[Sgt. Ear Ache]

i'm pretty suspicious of any reviewer who does hear changes in cables and who does think burn in is a real thing...

 

[Kitechaser]

i'm pretty suspicious of any reviewer who does hear changes in cables and who does think burn in is a real thing...

See, how do you describe color to someone who is blind?
Case in point. Tone deaf people should not review iems.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

See, how do you describe color to someone who is blind?
Case in point. Tone deaf people should not review iems.

lol ok then. personally, i think people who imagine things shouldn't review headphones, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[Sefelt103]

In audio it can be quite difficult to find what you're looking for. Reviews of course may suffer from a whole host of faults. Multiple reviews of a product are really necessary. One thing that seems to affect audio is becoming tuned in enough to a headphone or to lesser extent amplifiers or DAC/s. Initially you don't hear them at their best. So if the reviewer is tuned to another headphone and then writes a review of a new headphone he aquires, unless he gives time to transition to the new item his review will probably be inaccurate in many aspects. The quality of the reviewers hearing is also critical. His or her ability to describe what they hear is also a major factor. This is where things can become really confusing. There are many elements in audio like the attack, sustain, speed (decay), soundstage and imaging, frequency response, tonality, timbre, colouration, euphonic distortion etc. These are usually unique for every headphone. To accurately measure and compare these values for every headphone would be a huge amount of work. So the chances are a purchaser won't know what these values are for a purchase made or how they relate to existing equipment or what the initial impression will be before transitioning to the new equipment. Because there are so many variations/variables when someone finally settles down to a headphone they may end up disappointed and want something different.

 

[Kitechaser]

And we haven't even talked about the review "industry" yet. Its a business, and people like freebies, and incentives to provide good reviews to same companies over and over again, are very strong.

Also, from personal experience with some of the bigger reviewers on head-fi, in personal meets, and first hand hearing full speaker systems they thought were TOTL cutting edge, I walked away seriously thinking they had hearing damage.
No joke.
The least talented people in every field have a way of ending up as critics.
I don't think audio is any different.