons to another competitive product I dismiss it out of hand because there’s no “fact check” to keep the reviewer honest. Many’s the time I thought I had a good handle on a review product’s sound only to be completely humbled when inserting a competitive product to find my radar was off and had to largely reshape and adjust my impressions — and the review — accordingly. Our aural memory just isn’t that good, or at least mine isn’t. Soundstage!, to its credit, wouldn’t allow a reviewer to review a component unless they had a competitive product available with which to compare it, and I think that’s the way it should be done to produce a truly rigorous and meaningful review. And I’ll once again call out The Absolute Sound (whatever the hell that even is) for going out of their way to not only not provide any direct product comparisons, but also in many cases not even disclose the components in a reviewer’s reference system so the reader has absolutely no clue what basis for comparison, if any, that reviewer was basing their conclusions on. Absurd. Just absurd and outright cowardly IMHO.
Sorry to drone on here, but having been in the reviewing trenches for many years and being a consumer of audio equipment myself I’ve developed some pretty strong opinions as to what a good and genuinely informative, thorough, and ultimately helpful review should contain. Hope this helps at least provide a little perspective and maybe just a touch less skepticism toward reviewers as most reviewers I know make next to nothing and do it purely for the love of music and to provide honest and helpful information/opinions to other fellow audiophiles. Just my $0.02 FWIW.
|
If a reviewer has some sort of a relationship with a company whose product they have reviewed (eg, they were allowed to buy the review sample at a discount) I just want to know.
@patrickdowns I’ll save you the suspense — all reviewers who write for a publication can get dealer pricing for a product they review (typically 25% to 50% off depending on the product type and if they’re sold direct or through a dealer network). Most publications/sites pay reviewers next to nothing for the many, many hours of work it takes to write a review from unboxing to finish, so dealer pricing is a meaningful perk that incentivizes reviewers to sacrifice all those hours to do what they do. That said, reviewers get to hear lots of gear so if they buy the review sample, even though it’s at a discount, it’s only because they feel that component is truly special and is about the highest praise a reviewer can bestow on a product. I only bought a review sample if it was significantly better than what I had in my review system, and since most reviewers have at least pretty good systems/components it makes quite a statement if something gets purchased after a review is completed. Anyway…
|
I take issue with these terms of work
I encourage you to try writing a review for a publication and go through that whole process again and again before taking any issue. I submit it’s not as easy as many people seem to think. Not sure how anyone could not love Vandys, but then there’s no accounting for individual taste. 😝
|
@cd318 Ha! Agree 1000% re: What HiFi? and I’ll throw in HiFi+ as another useles rag.
|
@sts Just google Tim Shea and Soundstage a stuff should pop up. I reviewed for them from like 2002 to 2017. Ayre, Eggleston, Thiel, Bryston, Bel Canto, Acoustic Zen, Liberty (aka PBN) Audio, McCormack and a buncha other things. I recommend some caffeine if ur gonna actually read any of this stuff. Just sayin’.
|
You may have misunderstood me. The issue I have is with publications who don’t pay what I would consider a proper rate for reviews, and instead take advantage of the willingness of reviewers to do the work for a low pay scale with some promise of discounts on gear. If the writers agree to do so, it is their choice.
@patrickdowns You are correct. Unless you write for the glossy mags you’re not gonna make money writing reviews. I did it because I love audio gear and writing, and the prospect of getting to listen to a lot of equipment in my room/system along with getting dealer pricing was something that was very attractive to me. But, after a while I got tired of humping equipment in and out of my system and spending tons of hours reviewing equipment to make someone else rich so I stopped but still very glad I did it. AFAIK the audio review industry doesn’t have any wealthy warriors undermining professional reviewers who do it as a career as in sports photography, but that totally sucks.
|
@noske So, you purport to know my actual experience better than I do? You’re absolutely misguided and clueless, and you can quote me on that.
|
I know nothing of your actual experience.
@noske That’s correct, you don’t. Yet you still write this presupposing my reviews were influenced to be positive…
Never constrained from saying anything negative. No, a better way of saying it is that you were perhaps sufficiently rewarded by writing only positive things.
As I’ve said before, at no time as a reviewer was I ever influenced to write anything in any way other than what I heard. If I was I would no longer write for that publication. Period.
Should I be misguided, please share with the community here that in your 15 years of being a reviewer exactly why you provided only one negative review. And for the sake of clarity and for the avoidance of doubt, define what constitutes a "negative review".
Again, and as I’ve stated before, by the time a product rises to the point of getting a review it’s either a product from an established manufacturer who knows what they’re doing or a new product that is garnering a lot of interest due to good performance. Either way, it’s very, very rare a reviewer receives a components that just sounds “bad.” The one product I did write a negative review on didn’t sound good to me and I wrote it up as such, and had I gotten another product that disappointed I would’ve had no problem writing another negative review. That said, no product is perfect, which is why I always fully disclosed areas where I thought a review component was better or worse relative to a competitive product. Is that enough clarity for you?
|
Precise criticism and a skeptical approach is what I prefer.
@noske Just as I wouldn’t say something sounds good when it doesn’t, nor would I ever say something sounds bad when it doesn’t just to be “critical.” That’s the main reason why the product comparison sections are so critical as it’s possible to communicate what aspects of a review component’s sound was different, better, or worse compared to a similar product. To me, this is the most informative and useful part of any review and why I can’t stand TAS reviews because they rarely bother to do any product comparisons and I find their reviews to be “dull, boring, and hand waving” reviews I find next to useless. Again, just my take FWIW.
|
