Turntables and Trusting Online Reviews

Personally i don’t care much about reviews, especially on turntables.
Those guys does not review top quality vintage Direct Drive turntables anyway and most of them raving about cheap and ugly belt drive turntables, mediorce cartridges and tonearms of today. In such reviews i’ve never seen any of them comparing all these modern garbage to some serious vintage High-End gear.

If the review dedicated to some $30 000 turntables, $20 000 tonearms and $15 000 cartridges i don’t read it.

I’m more happy to read posts from our old contributors here on audiogon about carts, arms, turntables.

There are many so called classic turntables, tonearms, cartridges that you can’t go wrong with. Finding and buying them is an interesting process, it is an education, personal experience ... in your own system with your records. Selling them without loss is not a big deal. You’re saving a lot buying vintage High-End, but not because it’s cool looking boxes, i mean serious high-end classics like Japanese Direct Drives, Carts ans Arms from all over the world.

I just don’t need a review for some new overpriced mediorce turntable if the reviewer comparing it so some other ugly new turntable. Same about cartridges and tonearms. WHne i asked some of the reviewers i realized that some of them never ever heard/owned some amazing High-End classics from the 80’s for example. Most of them are in love with digital which is also a bad sign for me.

And while i’ve been reading some nice reviews on 6moons for an amps for example, those guys reviewd thousands of different amps later on. It is just an opinion, an audiophile’s diary. I have my own everyday experience with different audio components, it’s fun, it’s a hobby.

It is more reasonable to read a particular reviewer is you know that he share same preferences (for example: full range high efficient speakers, low power amps etc). But you have to watch for them to find such person and then to read his articles. It’s also nice if the reviewer share same musical preferences, but this is much harder.

Reviews from the past is interesting for me, especially if i own the same cartridge for example. But it’s hard to find reviews made in the 80’s, most of them are not online, mainly in the old magazines.

@noromance , hit it on the head, especially with the comment about reading between the lines of if they say this they mean that.

If you're gonna read reviews you have to read all the reviews. What I mean is you have to read enough to get a handle on the reviewers. Yes even the reviews of the $600k speakers you will never see let alone buy. Yes even the $16k Koetsu even though you only care about digital. Because this is how you learn where each reviewer is coming from, what they mean, how they see and relate to things.

Also at the same time you have to actually go and listen to a lot of stuff. So you can relate your experience to theirs. Then in only a few years time you might maybe have put together a pretty good picture of what's going on and finally be able to read a review and glean some really actionable guidance. Until then they are at best a filter to help you decide what to audition, at worst misleading infomercial ad copy.

Its worth all that trouble in the long run because an awful lot of the best components simply are not out there where you can just go and check them out. My first Basis turntable was bought on the basis (heh) of reviews. Heck, I even talked it over on the phone with uber reviewer Michael Fremer! My Melody integrated, Koetsu Black Goldline, Origin Live Conqueror arm and Herron VTPH 2A phono stage were all bought entirely off reviews. Some of these have been with me over a decade now, with no plans to replace any of them, ever.

But getting to where that was possible, besides the decades of reading all kinds of reviews, every single one of these also involved reading essentially all the reviews. And I mean all. Including every comment on every audio forum my search engine could find. 

You don't just, oh good review, one-click purchase. Recipe for disaster.

Is this common place? Are there reviewers who are more trustworthy than others?

Or it really does come down to audition with your own ears because not only can you not know what another prefers, they may or may not be honest in their own right?

Help me out here?

Yes
No

In this business it is a rule not to write negative, even when you get ear cancer. A favor here for a favor there, that's the way it works. 
The worst you can do is to educate yourself. When you learned something you will discover how many distributors, manufacturers, dealers are in this business who would fail in any serious business. Opinions rules this business. Not knowledge.

The only reviewer I ever trusted was Harry Pearson RIP. His reviews were always artfully written and cogent. Johnathan Valin is okay otherwise forget it. It gets more ridiculous by the minute. millercarbn is correct in that sometimes if you look at a series of reviews on a piece you can get a good idea on what you are getting. The Parasound JC1 was a good example. Mostly you are on your own. You just have to know what you like particularly when it comes to turntables. I like belt drive suspended turntables with either vacuum or mechanical hold down like SOTA, SME and Basis. I don't bother with anything else. I do not like unipivot arms. Too many degrees of freedom. In my view it is a cheap easy way of making an arm. Don't have to worry about expensive bearings, tolerances and preload. I know this for myself because I have owned 9 turntables and God knows how many arms and cartridges. Experience. Very expensive experience. My favorite stupid purchase was the Transcritors Vestigial Tonearm. Talking about warp wow.
It would be nice if you could just land on the right product. The reviews are illegible. You go to a store and they are going to try and sell you what they have then bad mouth everyone else equipment. So in essence we are all on our own. If you know what you like stick with it.