@2psyop
I am not sure why anybody would believe anything written in these magazines. I always looked at them for entertainment value only, I never took them seriously. Did you?
I'm afraid I did.
As a newcomer to the world of separates audio I found the field just too vast, too bewildering.
Perhaps what I should have done was to find a decent dealer who could demonstrate the differences between turntables, CD players, amps and loudspeakers, but instead, in the absence of any local dealers, we only had retailers, I picked up some magazines from my local newsagents (WHSmiths mainly) and I was off and running.
In entirely the wrong direction as it later turned out.
Even when I heard the vastly disappointing LP12/ Naim/ Isobarik system that Hi-Fi Review had praised to high heaven, I was unwilling to accept that this particular emperor had no clothes.
It has taken me years to try to free myself from being influenced by other opinions. Even now, I tend to gravitate towards certain YouTube channels to see what's happening in the world of audio.
Only recently I was intrigued by a pair of all carbon fibre coned Acoustic Energy AE520 speakers that were on sale.
However after reading 2 separate reviews by a couple of the few reviewers I had any confidence left in, I'm now resigned to doubting anything written by any audio journalist.
Noel Keywood (ex Hi-Fi Review and highly experienced UK journalist) described these speakers in Hi-Fi World as being 'dry' in presentation whilst on the other hand, David Price, his one time colleague at Hi-Fi World, wrote this of the same speakers in Hi-Fi Choice -
“Tonally it’s lovely; it has richness that you don’t often hear from modern speakers.”
I have spent decades reading these 2 reviewers and they are amongst the very few for whom I have any respect remaining but reading contradictory stuff like this makes me doubt whether it's ever advisable to take someone else's words even as a starting point.
Perhaps, as a last resort, it's high time someone reintroduced an audio reviewers glossary just so we can be sure that they all understand exactly what they're trying to convey?
Otherwise we might as well dismiss all serious magazine reviews as nothing more than subjective opinion.
The rest, I think, we can assume are already little more than a simpering sales pitch on someone else's behalf.
Going full circle paradoxically takes me back to the days of Hi-Fi Review. What initially attracted me to that iconoclastic magazine was it's unique willingness to compare and criticize audio equipment.
Under the maverick editorship of Chris Frankland, Hi-Fi Review certainly pulled no punches when it came to pouring scorn on almost any non-Linn/Naim products.
The opinion within may have been biased rubbish, but its refreshing attitude of a complete lack of reverence for established brands made that magazine memorable.
Yes, agreed.
Entertainment value only.
