Example of a piece o’ crap, useless review


I’ve harped on how crappy and useless many “professional” reviews are because they lack rigor and omit critical information.  This one is from TAS that is a main offender of pumping out shallow/unsupported reviews, but most of the Euro mags among others are guilty of this too IME.  One key giveaway that a review is crap is that after reading it you still have little/no real understanding of what the piece under review actually sounds like or if it’s something you’d like to consider further.  I mean, if a review can’t accomplish those basic elements what use is it?  This review is so shallow it reads like it could’ve been written by someone who never even listened to the review sample and just made it up outta thin air.  In addition to failing on this broad level, here are some other major problems with the review:

- There is no info regarding any shortcomings of this “budget” turntable — everything is positive.  Sounds like it was perfect, ehem.

- There are no comparisons to another product in the same general price category or anything else.

- The reviewer doesn’t even share what equipment is in his reference system so we can at least infer what he may have based his impressions on.

In short, in addition to this review being so bad/useless for all the reasons stated it actually reads more like advertisement for the product than an actual unbiased review.  I can think of nothing worse to say about a review, and sadly many reviews out there are similarly awful for the same reasons.  Sorry for the rant, but especially as a former reviewer this piece of garbage pushed all my buttons and really ticked me off.  What say you?

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/sota-quasar-turntable-and-pyxi-phonostage/

soix
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If you ever want to link a review as an example of one you like, or admire, or appreciate, then I would like to read it for positive context.

@tvad Here’s a review of the same speaker that is much more rigorous and contains all the elements I mentioned before (review system, comparison, limitations) that the TAS review completely lacks   As a result I find this review much more informative and provides much needed context to get a better idea of the speaker’s overall sound and character not only on an absolute but also on a relative basis.  Not only do I come away with a better idea of the speaker’s sound, I have a much better idea if this is a product I’d be interested in pursuing further that I could not as clearly discern from the other review, and isn’t that really the point of reading a review?  All that said, it should be apparent how much more time and effort it takes to produce a review of this caliber as opposed to just spewing superlatives in a bubble with absolutely no context whatsoever.   Like I said earlier, the TAS review is much easier/faster to produce but is much less useful or effective IMO.  Hope this comes through for you too and that this clarifies things a bit.

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1859-goldenear-t66-loudspeaker

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