The Audio Critic

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

A lot of people have taken his mantra and ran with it. You see most of these types on you tube and other sites.

That would be you, Rok2id. You have a belief too, whether you like it or not. Integrity or not, gold ol' Pete is still a quack. Again, you can't listen to graphs, and using a $250 Chinese made receiver to drive $10k speakers is ludicrous.

The hostility towards Pete is based on ONE issue. Has
nothing to do with reviews or company ownership. He has to
be trashed because his truths, and his courage to state them,
threaten the entire con.

He didn't play right, so he has to be expelled from the
sandbox. If he was not a man of integrity, he could have
been one of the most celebrated gurus at any of the 'high-
end' rags. All he had to do was say, I can hear WIRE, and
All amps have their own unique sound, and humans can hear
that uniqueness.

I am not an 'audiophile' nor an engineer. I have normal
human hearing. My thoughts and questions are as follows:

Wire is the simplest of electrical components. IF, a person
can hear the differences between Wire, shouldn't that
person be able to hear the difference between something
loaded with devices and as complex as an audio amp? of
course they would be able to do that.

THEN, If you can hear wire, shouldn't you be able to hear
the difference between the two channels in a stereo amp?
Lot more stuff there to affect sound than found in wire.
Surely you would be able to hear the difference between
mono blocks. What about amps on the same assembly line,
serial # 1 vs Amp serial #2 ?? The differences there are
surely greater than between two pieces of wire.

My point is, if you can hear wire, you should be able to hear
EVERYTHING!!

Of course you can't. It's called self-delusion. But, you can
make some quick cash, one million, by demonstrating that you
can hear amps and wire. That money has been of the table
forever.

BTW, if you know of someone who has demonstrated he can
hear wire and amps, inform us please. The statement "I
can hear a difference" don't count.

But the reason I even bother is that, I just hate to see a
bunch of loud mouthed know-nothings trash the founders of
this hobby. They were there when it was a real hobby. Guys
built their systems. Ordering a ready made mega buck
stereo component, is not a hobby.

Cheers