What should be mandatory in every professional published review-

I am probably idealistic, but I would like to know a reviewer’s ties and obligation to any company whose products are they reviewing, along with the publication’s. "Pay to play", payola, freebies, etc have long plagued magazines that review gear, and it calls into question the independence and integrity of reviewers and their publications. For example, some photography and gun magazines and their writers have been notorious about taking freebies from manufacturers, or doing glowing reviews on products and—like a miracle (cough, cough)—a few pages later you see full-page ads bought by those same manufacturers. For that reason, Consumer Reports buys everything they test iirc, so they are not beholden to manufacturers. The magazine business has gotten very tough, and advertising is the lifeblood, but magazines who basically sell glowing reviews in exchange for ads are whores. I don’t know which audio reviewers and publications are the best and worst in this regard (and I am not asking here!), but I have been told who is by trustworthy by people whom I trust.

It’s a matter of who can one trust, and that is enormously important to me. YMMV. I am not talking about subjective opinions, I am talking about opinions which are purchased.

I won’t name names, but a few notable veteran people in the audio industry have named to me reviewers they trust to be straight-shooters, and also those who are renowned for taking gear (either outright or in the form of "longterm" loans, or buying gear at cost) from manufacturers. One longtime retailer literally guffawed when I mentioned a very prominent reviewer who is apparently egregious in accepting gear as a quid pro quo (either that or he is a millionaire and can afford his $1,000,000 reference system/gear, and it’s possible I guess). I have had personal communication with a reviewer who has probably a >$150K (or more) reference system, and who admitted that most of it is very long-term loans from manufacturers. Hell, I can’t even get most dealers to allow an in-home audition without buying the item in exchange for a return policy (in their defense, they may have only on demo model of an item on hand). For that reason, the return policies of Music Direct, Audio Advisor and some other online dealers are great, but they don’t always carry what I am interested in.

If a publication is afraid to publish critical reviews (that doesn’t mean bad, it means honest), then they should say so. They should also disclose any ties to manufacturers or ways in which they are beholden. I have some experience with this working for the LA Times for 20 years. We were not allowed to accept anything of value over $25 from anyone we were doing a story on, which basically limited it to a modest meal. We had reporters who were fired for violating that code of ethics.

@patrickdowns I totally understand your skepticism and concern, and I can only speak from my own 16 years of reviewing, but I honestly think the corruption you’re alluding to is the exception rather than the rule — or at least I sincerely hope it is. Anyway, I can speak from my time at Soundstage! that I was never offered any free product or was incentivized in any way what to write except just to write about what I really heard. As I’ve mentioned before, by the time a product reaches a level of public interest that it merits a review it’s already gotten high praise or is from a well-established manufacturer, so the odds of getting a piece for review that sounds outright bad in any way is between slim and none. THAT’S the main reason you don’t read many negative reviews. Period. I only wrote one negative review in 16 years, and it ain’t cause I wasn’t ready to write more, it’s just that the products I was offered to review were by and large very good or excellent products. That, and nobody wants to review crap, so crap tends to never rise to the level of even getting a review. I think this could be the case of a few bad apples can spoil the bunch. But, that said, I’d say use your own internal BS meter to judge whether you can trust a reviewer’s opinions or not. Me, as a reviewer, if a review doesn’t make explicit comparisons to another competitive product I dismiss it out of hand because there’s no “fact check” to keep the reviewer honest. Many’s the time I thought I had a good handle on a review product’s sound only to be completely humbled when inserting a competitive product to find my radar was off and had to largely reshape and adjust my impressions — and the review — accordingly. Our aural memory just isn’t that good, or at least mine isn’t. Soundstage!, to its credit, wouldn’t allow a reviewer to review a component unless they had a competitive product available with which to compare it, and I think that’s the way it should be done to produce a truly rigorous and meaningful review. And I’ll once again call out The Absolute Sound (whatever the hell that even is) for going out of their way to not only not provide any direct product comparisons, but also in many cases not even disclose the components in a reviewer’s reference system so the reader has absolutely no clue what basis for comparison, if any, that reviewer was basing their conclusions on. Absurd. Just absurd and outright cowardly IMHO.

