Sjofen The Clue speakers

JA and Stereophile will deny what I'm about to say, but I will say it anyway: if a reviewer were having this kind of trouble with one of their major advertisers' products, you'd better believe they'd have been on the phone - if not on the next flight - to straighten it out. Think of all those times you've read reviews in Stereophile or TAS where the designer personally shows up at the reviewer's house to set up the speakers?
If you go back to that Audio Asylum thread, you'll see that both Lars Erickson and James Croft emphasize that they will spend as much time as they need with each and every customer giving personal advice on room setup. So, if the reviewer chose not to take advantage of that service, he's not accurately representing what the prospective buyer can expect.
And yes, I bristle at a small manufacturer getting dumped on in this way, especially when other reviews have been so positive.
End of my rant. ;-)

Hey Rebbi, I'll take your cynicism and raise it one. The flip side of what they do for major advertisers as you say is what they did to the clue. Financially Sjofn means nothing to them, so they can afford to throw them under the bus with virtually no consequences and come out the other end unscathed with an additional piece of evidence to say "hey look, we put out negative reviews too." Both the reviewer and JA had an easy path to find out why their poor findings were as they were and possibly find their cause and address them, and neither lifted a finger to do anything. NOTHING. Beyond suspicious in my book for a publication that -- as Rebbi eludes to -- frequently bends over backwards to accommodate other manufacturers to apparently get at "the truth."

As I see it there are two choices here. Stereophile can man up and do a follow-up review utilizing the manufacturer to insure the speakers are being reviewed and measured properly, or they can just bury their heads in the sand and hope this ridiculous review somehow goes away. The second strategy may well work given the relatively little notoriety of Sjofn here in the US, albeit at the expense of John Q. Audiophile. But taking the higher ground and giving them an honest second shot would go a LONG way toward repairing their reputation at least in my book. The public -- even audiophiles -- have a great capacity to forgive if someone does the right thing in the end and admits their mistakes. As it stands, IMO Stereophile's credibility and reputation have taken a major hit here. I'm most disappointed with JA as I think he knows his stuff and works hard to produce a quality product. But this all happened under his watch and I find it greatly disappointing on every level in terms of an audio equipment review. Mostly I feel bad for Sjofn. Like most audio companies they put their sweat and blood into something they passionately believe in for relatively little monetary reward. To have that damaged because of incompetence or some other agenda is tragic and fowl. Sleep we'll S'pile.

Rebbi this reminds me of a story that a friend of mine who is a speaker designer shared with me recently. Back when he showed at CES years ago a reviewer for a major audio rag went into his room and was over the moon about the sound. Subsequently the reviewer offered to review the speakers. When the review came out it was good but had been shortened considerably because he would not spend money for advertisement.

He also told me of another story where he had gotten a great review and at the end of it the reviewer stated he was purchasing the speakers. My friend never saw a red cent and the reviewer kept them.

So the reviewer did set up the loudspeakers as per the manufacturer's instructions, but that setup isn't always optimal.

If a product is that demanding in setup and/or system matching, then maybe the manufacturer should be a little proactive in ensuring its optimal use.

So, once again the reviewer set the speakers up according to the basic quick setup instructions. And nothing further. There are frequently situations, especially with even more conventional speakers, where even minor placement adjustments can make a huge difference in what you hear. And the manufacturer proactively offered further setup help to the reviewer that, for some reason, the reviewer chose not to take advantage of. Despite being very impressed with the speakers in a different setting. Really??? Yes, these speakers obviously require particular attention to setup. But a so-called "expert" reviewer should have been well aware of that and acted accordingly to produce a professional and accurate review of the product. The reviewer knew everything he needed to know going into this review and failed in his duty to make sure his review was accurate given that information along with his past experience with this speaker. In my opinion he completely failed as a reviewer. The responsibility for an accurate review does not lie solely with the manufacturer. And when a reviewer encounters strange results, especially when they run counter to what he personally heard previously in a live demonstration, he at the very least should give the manufacturer a chance to explain why that may be and help fix the problem. You can try to blame the manufacturer for this but there's no denying that the reviewer, given all the information available to him including his own personal experience with the product, didn't conduct the due diligence he should've done.