what are your views regarding reviewing styles ?

While I have touched on this in one of your other threads, and with the danger of repeating myself:

Any efforts to establish objective terms are useless in my opinion: Many terms that are used to describe are based on metaphors or analogies. The terms will inevitably carry a connotation that is subjective. So do general terms like "High-End", which will never be well defined for that reason. Even terms like "neutral", "transparent" carry a strong connotation that depends on the reader.

Even if a completely objective description or review, that is solely based on terms that do not carry any connotation whatsoever, would be possible, it would not be satisfactory. In fact, for many things we can discern with our hearing, no objective terms of the form you propose exist.

As a last point, people do generally tend to understand analogies and metaphors better than purely objective (scientific) terms. For example, even in Science, where everything has an accurate description (in the case of Physics the description is usually mathematical), in order to communicate scientific facts and results to a general audience, one uses often imprecise terms like metaphors and analogies that people can understand much easier than Mathematics. Why should audio reviews be any different?

Just my experience and opinion of course...

Rene

i may not have completely communicated my point.

a review is a collection of perceptions.

it is at least a report of what a reviewer heard after hours and hours of listening.

there are ways to describe what one hears which are analaogous to a report.

like a scientist who does an experiment and reports findings.

a reviewer has anecdotal evidence to present regarding the sound of a component/stereo system.

if a reviewer says he does not the ring of a telephone with compoent a but does hear the telephone with component b, this is factual reporting based upon the reviewers perception.

such a statement, one could infer is objective without an attempt to influence.

if a reviewer says i heard instrument a behind instrument b--again a perception reprted without an attempt to influence.

finally if a reviewer reports nan inability to tell whether there were 1 or 2 violins on a recording, or whether an instrument was a tenor or alto sax, such information is useful to a potential buyer.

it is this approach which i consider reporting--communicating perceptions, without ornate phrase which are relevant.

Wow. This discussion is Really getting complicated here.

Here is just a short slice of my opinion on this topic.

I feel a certain form of reviewing should be taken as nothing more than pure entertainment, and if it entertains, well that's that. But you can throw credibility out the window.

Do you really think that, regardless of ''reviewing'' styles, a reviewer that is ''wined and dined'' in Europe, on a manufacturer's invitation to visit their company, can be taken with the least bit of credibility ? Sam Tellig (Tom Gillet) and his ''Sam's Space'' in Stereophile comes to mind as a glaring example.

All reviewers are not like this, of course. Nevertheless, objectivity is seriously non-existent when this happens.

Not far behind, the reviewer that ''liked the amp (or whatever) so much that he bought the review sample''. In this case, ''buying the review sample'' is somewhat easier to do than for you and me, as it is usually purchased at ''accomodation pricing'' a well-known unwritten audio-insider law where you buy gear direct from a manufacturer at roughly 50% of retail value (meaning dealer cost) for lesser-know reviewers, and for FREE if you are a reviewer with a strong readership and infuencial power, like Tellig, where I suspect the guy never pays for anything, probably including his toilet paper, if it can be proven that he cleans his interconnects with it and a dab of whooppe oil.

For this reason, I find that in many cases, the only view on reviewing style should be taken in the context of pure entertainement, supported of course with generic techno-detail color commentary. Blah blah blah, and here goes yet ANOTHER gizmo that a reviewer ''could happily live with on a long-term basis'' Taken as entertainement, anything is possible, and everything is in support of this, as long as it hits home, meaning that it gathers attention and starts a buying frenzy on Audiogon or in the hi-fi shops. We are suckers for doing so.

I just feel that it is a bit naive to consider it otherwise, an no more complicated than this. If it grabs your attention and entertains, great. But for me, at least with certain writers, zero credibility, but a fun read still. Please yourself the futility of ''analyzing my paragraps one at a time''. Kepp it simple and fun - and get back to the music ! There's a lot more happening THERE.

this is my last comment on a subject i feel strongly about.

i'll try the restaurant example.

your friend recommends a restaurant. you ask what he ate and describe the taste and discuss the service.

let's say he reports without any opinions.

he states what he ate, the ingredients of the food--spices, sauces, etc. he doesn't use any adjectives.

he discusses the temperature of the food and the time it takes from one course to another.

in short he reports on his experience as if he were an observer.

with this information, i have a shot at making an intelligent decision as to whether to patronize the restaurant.

the same "observer" approach could be used to describe the results of auditioning a component.

a decision to purchase a component requires honest observations without using adjectives. it is enough to say " one instrument appeared to be positioned behind the other and i perceived a sense of space between the instruments".

such a statement is reporting. it converys information. there is no hype, no attempt to influence. if a review were full of statements similar to the above statement, it could be useful and it would qualify as a report, not a criticism.