Any Advice for those Listening to Youtube Reviewers?

As with anything, take the opinion of others with a grain of salt. Only your preferences matter, not someone else's subjective thoughts based on their listening environment with their components. Just my two cents worth....

Like many here I enjoy Paul McGowan, Darko, Thomas & Stereo (despite the Chifi hype).

Here's one that pisses most people here off:  OCDHiFiGuy  He's more than irritating and may be bipolar but he has said some really profound things that turned out to be true. His bashing the ARC Ref 750 hit a nerve! 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR-ry-DFdeo

I have learned a LOT form OCD Mikey. Ditto Paul McGowan

“It seems most people will never get that audio is not about the gear pieces but about how to learn to listen...”. IMO, if you know how to listen, you would know that the better equipment makes a bigger difference in sound quality! It’s like taking a Honda accord to the racetrack. Even if you are the best driver in the world, you will not beat a rookie in a F1 car.

If you have a pioneer receiver, I don’t care how you listen, the sound quality will be crap. If you truly know how to listen, you will hear differences in cables, room treatment, different price ranges of amps, dacs, preamps, etc… But hey, if you can’t hear the difference between entry level equipment and the better higher end equipment, that’s cool, you just saved yourself some money. Me, I’ll spend the money on better equipment to get the best sq I can for the money invested, same goes for cars, homes, appliances, we’ll just everything

Caveat emptor, let the buyer be ware. One guy I saw is partnering with manufacturers. No bias here folks, move along. It runs the gambit. Some have decades of experience, Guttenberg for instance, but he likes just about everything. Vandersteen 2's are dull/warm as hell, he loves em, Zu speakers are super detailed from what I hear, he loves them. Him loving anything tells me very little. My opinion,  if you don't know my prejudices, is completely worthless to you. I Holtz and Cordsman(sp?) were the only 2 reviewers I used to pay attention to. Others may be even better, but how do I know that? It's a crap shoot. Heck, even if you and X agree on everything, whose to say that X won't change what he is looking for? Did he move from a castle to a former funeral home with heavily passed floors? Or got into economic trouble and started taking bribes? Sorry, I wish it wasn't so.

You get it completely in reverse...

😊

we must LEARN how to listen.... Nobody is born with it ... Ask to an acoustician and to a musician..

Then when we had learned how to listen and we perceive acoustic aspects of the sound experience , then , only then , are we able to make the most of a receiver or of an high end costly piece...

Anybody can hear didfferences, what we must learn is how to make this perceived differences meaningful and useful in the embeddings process of an audio system..

And how do you know a component sound better ? is it because of his price tag or is it because you are trained well enough to embed it in the right electrical,mechanical and acoustical conditions ?

I call that learning how to listen... It does not matter if you use a Pioneer receiver or the Ferrari of amplifier instead , you will be able to get the best of what you have and never be frustrated ... Thats was my point and you dont figured it out... 😊

Money dont create audiophile experience, acoustic may do it and did...learn it to know what the audiophile vocabulary means at least... And acoustic is not buying bass traps or ready made panels by the way...It is a bit more... 😁

“It seems most people will never get that audio is not about the gear pieces but about how to learn to listen...”. IMO, if you know how to listen, you would know that the better equipment makes a bigger difference in sound quality! It’s like taking a Honda accord to the racetrack. Even if you are the best driver in the world, you will not beat a rookie in a F1 car.

If you have a pioneer receiver, I don’t care how you listen, the sound quality will be crap. If you truly know how to listen, you will hear differences in cables, room treatment, different price ranges of amps, dacs, preamps, etc… But hey, if you can’t hear the difference between entry level equipment and the better higher end equipment, that’s cool, you just saved yourself some money. Me, I’ll spend the money on better equipment to get the best sq I can for the money invested, same goes for cars, homes, appliances, we’ll just everything