The Audio Critic

Ranks with Julian(The JOKE) Hirsch? I couldn't have chosen a
better word than, "RANK!" SO- A member of the
everything-sounds-the-same club? There's a real dubious
distinction! I suppose one COULD be deaf, honest AND in
denial.

A man of absolute integrity? That may be true. But don't you think the issue is whether he was correct or not, not whether he had integrity or not? There are tons of tweakaphobes and science to the rescue vigilantes who don't have integrity, so what's the diff?

People have true religious faith based on what they believe in their heart and mind. Audio is a different matter, you can believe in what your ears tell you or what a reviewer tells you. If your ears don't hear a difference, well then I suppose you would be interested in listening to a reviewer that hears like you do. If you DO hear differences you would be interested in reviewers that can articulate best what they hear. I'm not too familiar with Azcel but based on Rokid's comments he doesn't hear differences so I would say that he is irrelevant to me. This isn't to say he isn't a man of integrity, he very well may be.

I suppose, like everything else, we can debate what constitutes "integrity." I for one would not call someone "[a] man of absolute integrity" when that man wrote a rave review of a speaker system (Fourier 1) in the Audio Critic without first disclosing he was one of the owners of the company that made the speaker. I don't doubt that he liked his speaker, but, I doubt that the ethical requirements for disclosing his relationship to the product merely slipped his mind.

Integrity:
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS
synonyms see HONESTY