Totally Ridiculous....Auditions on YouTube!

@theaudiotweak 

Why hasn’t a magazine or reviewer taken this comparison style on since I started asking for this type of review 20 years ago? I asked several over the years

Everyone would have saved a lot of time, angst, and money if someone had the brains and balls to perform such a service to the audio community.

The audio press today is little more than a standing joke, a mere ongoing entertainment barely propped up by the odd scant technical data here and there.

I'd personally love to read about a direct comparison between the Q Acoustic Concept 500s, the Wharfedale Elysian 4s and the rather enigmatic Pearl Acoustics Sibelius.

Given the unwillingness of the audio press to upset potential advertisers, friends, dealers, manufacturers etc this is never going to happen.

Frankly there's rather more chance of the JFK assassination files being finally released.

The magazine writers themselves are not stupid, they must know that something needs to change but other than move to a YouTube/ online channel, they or their employers, seem to be frozen totally unable or unwilling to take a risk with the printed media.

I would guess that decades of a near monopoly in the printed media has resulted in a shocking level of risk aversion complacency which might now take its toll.

Imagine that I took a pic on my cellphone of two different shades of white color samples from a paint store.  Even on the worst uncalibrated computer monitor, you would be able to tell that there is a difference, and maybe even say one is slightly lighter, or slightly more blue.  But SO WHAT!!  

If I were to then ask, "which color is better?", there's NO way you could assess that, because the photo is tainted by the light in the room, the camera used, and finally the monitor you are looking at.  The .JPG compression and transmission of the photo does relatively little to make the whole thing meaningless. 

It's pointless to blame YouTube's bitrate in any of this.  Even if they provided 24/96k, it would still all be meaningless.  I would agree that you could say Speakers A are slightly brighter than Speakers B.   But SO WHAT!!  

@mirolab 

If I were to then ask, "which color is better?", there's NO way you could assess that, because the photo is tainted by the light in the room, the camera used, and finally the monitor you are looking at.

That's a good point. Things can get very murky without a consistent sonic point of reference.

This has been previously referred to by the likes of Toole and Olive who talk of audios circle of confusion.

Their hope is that that the use of more consistent, better measured loudspeakers in recording studios will go a long way towards eliminating this circle of confusion.

Otherwise, vintage recordings made and mastered on vastly different monitors are likely to sound substantially different when played back on loudspeakers built today.

Thankfully when it comes to colour reproduction we already have a reference. International colour charts such as the British Standards Colour chart linked below.

I became aware of such charts after reading that Morrissey used such a chart to instruct his record company on the exact shade of green he wanted for the Smiths brilliant 'The Queen is Dead' album.

Having such a familiar reference always helps us poor humans whenever we are comparing things as we ourselves seem to be rather more inconsistent than most electronic equipment.

I would agree that you could say Speakers A are slightly brighter than Speakers B.   But SO WHAT!!  

That alone could be an enormous help to someone drawing up a shortlist for audition purposes.

https://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/audios-circle-of-confusion.html?m=1

https://britishstandardcolour.com/

It is all noise, nothing but.

Noise in the data.

Noise in the source (YouTube)

Noise in your computer.

just like with pictures and colors on your monitor. Do you decide on a paint color for your home from your laptop? Nope you go get paint samples and roll it out.

Yep it’s all just noise.

Its not ideal but I think its useful to see if you can hear relative differences between two components in the same video. It’s not going to give you an absolute impression of how each component sounds but rather a relative comparison between the two.

Someone above posted an example of taking a photo of two colors with a cellphone and then sending them to someone and asking them which one is better.  I would say thats not the correct analogy.  The proper analogy would be to take a picture with your cellphone of two different colors of white... lets take Benjamin Moore "White Dove" and then Benjamin Moore "Chantilly Lace" and then sending them to someone to ask which one they like better.  Both of these colors are white.  However, White dove has a tiny bit of black and yellow in it, and Chantilly Lace has a tiny bit of Black and Blue in it.  Seeing them on their own they look like white... however in a cell phone picture side by side you can definitely see the difference. Now, can you tell from those pictures how each of those colors will look in a room, probably not.  However if you know you want a "cool" white rather than a "warm" white and you want to know the relative difference between the two then the cellphone picture can do that.