Equipment reviews, are they credible?

A small point that I particularly enjoyed: Anarchy (nrchy) asking Clueless for help. Beautiful combination!
On subject, reviews are useful IF they include important parametres such as up/down stram equip & reviewer's tastes. I get a lot of insight from posters' opinions (owners or not) on equip when I "know" them somewhat. As long as posters relate their experience and related parametres, reviews are priceless -- be it for NOT considering an item someone else recommends: that person's contribution is VERY important. Agreeing is just as important as disagreeing with another's listening tastes when it comes to obtaining a USER'S information. The latter means, someone who has given serious considering to a piece of equipment -- indeed, has even purchased it!

I for one, always go by USERS EXPERIENCE -- to my detriment perhaps? I choose the opinion of a user with limited product experience over that of a professional reviewer with enormous product experience (I must be getting old).

It's a good idea to put the reviews in their own section. I also agree that many reviews are terribly short and little more than,"This is the best ___ I ever had." That is not a review. I think a lot of the reviews are not reviews, but sweepstakes entries. I would remind reviewers that, while it is nice to win a prize, the purpose of the reviews is to help fellow members learn about various equipment, and its behavior in other's systems. Write the review in a manner that you would like to read yourself, with the info that you would want if you were considering purchasing that piece of equipment. Would you buy that piece based on the subjective opinion of someone you don't know saying "This is the best ____ I ever had"? When he has only had a raft of low-fi, ie.,"This Yamaha is way better than my last Panasonic". I am seeing a lot of names I never saw before, submitting reviews as sweepstakes entries, with informationless reviews of low-fi equipment, in a shameless effort to "stuff" the drawing box. I would like to see a limit of one entry per drawing period, per member. I would also like to see the review moderation stiffened to preclude worthless entries. Perhaps even the addition of a prize for "best review" would increase the quality of the reviews submitted.

Pardon me if this question has been answered before, but is the review section an appropriate place for a 'shoot-out' or is it only for single component reviews? To me, there is a difference between comparing a component to another one that you may have owned or are familiar with and a real shoot-out with component swapping, use of a standard reference disc, etc. in a short time frame.