Negative Reviews.
Our friend the Audiophiliac did a talk with an old buddy in the business. Herb Reichert has been around a long time. I think he has written for everyone at one time or another. Currently he writes for Stereophile magazine.
Their discussion was a response to the question "why are there no negative reviews of equipment."
They tied themselves in knots to explain why they always seem to like the stuff they review. Pretzel logic is involved. One of the things I admire about UK reviewers is they will say this is no good, or far too expensive or over rated by others or this other thing is a better choice. You do not see that this side of the Atlantic. If you can't say something nice....
One excuse Steve and Herb have is they only review things they know they will like. That is circular reasoning for sure. Alternately they do not want to hurt some little guy working in his garage building speakers. So nice. Their mamas raised them right. Does that actually serve the public?
I will link to the thing below as I owe it to you but I want my editorial rant first.
I think that there is a lot of bad equipment. There is bad stuff that reviewed well. One that comes to mind is a small tube amplifier that is very sensitive to speaker impedance and can sound fine with one speaker (just fine mind you) and like crap with most out there. It was liked and recommended. Still crap it is.
A more general example is moving coil pickups. They require significant hardware adjustments or compromises to operate at all but are liked because they distort nicely. They add textures and unicorn farts. Every MC pickup has a more massive stylus and moving generator than any moving iron and most moving magnets. Physics says they cannot move as quickly. (Therefore as accurately) There is a signal high up there, but it aint right.
That is an example of euphonic sound. Sounds produced that are "nice" and interesting but NOT IN THE SOURCE. Certain harmonic distortions are nice as they act to add aire or space or other effects similar to reverb. Everything sounds nicer with reverb. Distortion is distortion.
My experience with those horribly microphonic Tesla vacuum tubes in the ARC SP12 was such. There were textures and things that just made me smile and would have been great had they been real. But just touching the preamp made a bong or dong sound. They were literally picking up the sound of my hand touching a control and from the room. Once I tracked down and removed the offending tubes (several) the magic textures were gone like fairy dust.
In the video Steve G mentions that the current item under his review is a single digit Watt Amplifier he really likes and he was doing a positive review of it. Yet he mentions here that it is only for certain types of music at low volumes with certain speakers. It may be perfect for string quartets and harpsichords, but not full Orchestras or Pink Floyd. Yes those are his honest feelings, but normal people have to invest real money in this stuff.
More examples of false quality are countless.
Small Watt triode tube amplifiers are popular. They are simple, not cheap, and only work with very efficient speakers. It is a fetish more than anything else. Quiet chamber music and horn speakers fine for that. Saint-Saens Organ symphony not in a million years.
How about those multi-thousand dollar speaker cables? Skin effect and crystal boundaries MIGHT affect megahertz frequencies, but not audio. The inductance and capacitance of any cable pales in comparison to what is inside any speaker. Just think of the woofer with hundreds of feet of fine wire in the voice coil plus dozens of feet in an inductor in the cross over filter the signal must traverse to which you add only ten critical feet of woven-by-virgins speaker cable. Oh Please!
No big name golden ear has done a blind test of fancy speaker cable versus plain heavy gauge wire. A few small guys have and guess what happened?
Some cable effects golden ears have heard are real, if not for the reasons they think. One from the original TAS magazine was the very expensive amplifiers under review was overheating and sounding not right as it was picking up AM radio through the speaker cables and oscillating so they had to be draped and laid just so just to operate at all. That was not a problem with the cables bro.
Then the fact that all these systems are SYSTEMs is not emphasized. Sometimes two pieces complement each other like amplifier and preamplifier, or amplifier and speakers. Many times they do not.
Finally why are there so few or no women reviewing equipment? A lot of the high end is butt ugly that is important you know if you have to live with it. Some speakers are horrible nightmares visually. That is part of the experience unless you are blind. If your system looks better with the lights out that is a problem. 99% of women would comment on that, often; "Get that out of my house!"
Oh please that is only one facet dont think I limit their expertise to decoration. Women typically have better hearing than men. My wife has commented on how good this or that sounds. Several golden ears will note their wives comments in their reviews when the agree with them.
I think having women review things or at least an editorial comment from the WAGs to balance the review would be a service. It could limit damage to relationships which are important to ones life.
My rant is done.
Here is their blah blah.
Old farts, but just about my age actually. I have fewer wrinkles.