Sorry to drone on here, but having been in the reviewing trenches for many years and being a consumer of audio equipment myself I’ve developed some pretty strong opinions as to what a good and genuinely informative, thorough, and ultimately helpful review should contain. Hope this helps at least provide a little perspective and maybe just a touch less skepticism toward reviewers as most reviewers I know make next to nothing and do it purely for the love of music and to provide honest and helpful information/opinions to other fellow audiophiles. Just my $0.02 FWIW.

soix

THANKS for your perspective as a reviewer. I didn’t mean for anyone to think I’m making a broad accusation about the integrity of high-end audio reviewers— I certainly am not. Just as I took camera reviews in consumer magazines like Popular Photography with a bucket of salt, maybe the mid-fi and electronics publications are less reliable (I’ll use that euphemism) than high end pubs like AbSound, Stereophile, your former publication, and others. I will name one name. I had a fellow who puts together really expensive systems for people (up to a million $$) and who has been in the industry for many years tell me that Robert Harley’s reputation for integrity is unimpeachable. I would assume that, as Editor of AbSound, he expects the same of his writers. I hope so.

If a reviewer has some sort of a relationship with a company whose product they have reviewed (eg, they were allowed to buy the review sample at a discount) I just want to know. Even at a discount, they are voting thumbs-up for the product if they choose to buy it with their hard-earned dollars. That’s a valid endorsement, though some might think it’s inappropriate to get that discount because it seems like pay to play. FWIW

As to the rest of the debate, many good points made. I could never be a reviewer because I am too much of a people pleaser, and if I liked a company and its people I would find it hard to be candid about a piece of gear where they missed the mark and say so. Tough love is necessary, as people rely on reviews to guide them in buying sometimes very expensive gear which is often difficult to audition due to geography. I live in the boonies and have to travel hours to the big city, and sometimes other big cities to audition. 

Cheers

If a reviewer has some sort of a relationship with a company whose product they have reviewed (eg, they were allowed to buy the review sample at a discount) I just want to know.

@patrickdowns I’ll save you the suspense — all reviewers who write for a publication can get dealer pricing for a product they review (typically 25% to 50% off depending on the product type and if they’re sold direct or through a dealer network). Most publications/sites pay reviewers next to nothing for the many, many hours of work it takes to write a review from unboxing to finish, so dealer pricing is a meaningful perk that incentivizes reviewers to sacrifice all those hours to do what they do. That said, reviewers get to hear lots of gear so if they buy the review sample, even though it’s at a discount, it’s only because they feel that component is truly special and is about the highest praise a reviewer can bestow on a product. I only bought a review sample if it was significantly better than what I had in my review system, and since most reviewers have at least pretty good systems/components it makes quite a statement if something gets purchased after a review is completed. Anyway…

Hi soix

Most publications/sites pay reviewers next to nothing for the many, many hours of work it takes to write a review from unboxing to finish

I take issue with these terms of work, but I suppose it’s the reality in magazine/publication economics. The problem, as I see it, is it incentivizes reviewers to review gear they are personally interested in and anticipate buying. If the publication assigns the items to be reviewed, that makes it more neutral. I will admit that I would write a review of the Treo CT if I could buy them for a 50% discount! 😎

I only bought a review sample if it was significantlybetter than what I had in my review system, and since most reviewers have at least pretty good systems/components it makes quite a statement if something gets purchased after a review is completed.

As I said, it is an endorsement of a bought piece...the reviewer putting their money where their mouth is.

In a more perfect world, more magazines would be like Consumer Reports and would buy the gear they review, to maintain more objectivity. Prohibitively expensive of course.

I appreciate your candor and feedback (and you love Vandersteens too!).