Who do you trust?

Akg_ca

How a piece being reviewed sounds to the reviewer is a biased personal value judgement at best with no empirical or factual comparison base.

That's not universally true. Reviewers are known to compare the item being reviewed to equipment in their existing system, which may or may not be revealing depending on how close the products are to each other. Some reviews cover 3 or 4 similar products where the whole purpose of the review is to point out similarities and differences. Robert Reina, who reviews inexpensive speakers for Stereophile, almost always compares the speaker under review with three other speakers of the same type and in the same price range.

In God We Trust(all others pay cash)

Syntax, that post was Comedy Gold!

Rodman, in US monetary phrase the the word God has missing letter "L".

When I read Mr. Eban's complaint I was struck by how the thread failed to answer his concern and immediately went to biased judgement of the reviewer, and yes, money must corrupt the review. His question though remains unanswered.
There are very few opportunities to even aquaint yourself with new products, never mind auditioning them. I am not a religious reader of any particular audio mag blog or site, save this one and Audio Asylum. Enjoying this hpbby is not buying a new stereo and reading nothing until you system breaks and you "need" another one.
So how are we to know whats out there if not for professional reviews? Even if the reviewer were to basically just physically describe the gear, and what is new about it in particular, to let us know what technology the manufacturer claims re their equipment. Should the review end with just the results of the lab tests?
I don't think I would satisfied with that. I think that perhaps several reviewers, a panel, might work. That still doesn't answer the question though of how to pay for this process. I think he is right, if you want a review you pay a fee. We pay for assessments all the time, for better or worse (do you trust your car mechanic?) Anyway food for thought.