[john_jcb]

My son from the age of 6 until he was 18 played hockey. He played on some very good traveling teams and earned a varsity letter in high school all 4 years. I cannot tell you how many games I watched during those 12 years. Watching them I do know that the referees were terribly biased against our team. Close calls always seemed to go the wrong way. When he went away to college and decided to dedicate his effort toward academics I was left with no games to look forward to.

I now on occasion will wander over to the ice rink and watch games. Each time I am amazed how fair and impartial the refereeing has become. I wonder what game the fans are watching as they barrage the referee and linesmen with their taunts and jeers.

This made me wonder when I read reviews of one amp or another how reviewers can be hearing things so differently. I think we really need to look at reviews and impressions with a more critical eye. What is a reviewer trying to accomplish with his comments. Are they really unbiased or are they criticizing one amp to make another they have an interest in look better by comparison? When people make comments I think we also need to ask some questions. What is your source? Interconnects? What system are you using as a reference? Saying an amp is dark and slow for instance really means nothing if you do not add some point of comparison.

Just something to think about when you are making comments.

 

[blessingx]

Thanks John. Absolutely.

It gets even more distant when members discuss equipment they've never heard. Have seen on another site someone express an opinion, and others (who couldn’t possibly have the equipment since it’s not out yet), replicate the same within a week (first couple of times citing the reference, but quickly dropping that for general consensus). Soon it seems like a fact, because it’s so universal.

On the opposite front, wonder about the ripple effect of future expectations from glowing/trashing reviews. Know part of the reason I hated my Eggos, was because of the 'perfect' reviews they were getting several months ago. My problem I know, but it probably helps to explain backlash and flavor of the month cycles.

Then there’s all the projection.

 

[Tuberoller]

I think this has much to do with a listener's sonic and musical preferences as well.If a listener/reviewer listens to techno or some other type of music thatplaces little emphasis in the midrange and has a lot of electronic bass,how could he ever accurately judge any gear based on midrange or bass performance.This applies,to a somewhat lesser extent,to listeners of Classic Jazz and other music that lacks wide dynamics and hard hitting bass.

I have realized that impartiality is a near impossibility when writing reviews and auditioning equipment.We all carry some baggage and I won't pretend that I don't.I sometimes find myself poised to write things about gear and then I do a quick comparison with similar gear and my impressions change greatly.I will never insult someone for having a differing opinion than mine and I see far too much of that going on here at head-fi.I wish we could all accept that we hear things differently and move on.

 

[williamgoody]

I pretty much agree with everything said. That's why I believe communication (and the words you choose) are important to better give some direction to the perspective someone else may be getting from what you say; as well as taking what someone says with a perverbial grain of salt.

 

[ServinginEcuador]

John,

First off, sorry to hear about the loss of enjoyment of being able to go to those hockey games and watching your son play. You must be very proud of him for what he has accomplished and done, and I'm sure he will make you proud by also doing his best at academics now that he has turned his focus to that.

The refeering analogy is pretty cool also, but not too similar to listening to headphones. Each person has particular characteristics they are used to/prefer. To one a pair of headphones are too bright, to another just right. I saw a guy installing some car stereo once with several extra tweeters and one 8" sub. I asked the installer why he was installing all those tweeters and he replied that the owner liked treble and not bass, hence the complete emphasis on tweeters and high-end over everything else. Everyone has some amount of hearing inadequacies, and when mated with the wrong cans it will be a horrible experience, and with the right cans a rather pleasurable one. If you are sensitive to high-end energy, a set of bright cans may be painful to your ears; but those same cans will sound wonderful to someone with a slight heaing loss at the high-end since they will be either less sensitive to that frequency or unable to hear it at all. Others are bassheads who think only the Beyer 770 has enough bass for them.

Another thing is experience and comparisons. A lot of people here write reviews and post comparisons, but lack experience with which to draw accurate conclusions and equipment to make those comparisons. This isn't necesarily wrong, it just happens that way.

Another factor is the system behind the music. To hook-up an expensive and revealing amp and cans to cheap ICs, PCs or source can greatly effect the sound which you hear.

The music we choose can also effect how we perceive what we hear. If we choose well recorded music with which we are very familiar, revealing equipment will reproduce it and make us enjoy it all the more. To play poorly recorded music with bad engineering and sound quality on a revealing system may lead us to believe that something was wrong with that system. In other words, the music or recording may be to blame for a harsh sounding system.

System synergy is also a HUGE factor. What I mean by that is if you have an amp with rolled-off highs, like the RKV, teaming them up with a pair of bright cans will hide or diminsh the normally bright characteristic of said cans. A set of cans with bloated bass may not sound so bad in an amp with a really tightly controlled or rolled-off bass response.

