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Honest Amp Reviews: Impossible?

So, I’ve noticed a flood of class D junk hitting the market over the last several years. They come from many different brand names from people you’ve never heard of before like "VTV", to popular Internet-in-the-know brands like PS Audio to famous names like Marantz. One thing they ALL have in common: the complete inability to find honest reviews online for these products.

For example, let’s take for instance the Stellar series from PS Audio. Class D junk with the usual attempt to improve euphonics with some kind of input stage. They call this scheme class AD, I guess to differentiate all the other brands that do something similar. However, you’ll never see a review site point this out; they’ll comment briefly on the design and then dutifully call it class AD afterwards as if it isn’t just a class D amp like many others.

Next, the reviewer will invariably lie about the sound. This lying usually takes the form of lying by omission. They’ll gush about how beefy and controlled it is, how neutral it is, how wide and natural the soundstage is, etc. What they WON’T mention is how lifeless, flat, boring and ultimately fatiguing they ALL are. The buyer who doesn’t know any better has to find that out for themselves while he slowly grows to distrust anything a reviewer has to say about anything. So, the only way to actually get value out of a review is to see if a certain amp has the positive attributes you are looking for while trying to painstakingly research any problems it might have because the reviewer won’t mention them.

In addition to the lies of omission, there’s the usual con of giving certain gear to certain reviewers who will appreciate / like the piece. That Stellar will NEVER be put up against a Dan D’agostino or a Pass for example. This could be valuable to the buyer to see how a lesser amp stacks up against a high end one, but it’s not, apparently, useful to the reviewers. Why? Why is telling the whole truth about amps -- all gear really -- taboo?
madavid0
bigkidz
3,404 posts
 
Kinergetics KBA 75 I Class A power anp - well I still own one.  Back in the day it was a great amp in its price range but nothing special especially by todays standards.  I know someone who rebuilt one completely.  BUT that being said, it does not compete to some of the amps out there today.

I said this comment in another thread - I can build anything I want and so far the Class D does not compete with what we build today.  Nice for the cheap prices but I have not heard one that I would want to purchase at this time.

Happy Listening.
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dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
I féal the OP!   A lot of economical junk has invaded the Audiophile space.
speedbump6
760 posts
 
Sure honest reviews are possible. The problem is that when someone like the OP dosnt agree with them, they believe their personal opinion is the end of the discussion and claim anything that dosnt agree is trash. My question would be why are you even reading reviews. You’ve already made up your mind before you read, so reviews arnt for people like that. Buy what you want and apparently you’ll be happy with that. A lot of people don’t come with preconceived ideas and those are the ones who the reviews are for.

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,635 posts
 
Opie, I’m glad my ears are not ruined by the junk you listen to.
I’m getting fatigued running away from such blinding prejudice.
madavid0 OP
214 posts
 
It’s not a matter of whether I agree with a review or not. The problem is that the reviews aren’t honest. For example, go to any hi-fi review site. You can always tell if a piece of gear is good at imaging or not if the reviewer mentions it. If the reviewer praises imaging it’s probably good at imaging but if he doesn’t mention imaging at all it’s probably bad at it. This is lying by omission and a tactic which seems heavily deployed against low-budget audiophiles.

Furthermore, I constantly see this phenomena of budget audiophiles becoming emotionally attached to budget gear, as if they found an amazing value club allowing them hang out with the big-dollar crowd. In reality they’ve just been marketed to successfully by cost-cutting manufacturers. This marketing scam is facilitated by the review sites which do nothing but feed into peoples’ confirmation bias. The reviewers should be telling these buyers what they are actually getting into honestly. No, there isn’t a free lunch club. There are some legitimate better-than-standard value manufacturers out there but they get swamped by the cost-cut marketing scheme, and these reviewers are complicit in this.

For example, take PS Audio. They make great gear. But they also market class D junk to budget-minded audiophiles. You will search in vain for any review which points out the drawbacks of class D, and often you’ll see lying about how PS Audio defeated those problems if mentioned at all.
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