Best Place for Negative Reviews?

Jaybo wrote:
"reviews are for entertainment value only...like professional wrestling."

That is brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How many times do you think a reviewer is already wanting an item he "requests" to review in a simple effort to obtain something he really wants anyway on the cheap?
I read reviews and respect some of the folks doing reviews but it just appears that being a reviewer is like winning the lottery for an Audiophile, yea they always go out of their way to say how much work it is and how much they sacrifice for other enthusiasts, it isnt work if it is your hobby and passion so when they try to convince me that what they do is a thankless chore........... I laugh.

With all of the money, favors, freebies, vacations, dinner, lunches, condo usage ad nauseum it's really difficult to take magazine reviews seriously.

Just like political debates and talk radio/television, it must be taken FWIW i.e. entertainment.

Read for fun but listen to learn.

Audio is a very, underline very, subjective experience/hobby/addiction.
Reviewers do their best,giving them the benefit of the doubt, but they, like we have their biases. Do you really like hard rock and the thump of a drumkit or are you more into classical with strings or period instruments? Either way what you hear is going to be based on what you expect, based itself on experience, and to a degree what you hoped it would sound like. What it is really like may be neither which can be either better or worse.
Viridian mentioned the Harmonic Technology Cyberlights that John Atkinson gave a solid negative to and Michael Fremer went into hyberbole hell over. Had that been my only exploration of them, my experience might have been different. But, on stereophiles website are the reviews and some unpublished letters, one in which Fremer stands by his statements BUT does not recommend them, nor are they in Stereophile's latest recommended components.
This got me curious, so when a chance to audition them came up, it was taken eagerly.
Like Michael Fremer, they wowed me, but not enough to buy them, where my pockets deeper, sure for a spare set to use only occassionally yes. What they do, they do wonderfully what they lack for me from a phonostage to preamp was after much thought enough to say no.
The rule should be read, read, read and audition. Nothing else gets it home to you as to what it will do and what it will do in your system. A reviewer can only do so much and again like us, they have what works and what doesn't

Face it, you're on your own. We all are...

"Face it, you're on your own. We all are.."

This is true of life itself and makes me cry myself to sleep every night like a big baby