What is a reviewer?

[morricab]

It's not the same at all, because accessibility to those is easy and volumes are high, so lots of checks and balances. There is no exclusivity to watching a movie and writing a review about it and comparing IMDB user ratings of tens of thousands. On the other hand, how many reviewers and users have heard AF0? Or any average priced TT? 1 professional reviewer, definitely 2, an completely sway things.

I am not talking about that...I am talking about the general lack of qualifications for critics of all artistic output...not how easy it is to get hold of the media or item to review. Sure the number of reviews is less for very expensive high end gear...just like it is for a high end car...usually on the bigger magazines or YouTubers get hold of them...and those are often loaners from owners and not from the manufacturer.

So, from the perspective of who is qualified to be a reviewer I think it is pretty much the same.

 

[ssfas]

Okay.

All I"m saying is that to achieve what you describe as a "perfect review" (below) will require considerable time and expertise and I believe that won't happen for free. You might get some of this from a Martin Collums HiFiCritic subscription (which takes no advertising), although I believe he closed his magazine a year or so ago.

"For me, a perfect review would
— Describe what the product does
– Describe how it does it, with some detail on the technology employed
– Test the machine on the workbench to confirm whether or not the published performance measurements are accurate and, if any critical measurements are not provided, provide them.
– Explain what complementary products the item being tested would work with, cartridges with arms, amplifiers with speakers etcetera
– provide some subjective listening observations that are musically meaningful and repeatable.
– Provide full details of specifications, pricing, distribution, relevant websites.
– provide a range of comparable and/or competing products.
– avoid any flowery language, attempts at humour etcetera. "

Usually you get what you pay for.

The people I mentioned have/had separate careers and whether or not they got paid for their assessments was irrelevant. John Borwick was succeeded at Gramophone by Andrew Everard, who is a professional journalist so his work is done for commercial gain. He only has a few pages at the back of Gramophone, but it is well focused on the needs of the mainstream classical music lover. Jimmy Hughes used to use a component for months before writing up his review. I saw he is now more active on a site called Stereonet (he used to publish elsewhere), possibly because he has recently retired from role at Leica.

I write expert reports for a living. There are probably quite a lot of people with my expertise, but very few who can write a good report and even less who can adequately defend their opinion under cross-examination in court by some of the brightest trial lawyers. I've been doing it for 33 years, so I must be doing something right. The report itself is usually the visible tip of the iceberg, the investigation is the far larger chuck hidden underwater. To use another metaphor, the report has to be watertight, defensible to the last detail. Any weak points and it will be like hitting an iceberg, you will sink like the Titanic.

No, my reports don't come cheap. They come very expensive. Some clients want cheap preliminary assessments. I generally don't do them. Without a certain level of investigation, it would be easy to mislead or just get it completely wrong.

I find that, even after a lot of work, some of my colleagues fail to identify the motive behind a business or activity we are investigating. You often get this with audio reviews, where the reviewer has not got to grips with what the designer was intending to achieve. The easiest way is to ask them, but so many reviewers don't bother. As we do, it should be normal for the manufacturer to have the opportunity to confirm that the technical and factual aspects are correct and complete.

So much is now personality driven. The @Ron Resnick idea that you need to do your own profiling of each reviewer sadly may be true, but more sadly it's a bizarre way to have to find out something honest about audio. In John Borwick's day reviews (they were called Technical Reports) were done by him or a couple of staff engineers, and you would be hard pressed to identify the author without looking to the ending credit. Now that you have mostly independent contracted reviewers, it seems often to be more about them than the product.

 

[ssfas]

You could ask the same about book, movie or music critics. Some of them have actually worked in some way in that industry and therefore have a deeper than average knowledge on the subject. However, the key attribute a reviewer must have is critical thinking skills and enough background education on the subject at hand to make meaningful constructive criticism and ability to critically compare the item under test to similar items of a similar or above (or below) class. This also means a lot of exposure to gear...I mean a lot of exposure and thinking critically about what does and doesn't work and with what it goes with and what it might not go with.

This is why just being able to write well, while also important to convey the impressions generated, is far from sufficient to be a good reviewer. I think a lot of reviewers come from a journalism background and well...that just makes for flowery writing with very little insight or understanding. Might make for good ad copy but not a serious critique of seriously expensive gear.

Critical thinking and ability to compare what one hears in one thing with another thing (or things) is crucial to having meaningful reviews that potential customers can actually use.

My wife and I mostly go to ballet and dance. First you have the quality of the choreography, then the technical and artistic skills (which are quite different) of the dancers. We try and avoid reviews because they can induce bias. Last Saturday was the opening night of the Royal Ballet season, so no reviews, we got served Alice in Wonderland, a 3-act ballet from about 10 years ago. Our conclusion was that it would have been great if they scrapped the 2nd act completely. The corps de ballet, for whom the 2nd act was largely contrived, were technically well below their usual impeccable standard. This happens at the start of the season as they are often not match fit. So when the reviews came out, one said the 2nd act should be scrapped, another said it was their favourite part of the whole thing.

Lesson One There's no accounting for taste.

Last year we saw New York City Ballet, a top US company, with some very good dancers. They had massive hype in the press. At the interval the gentleman next me was commenting on how good they were, especially one of the stars, I think it was Megan Fairchild. I said I thought she was terrible, she looked like she had a stomach muscle injury, she could barely jump and hold her position. My wife had gone outside and found her leaning against a wall, throwing up. She actually apologised on twitter after the show, saying she had food poisoning and probably should not have performed.

Lesson Two Some people just can't blank out the hype, and will believe it, come what may, even if demonstrably false

My wife was a ballet and contemporary dancer, in Europe and the USA, so she can spot every technical aspect of dance. I've no training, but I've been to maybe 2,000 shows, so I have a pretty good idea about what's good or bad and when things are or are not working or go wrong. I don't need to read critics and I can tell their favouritism or bias.

Lesson Three If you're an amateur, how ever much experience you have, you're still an amateur. It will never make up for technical, professional knowledge.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

It's not the same at all, because accessibility to those is easy and volumes are high, so lots of checks and balances. There is no exclusivity to watching a movie and writing a review about it and comparing IMDB user ratings of tens of thousands. On the other hand, how many reviewers and users have heard AF0? Or any average priced TT? 1 professional reviewer, definitely 2, an completely sway things.

agree. for me personally; hifi reviews start and end about references. systems, sources, media. otherwise they have little value.....for me. and they don't need to do the compares in the review, but i need to know that they have those references relative to their thoughts. because that is what brings value to me in my thinking.

which eliminates my interest in many reviews or reviewers. and they might be great writers, and very effective reviewers. but for hifi they also have to have the right tools. which is a challenge; to have access and experience with the right tools.....for relevance to me.

as far as defining the tools; i know it when i see it. it's not an exact thing.

and not saying that i think everyone should approach it like i do. but i'm where i'm at in my journey, and others are where they are at. so the problems being solved, and answers given, are relative to that position.

i'd much rather have casual/anecdotal feedback from someone who i know has the proper references and tools than reviews without those references. which is the underpinning and value of this forum. i do respect talent and effort given to proper communication and writing too, but it is secondary.