[Jlox1]

How would one go about asking a company to allow them to review some of their merchandise other than just saying "Hi I am a reviewer and I was wondering if your company has any products they would be willing to allow me to review."

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

How would one go about asking a company to allow them to review some of their merchandise other than just saying "Hi I am a reviewer and I was wondering if your company has any products they would be willing to allow me to review."

Have a website with evidence of a lot of viewers.
Have a youtube channel with evidence of a lot of viewers.
Have affiliation with them as a sponsor to allow them to advertise with you in exchange.
 
Very best,

 

[a1joe507]

Quote:

Quote:

How would one go about asking a company to allow them to review some of their merchandise other than just saying "Hi I am a reviewer and I was wondering if your company has any products they would be willing to allow me to review."

Have a website with evidence of a lot of viewers.
Have a youtube channel with evidence of a lot of viewers.
Have affiliation with them as a sponsor to allow them to advertise with you in exchange.
 
Very best,

 
Second.

 

[a1joe507]

Well, I suppose you could befriend Jude as well.  That could help.

 

[nikp]

Quote:

Have a website with evidence of a lot of viewers.
Have a youtube channel with evidence of a lot of viewers.
Have affiliation with them as a sponsor to allow them to advertise with you in exchange.
 
Very best,

A question here. How much viewers are needed? 
 

 

[Gwarmi]

Quote:

A question here. How much viewers are needed? 
 

Depends on the reaction and activity of those viewers.
 
If 'word of mouth' spreads that your reviews are top notch from amount (x) of those who have viewed then
this is a good way to increase your chances of viral marketing spreading and word will get around 

 

[cifani090]

Also you cant be a noob, and not know what you are talking about. You have to be reputable and highly acclaimed.

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

A question here. How much viewers are needed? 
 

Enough that a company that produces several hundred dollar headphones would think a statistically significant number of them would actually purchase the headphone(s) as a result of the positive reviews you'd give (naturally, they want positive reviews... massive hint when you see what gets reviewed and what doesn't, there's usually contracts and such involved to prevent "these suck" reviews).
 
Our turn for questions: Do you actually want to review for the purpose of reviewing for others, or are you just trying to get free headphones or try headphones without buying? Because frankly, you'll be more successful borrowing them from other people.
 
Very best,

 

[nikp]

Quote:

Our turn for questions: Do you actually want to review for the purpose of reviewing for others, or are you just trying to get free headphones or try headphones without buying? Because frankly, you'll be more successful borrowing them from other people.
 
Very best,

 
Every reviewer wants free stuff in return. It's actually a smart way how companies work - give a child free candy so he can tell all his friends about it. 

 
 

 

[MalVeauX]

Before you start asking to review higher end equipment, here's some suggestions:
 
1. Get a condenser microphone. And get used to sound editing. There's as much ambient noise as there is your voice. It sounds atrocious to anyone wearing headphones.
2. Build yourself a "booth" with plain background (cloth over a table with a cloth backdrop comes to mind, bed sheets will do, seriously) so that we can focus on the headphone, and not your table's cleanliness and the color of rug under it.
3. I personally think you need to describe sound with more technical terms. I for one didn't learn anything about the HD205 from your video. I have no idea what it sounds like based on your descriptions other than "pretty good" and "personally" and that's about it.
4. Video editing. That section where you break the "cousin" headphones, come on, someone with a $500~$1k headphone isn't going to want to see this kind of stuff show cased on that streaky table with such terrible audio. Make it more professional. Get good equipment. Build a video booth.
5. Lots more, if you're actually interesting in improving this and take all the above as constructive criticism.
 
Very best,

 

[Gwarmi]

 
 
Hey Jlox1,
 
This guy on youtube would be maybe 20-21 years old max ~ and this is the standard, he would be already getting equipment and favor
from magazines and the like. This guy has a future in audio reviewing if he wants one.
 

 

[cifani090]

Quote:

Hey Jlox1,
 
This guy on youtube would be maybe 20-21 years old max ~ and this is the standard, he would be already getting equipment and favor
from magazines and the like. This guy has a future in audio reviewing if he wants one.

He claims that he's a proficient tech reviewer? Im not sure if id go that far, since the HifiMan's were the only high end headphone he reviews, and the headphone amps be more than likely went to a Hi-Fi shop and demoed. Are you sure you think he's 21?
 

 

 

[Gwarmi]

 
Looks like he's pushing maybe 16 woops 

 ~ I give him kudos for his age, at this rate, given time, he can go places.
 
He seems genuinely passionate about things, occasionally he drops a comment here or there that is misconstrued 
or just plain wrong but I give him the benefit of the doubt.
 
Especially since Youtube is littered with 15 minutes video's of subjective drivel
 
'Sooo ahhh....yeh...they...sound..good...ahhh...box ...is nice....I like....these velour...pads etc etc'
 
 

 

[logwed]

Yo, why did you post another thread, you already have this one...
 
Now let me tell you a little story about a man, a man named Skylab. Now, Skylab is a well-respected reviewer around head-fi, he does a lot of excellent reviews for many high end products. Do you think that one day, as a young audio enthusiast, that he thought to himself, "Hey, I'm gonna post a moronic thread on this forum asking how I can get companies to send me review samples, when I have very little headphone experience myself?" No, Skylab was into audio, and had a lot of experience with very nice stuff, and one day, he probably thought it would be fun and helpful to write a review. He and other people enjoyed the first, and so he wrote another, and another, and the rest is history. Now (IIRC) there are several gear companies that will send Skylab review samples, but why do they do that? It's because on this forum, there are a LOT of people that will take his word seriously, and a lot of people that care to read his reviews. 
 
You need to build the reason for companies to send you things BEFORE you ask them to send you things. This is done by acquiring a deep knowledge of audio, and the respect of your community members. Godspeed.

 

[Radio_head]

You don't have to be a professional, because you're an amateur.  That being said, you should still give off an air of professionalism and class.  Knowing a lot about your product/hobby is nice too, but not an absolute must as consumers are not always savvy enough to differentiate a true expert from someone with good video editing skills.  Read up as much as you can, (all the headroom guides, the head-fi stickies, headwize articles etc.,) and get some experience with various models so that you have a baseline to compare to.  8.3 may seem reasonable to you now, but to people with more experience the vaunted HD800 (Sennheiser's current top model with a $1500 price tag) only has a weighted average of 7.9/10.*  
 
That being said, you don't have to cater to the audiophile community.  You can review for a demographic of "normal" people who are just looking for something with decent build and sound quality without paying a premium.  There's a market for that.  But like any market you need marketability.  Better video quality, rehearse what you're going to say beforehand, get someone with editing skills to help you out if need be.  Get someone to edit your reviews/articles.  Have headings, maybe with simple bullet points if you're not going to get too specific.  Your paragraphs are too long and many sentences are non-sequiturs.
 
These are a couple ideas just to give you an idea of the minimum that it would take for companies to want to send you their gear for reviews, and even then it's their prerogative and there is no guarantee.
 
 
 
 
 
*Anyone have any idea what happened to this site?  It used to be really active, I actually used it for a couple years before I ever found Head-Fi.  I actually knew I wanted a Stax setup before I even joined Head-Fi thanks to these guys...