Are Hifi Reviews Flawed?

[Primalsea]

This kind of stems from the previous posts about Bell Curves and the like.

For me many hifi reviews are useless as there is no real basis underpinning them. Its all well and good by saying bass was better on item a than on items b,c,d & e but what is better. Maybe your view on what good bass is isn't the reviewers. Some reviews seem too fluid and over time the reviewer u-turns when the next best thing comes out.

I wonder if you could identify aspects of hifi equipment that a group of people can reliably and consistantly agree on and other aspects which will never see a good correlation due to being a mater of taste.

Very loosely, if you got 15 people to rank 5 phono stages in order of preference on each of :
Soundstage
Suppression of surface noise
Bass clarity
Mid clarity
Treble clarity
Involvement

and some others that I just cant think of right now I suspect that some of these points would nearly always be something that correlates between all people and therefore form a basis that everyone can relate to. The ones that don't correlate would be things that are a matter of taste and therefore something that people have to work out where there tastes lay if they read a review based upon the results.

[DSJR]

HiFi Choice tried in the early days to do just this - group tests with a panel of listeners - often up to a dozen.. As long as the results were correctly correlated and reported, the results seemed pretty fair, except for A MacK's first speaker group test, where the speakers were subjected to the high-power abuse testing before the listening tests and at least one pair of test speakers had the tweeter crossovers burned out before listening began (I saw the evidence for myself!!!!!).

More importantly, many of us dealers found the same things about certain products - the grainy awfulness of the Linn Intek for example - and it was only the early to mid eighties when two particular UK manufacturers all but told us what to do and what to sell...

I'd love a return to some of the reviewing of old, where properly qualified engineers do unbiased technical tests and an unbiased panel of listeners do the listening using the best quality master tracks as possible.

I expect HFW come closest to the ideal above, where NK does the technical bit and the editorial staff do the listening, although some "proper" golden ears too would help more IMO.....

[Beechwoods]

One thing I think HiFi reviews do is band products by price, and only consider 'new products' so something punching well above its weight might get completely overlooked, and an old perennial, perhaps only available as used, will also be ignored.

While t'internet may suffer the 'tyranny of the majority' on occasion it does offer an interesting counterpoint to the mainstream media take.

Just a thought...

[hifi_dave]

This kind of stems from the previous posts about Bell Curves and the like.

For me many hifi reviews are useless as there is no real basis underpinning them. Its all well and good by saying bass was better on item a than on items b,c,d & e but what is better. Maybe your view on what good bass is isn't the reviewers. Some reviews seem too fluid and over time the reviewer u-turns when the next best thing comes out.

I wonder if you could identify aspects of hifi equipment that a group of people can reliably and consistantly agree on and other aspects which will never see a good correlation due to being a mater of taste.

Very loosely, if you got 15 people to rank 5 phono stages in order of preference on each of :
Soundstage
Suppression of surface noise
Bass clarity
Mid clarity
Treble clarity
Involvement

and some others that I just cant think of right now I suspect that some of these points would nearly always be something that correlates between all people and therefore form a basis that everyone can relate to. The ones that don't correlate would be things that are a matter of taste and therefore something that people have to work out where there tastes lay if they read a review based upon the results.

Problem is, we don't all hear in the same way and you need to take into account system and room interaction, which can completely alter the results.

My main gripe with the hi-fi comics nowadays is that they are almost entirely dependent on advertising and so they are not really able to criticise products without fear of losing revenue. They can't bite the hand that feeds them.

[Themis]

I expect HFW come closest to the ideal above, where NK does the technical bit and the editorial staff do the listening, although some "proper" golden ears too would help more IMO.....

What is "HFW" ?

[Marco]

HFW = Hi-fi World magazine. Obviously you don't get this in France

Marco.

[Beechwoods]

HiFi World Magazine

[Themis]

HFW = Hi-fi World magazine. Obviously you don't get this in France

Marco.

No...

The only accurate hifi review in France (the one where Hiraga used to work), La Revue du Son, will print its last issue on January...
There will be no more interesting hifi review in France, anymore.
It's a disaster....

[hifi_dave]

That is bad news. What happened ?

[Themis]

That is bad news. What happened ?

The owner of it (Mondadori France, owner of plenty of magazines) decided it didn't made enough benefits.