Valin's new MSB Reference dac & transport review, AS Product Year Award
- Thread starter Mike Lavigne
- Start date
caesar, whoever you are, i think you take this way to seriously (i'm certainly guilty of this too from time to time).
which was my point. it's like an obligatory lunch provided at a business seminar......i poke around trying to find something at least not harmful, but occasionally find something i like. but i bring low expectations so i'm not disappointed.
but if you are convinced something sinister is afoot, then by all means continue.
which was my point. it's like an obligatory lunch provided at a business seminar......i poke around trying to find something at least not harmful, but occasionally find something i like. but i bring low expectations so i'm not disappointed.
but if you are convinced something sinister is afoot, then by all means continue.
They have aged well. Pretty "traditional" tube sound rather than "colored", IMHO
... we want our gear designers to apply sound physics and engineering principles...
And what’s wrong with bringing more reason to a hobby driven by a the loudest voice in the room , and explaining it in terms of economics, sociology, and psychology...
And what’s wrong with bringing more reason to a hobby driven by a the loudest voice in the room , and explaining it in terms of economics, sociology, and psychology...
Goodness! You guys gotta check out some of these cooking shows and how much passion those top chefs bring to the game
If the chefs were really passionate they would be talking about how brand X special uber expensive handmade oven makes their recipes taste better than a less expensive special oven by brand Y.Goodness! You guys gotta check out some of these cooking shows and how much passion those top chefs bring to the game
And who do you want to be the judging if the sound physics and engineering principles are correctly applied? The economists, the sociologists and the psychologists?
IMHO unfortunately you have the wrong idea about the hobby ... There are very loud voices in the room, but fortunately they do not drive the hobby - they are part of it. Although an independent analysis of the terms you refer, if carried with open mind and no personnel vendettas can be interesting.
and I promise in 2019 I will become more succinct... but till then...
Should I apologise to Caesar in advance? For I also haven’t come just to praise him lovingly lol.
My first response was in seeing this as all being blown way, way, way too much out of proportion and found myself very much agreeing with Mike’s salient comments and in his trying to bring some balancing perspective to this.
I also have felt that we have more recently taken to ALL too regularly beating up reviewers lately... that it’s become more and more of a zealous purging of the priesthood.
I cringe when this attack has become waaaaay too personal.
I was going to make a comment that when the hyperbole police were finally done here inspecting the crime site that we should then just call in the big drama department to do a final mop up so we could let go of this.
But on refelection there is something here that is or has become (as the price of this hobby has increasingly skyrocketed) more wrong (and perhaps therefore increasingly untruthful/corrupt or even a essentially immoral at the core?) and has just been getting dodgier and dodgier and more inflated. There is a higher price to be paid all round here over the years and that the other crime (is it a misdemeanour?) has also been ours for letting it get away on us so that it is really now easy to see this as a seemingly harmless and very much accepted part and parcel of the landscape. But in truth perhaps it is just wrong to continue accepting these circumstances and we perhaps need to challenge the standards here more.
I also had quite a few times felt like saying that the hyperbole police should probably just tell us there was clearly nothing to see here and that we should probably just move along.
So I innately take a moderate more accepting position here given that I accepted this as just part of the system that we have inherited and now have that buys us some entertainment and a bit of an infomercial along the way... and this might then be my failing and why I started with questioning if I should therefore have an apology for Caesar.
Not that he owns this debate, nor even started it in truth nor that he has made too many points not already made many times by many others over the years including many still doing it here now.
But just because he swore soooo many many times that he slapped me into a rethink. So have we just let this all get out of hand and large parts of the review system clearly need something of a giant moral compass realignment.
Many reviewers clearly have great writing skills, knowledge and also act out of passion. They engage in the aim of creating greater awareness while some get caught up in hubris.
We all get the self evident business reason about this being a commercial thing otherwise the magazines would never have been viable but have we just accepted and let the message get too far off track. Has it become just too much of an accepted farce and as Mike said something of a yawn (which I really get also). But in the end is the kernel of essential truth here just undeniable... and if so what if anything should we do about it. Rather than just purging the priests can we do something now to resurrect the message?
I was there back in the day when we put HP up on the altar and maybe this proselytising the model of audio journalism is also at fault.
There are so many passionate believers. We look for prophets and in the end when we no longer believe we just angrily go in there and rip it all up all betrayed and righteous and angrily just pull down all the pillars in the temple. This isn’t a new story. But in the end we also just get what we pray for.
There is a crisis in all of journalism at the moment and I generally fear for the truth in a world of an increasingly deregulated and uneconomic media. The priests of truth would be the best thing we could aspire to annoint.
