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Disappointing audition after great review

Ok, so I read the hi fi mags, in print and on line. I recently read a glowing review of speakers retailing in excess of $10,000. Then I found a dealer with the speakers on display. After listening I came away thinking what wa stat reviewer thinking? Also recently I tried a pair of headphones. Read a glowing review which touted its sonic quality and noted although they were heavy, they were comfortable to wear, even for hours. So I tried those headphones. After 5 minutes I could not wait to get them off.

Makes me wonder- are the reviews little more than shill ads? Sometime I think so.

On the other hand, there is one long time reviewer who seems to hear pretty much what I do. What he likes I like.

What's been your experience?
zavato
mofimadness's avatar
mofimadness
5,783 posts
 
Everyone has different listening biases...and rooms and equipment and ears.

That's why you should always try to demo gear in your own environment.
czarivey
5,946 posts
 
To headphones I understand because they're like shoes. You can't be sure up till you wear. Ear shells and ear drums are all different.
To speakers, I was disappointed listening to Joseph RM33 offered for sale as dealer demo for $7500. To me they sounded worse than Polk from Best buy $200 so I couldn't even offer that much for'em
lloydc's avatar
lloydc
768 posts
 
A question in which you fail to identify the component to which you refer is worthless.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,720 posts
 
I cannot comment on headphones but the sound of any speaker is almost totally dependent on the room's acoustics and the speaker and listener positioning within the room. It is hard to make definitive differentiations between different speakers in different rooms..................unless one set of the speakers is defective.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,981 posts
 
Lots of reasons why what a reviewer states may not be the same thing as what you experience.

That's why you should take any review, good or bad, with a grain or two of salt and in the end you can only trust your own ears.

In general, the media these days seems almost always biased one way or another and in many cases incompetent and completely unable to report or analyze anything correctly.

Why should audio "journalists" be any different?
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