When a Reviewer "likes" something

In this month's Absolute Sound, Robert Harley responds to a letter writer with an explanation that sums up the review process very well. Anyone interested should give it a read, but essentially, a review is one persons opinion of a product heard at a certain time in a certain place with certain associated equipment and should only be used as a starting place, if at all, to narrow candidates for further investigation. He went on to say that he felt that the hi end audio press puts too much emphasis on reviews of equipment and that the only advantage to a professional review is perhaps the ability to form proper sentences, more exposure to different equipment, and the time to spend with a particular unit.

Anyone can do it, given enough dedication, but thats true of anything. I could probably pole vault if I tried hard and long enough. But being good at anything takes more than effort, it takes talent, whether its being a good writer, or a good listener.

Dear Actusreus: Well, I can't say the same from you because here I learned from you as I learned from any of the other persons posted here.

Certainly I know very well my ignorant level on audio different subjects and through my posts I only share what were my first hand experiences and what I learned from other audiophiles. If you can't understand my " japanese " well: is up to you.

Now, that you can't understand my " japanese " is only saying that you have to learn " japanese " to understand or stay " steady /no answers " till you learned.
Aha! I now understand why you don't understand: you need to learn Japanese, easy!. Please do it and when you learned come back and share your new experiences that will be " colored " by the Japanese you learned.

Regards and enjoy the music,
R.

Wow. This is real informative!
-Mike

Manitunc, I saw that paragraph by Robert Harley, and I thought he hit the nail on the head. His statement pretty much sums it up, and I agree with him. Too bad that some of his own staff don't get it as well as he does.
As someone else also has experienced, TAS seems to continue to send copies to me, even though my subscription expired a few months ago. This is a sad commentary on the state of the business. Because of Harley's little editorial, I thought it would be only fair of me to pay for another year of the magazine. I did not deliberately let my subscription lapse; I only failed to renew it when they kept asking me to renew well in advance of the expiry date. That did and does bug me, until finally my subscription did in fact expire.
And then I read some of the reviews in this current issue. I found more factual errors and hyperbole than you can shake a xerostat at. Just for one example, JV states twice that a certain phono stage can or cannot "drive" a certain cartridge. I cannot believe he does not know that the cartridge drives the phono stage, so why confuse the novice readers? In another review, of Technical Brain amplifiers, he states that the "current" in the US electrical system was responsible for bringing down some earlier model of TB amplifier that was notorious for unreliability. Assuming that said amplifier was set up for 60Hz AC and not 50Hz, I have no idea what he could be talking about. The amplifier is responsible for drawing an amount of current at a certain voltage; the current drawn from the wall is determined by its topology, not the power company. Voltage spikes, maybe, but not current, could bring down a badly designed amplifier. If the amplifier is being killed by the current it draws, that can only mean that some critical part in the amplifier is under-specified for its current tolerance. There were much worse misconceptions promulgated elsewhere.

I like that Raul says what he thinks. And that his views change over time as he learns as well.

I usually get the gist of what he says. Does that mean I now understand Japanese? :^)

A little humility like admitting one does not have all the answers can also go a long way, especially on social media sites like this.

Beware the "AHEE"........