When a Reviewer "likes" something

There ARE negative reviews out there, even accidental ones like the embarrassing D'Agostine meltdown debacle...two of my fave Brit mags, Hifi Choice and Hifi News have a seemingly more balanced approach, including a "likes and dislikes" blurb, along with stuff put through a "listening panel" of somewhat sophisticated panelists. I still read Absolute and S'Phile out of habit, and other than feeling some of these dudes have very questionable musical tastes, I take it well salted.

IMO, this OP touches on some very complicated questions. That is, how can one obtain reliable information about a product, be the source of informatin be from reviewers or B&M sales people??

I'll digress just briefly on the early days. At one time, mags like Stereophile did NOT accept advertising, e.g., J. Gordon Holt's Stereophile "booklet" back in the 70s. Nonreliance on advertisers certainly "biased" the reviewer to be "non-biased" (pun intended).

Not so today. Yes, on a very infrequent occassion, I have read a review that pointed out "some" unfavorable aspects or deficiencies about a piece of equipment. But very infrequently. So, as the other folks said above, I'll read the reviews, but take them with a grain of salt.

But the salt doesn't stop there. I've said this before, B&M outlets sell what they have. And there aren't too many retail dealers around who carry, or can afford to carry, a wide range of brands for comparison. And even if you listen to something of interest, how meaninful is it when one considers system synergy and how the piece will sound in YOUR house on your rig??

I've also mentioned this before, I haven't been in a B&M store for as long as I can rememeber. However, I have swung some telephone deals on equipment that I wanted because I couldn't find the gear on the "Gon."

Bottom line for me: it has taken me a long time to assemble my rig -- from cartridge, TT, phono pre, CDP, linestage, amp and speakers. Many a purchase has been made off the Gon, tried, then resold if it doesn't ring my bell. So far, I've been fortunate that churing gear hasn't cost me too much.

Have I made the best possible choices? Would my picks make it on "The Best of [____]" OPs? Haven't a clue.

Having said all that, I do read A'gon everyday out of pure interest. I take member comments quite seriously, especially when I read other members echo similar comments. Right now, I've kick started someone else's OP on the ARC Ref 150. It's a piece that's on my long range acqusition list. Btw, based on member comments, I upgraded my ARC Ref 5 linestage to the SE version. So far, I'm not disappointed.

That's about all I can say -- which I guess is a lot. Just a few final comments. At least with ARC gear, I DO believe there's a natural synergy and benefit staying all ARC. Also, at the expense of starting another speaker war, I think one of the best speaker values on the market is the Paradigm Sig 8 (v2 or v3 with beryllium dome tweeters). But be careful -- they are not very tube friendly. They like high current SS amps. However, I think my ARC VS-115 is pushing through ok.

Regards,

Bruce

Syntax asks some good questions. The way I see it, Gordon Holt and later Harry Pearson were both very sincere observers of what Harry first called "the high end". I don't believe either of them had a commercial bias, and Gordon Holt got in trouble with a few manufacturers along the way for his outspoken reviews. With HP, one soon learned that he had real biases, but I never thought it had much to do with dollars, more to do with which guys in the industry he liked and with which bits of gear when cobbled together would give him the particular colorations he seemed to be fond of. (Jadis? Get real.) But his contribution was to construct a language that could be used (by him and only a few others since, unfortunately) to convey a sense of how something sounded. Having said that, I must also say that any time in my audio life that I heard something he liked, I found it to be very disappointing. In any case, the modern versions of audio magazines Stereophile and TAS have gone astray from the real intent of their respective founders. The concept of a common language at TAS has been totally lost, for example. I wouldn't argue with any of the critical comments made here by others. I never did make a purchasing decision (consciously) based on the content of a review, and I certainly would not do so now. I find that TAS and S'phile are very handy for reading in the bathroom. Let's also remember that the Brit magazines, fondly referred to above, or some of their more well known reviewers, were caught soliciting pay for praise, more than once.

Yet, I want them all to survive, because I favor print over internet. Internet reviews are far less reliable, far more ridiculous, IMO. Anyone can publish anything on the internet. I see truly idiotic misconceptions promulgated electronically much more often than in print.

Usually that means it was given to them free, or at a big discount.

so it surprises you that 99% of what they review is exceptional in some way? and the other 1% would have been a game changer if for 1 minor deficiency? A reviewers business model is to maximize profits through some combination of advertising and subscription algorithm. Reviews are content much like Jersey Shore is to MTV. The more contriversial the more value. Always subjective, a review can never be refuted because it doesn't rely on facts, just someones opinion.
In the spirit of spring, it's like going to www.yankees.com and reading how great things are going to be this year so come on out and buy tickets to "our game".
After reading this you are no closer to the truth of how the Yankees are going to perform. They will still tell you the Yankees are great this year, but no facts support these claims.