So rather than just burning all the high priests and pulling the whole thing apart if we want something truthfully better what could we now do to get that?
Could we just start being a bit more honest and praising people for what they do best and also letting them know the things they could just do a bit better. And letting them know we expect meaning and honesty and that we accept if it’s a paid comment we should be adult enough to understand that and we could all just give up on the pretense.
But do we really want to let go of the pretense... are we game enough... do we still believe? I believe we do.
Should I apologise to Caesar in advance? For I also haven’t come just to praise him lovingly lol.
My first response was in seeing this as all being blown way, way, way too much out of proportion and found myself very much agreeing with Mike’s salient comments and in his trying to bring some balancing perspective to this.
I also have felt that we have more recently taken to ALL too regularly beating up reviewers lately... that it’s become more and more of a zealous purging of the priesthood.
I cringe when this attack has become waaaaay too personal.
I was going to make a comment that when the hyperbole police were finally done here inspecting the crime site that we should then just call in the big drama department to do a final mop up so we could let go of this.
But on refelection there is something here that is or has become (as the price of this hobby has increasingly skyrocketed) more wrong (and perhaps therefore increasingly untruthful/corrupt or even a essentially immoral at the core?) and has just been getting dodgier and dodgier and more inflated. There is a higher price to be paid all round here over the years and that the other crime (is it a misdemeanour?) has also been ours for letting it get away on us so that it is really now easy to see this as a seemingly harmless and very much accepted part and parcel of the landscape. But in truth perhaps it is just wrong to continue accepting these circumstances and we perhaps need to challenge the standards here more.
I also had quite a few times felt like saying that the hyperbole police should probably just tell us there was clearly nothing to see here and that we should probably just move along.
So I innately take a moderate more accepting position here given that I accepted this as just part of the system that we have inherited and now have that buys us some entertainment and a bit of an infomercial along the way... and this might then be my failing and why I started with questioning if I should therefore have an apology for Caesar.
Not that he owns this debate, nor even started it in truth nor that he has made too many points not already made many times by many others over the years including many still doing it here now.
But just because he swore soooo many many times that he slapped me into a rethink. So have we just let this all get out of hand and large parts of the review system clearly need something of a giant moral compass realignment.
Many reviewers clearly have great writing skills, knowledge and also act out of passion. They engage in the aim of creating greater awareness while some get caught up in hubris.
We all get the self evident business reason about this being a commercial thing otherwise the magazines would never have been viable but have we just accepted and let the message get too far off track. Has it become just too much of an accepted farce and as Mike said something of a yawn (which I really get also). But in the end is the kernel of essential truth here just undeniable... and if so what if anything should we do about it. Rather than just purging the priests can we do something now to resurrect the message?
I was there back in the day when we put HP up on the altar and maybe this proselytising the model of audio journalism is also at fault.
There are so many passionate believers. We look for prophets and in the end when we no longer believe we just angrily go in there and rip it all up all betrayed and righteous and angrily just pull down all the pillars in the temple. This isn’t a new story. But in the end we also just get what we pray for.
There is a crisis in all of journalism at the moment and I generally fear for the truth in a world of an increasingly deregulated and uneconomic media. The priests of truth would be the best thing we could aspire to annoint.
So rather than just burning all the high priests and pulling the whole thing apart if we want something truthfully better what could we now do to get that?
Could we just start being a bit more honest and praising people for what they do best and also letting them know the things they could just do a bit better. And letting them know we expect meaning and honesty and that we accept if it’s a paid comment we should be adult enough to understand that and we could all just give up on the pretense.
But do we really want to let go of the pretense... are we game enough... do we still believe? I believe we do.
I've had different editors make salient remarks about reviewing that I'll share:
"There are people who listen well but cannot write. And there are people who can write that don't listen so well. There are not so many that do both." paraphased.
"An audio review should be expository, and the root of "expository" is to expose. It is a virtue to craft clear, straightforward prose for an audio review. Anything that gets in the way of exposing is just unnecessary embellishment (to be kind)." quote.
Ha, how outstanding... love it... also very much agree with Tim that there are those who write well, and those that listen well. It’s a challenging pursuit but I’m very glad some throw themselves into it and share what they uncover.
Yes Tima, No different than each other. You who write review for job, industry associates who sell audio stuff and us consumers who make this audio business exists. No different when making comments about gears. Could be as yawning, could be as self- driven, could be as interesting, could be as overly exposed, could be as entertaining, could be as informative, could be as narrowed or could be as self-righteous. They are just data points. Read them wisely and know what to extract for your benefit. Have wisdom and you could even extract good out of BS.
Kind regards,
Tang
No, but they should give us substance enough to figure how they hear - something that needs more than ears.
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