I'm not convinced that a lot of reviewers AREN'T as biased as the refs at your son's games. How many times have you heard someone say bad things about a pair of cans they have never heard or only auditioned for 2 minutes at a meet? Too often. Far too often. Brand biases also abound here as much as anywhere else. A good review is done by someone with a passion for good sound above maintaining their brand biases and prejudices. I have seen so many posts that state that all Sony MDR-xxx products suck, only to be followed up by someone wise enough to say what about the MDR-R10.

The other end is where I find myself: repeating good things about stuff from reputable people about things I ahve never heard. I try to offset that by listing my experience or lack thereof, but often put in my .02 when I shouldn't.

Anothe rproblem is that some people are afraid to admit when they're wrong about a product. They come out of a meet and say something sucks, and will stick to that hastily formed conclusion and never let it go for fear of losing face. IMHO, people gain my respect when they admit they were wrong and fallible by repealing a previous decision and reversing their opinion of something. A few people like AC1, RVD, and others I can't remember hated the Sony CD3000 after the WOHT, but later came out saying that they later listnened to them and now liked them.


All in all, a review is nothing more than someone's preferences, likes/dislikes, biases, prejudices, experience, hearing ability, system, cabling, source, experience, and more put into words. No matter how well worded, it is nothing more than this. We who write reviews here and elsewhere need always strive to put aside all these things and just listen to what we are reviewing and try to put across how they sound with as little added stuff as possible. Whatever is possible to put aside from the review process should be put aside for the sake of those who read what we write and make purchases accordingly.

/rant

 

[CRESCENDOPOWER]

I think the most important thing for reviewers is to remember, and know their own favoritism. This generally comes with years of experience, and the swapping out a lot of equipment.
I find that many people get mad at certain reviewers for pretty much liking almost everything they review. In my opinion, these are the reviewers that I keep my eye on, because most of them can put their biased opinions aside, and look at the original goal of the designer. They also give recommendations on what type of system the component they are reviewing would fit into nicely.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally posted by CRESCENDOPOWER I find that many people get mad at certain reviewers for pretty much liking almost everything they review. In my opinion, these are the reviewers that I keep my eye on, because most of them can put their biased opinions aside, and look at the original goal of the designer. They also give recommendations on what type of system the component they are reviewing would fit into nicely.

That's very interesting, 'cause I'm the opposite and usually because I suspect biases (which often seem to be temporal). Negative comments/reviews seem essential to positive ones. Old Salinger paraphrased quote: "If you like all poems, you don't like poetry".

 

[john_jcb]

Thanks for the comments, I am glad that it provoked some thoughts on the subject.

BTW my son is looking back now wondering what could have been. One of the kids he played with is now playing for the NHL Chicago Blackhawks. His choice at the timewas to go to Canada and play Juniors and delay collede or go to college directly. I think he made a wise choice but it would have been fun to watch him play.

 

[Sentral Dogma]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tuberoller I will never insult someone for having a differing opinion than mine and I see far too much of that going on here at head-fi.

You should join Team I Hate Head-fi Elitists.

Remember, its not Team I Hate Head-fi Elite, the head-fi elite give much to the community. It is Team I Hate Head-fi Elitists, who think their preferred sound is the "right" sound. Insults disguised as sarcastic comments are the worse.

 

[stuartr]

I am at the point where reviewing for me is only useful if I have heard the thing being reviewed myself. Audio is so subjective that you have to have heard it with your own ears to know how you will like it. Also, let's face it, at the high end the degrees of "good" are usually very small. If you put me in a room with a conrad-johnson amp and a krell amp, I would take the cj, but if you made me take the krell, I would be thanking my lucky stars that I had that instead of a stereo mini-system. Same is true for headphones -- if someone randomly gave you either an RS-1, an HD 600, an Omega II or an R-10, would you really complain which one you got? I sure wouldn't. Granted, if you are spending your own money to get them, you should get the type of sound you like the best, but you can only tell this by having listened to all of them. To tell someone that their 700 dollar headphone is crap is sheer idiocy. I think people here are far too often overcompensating -- by attacking others they are trying to justify their own purchases and their uncertainty about having made the right choice. Anyway, the only thing that remains universally true is "to each his own".

 

[KR...]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sentral Dogma You should join Team I Hate Head-fi Elitists. Remember, its not Team I Hate Head-fi Elite, the head-fi elite give much to the community. It is Team I Hate Head-fi Elitists, who think their preferred sound is the "right" sound. Insults disguised as sarcastic comments are the worse.

How very elitist of you!

 

[Sentral Dogma]

Quote:

Originally posted by KR... How very elitist of you!

how so?

 

[wallijonn]

Quote:

Originally posted by john_jcb What is a reviewer trying to accomplish with his comments? Are they really unbiased or are they criticizing one amp to make another they have an interest in look better by comparison? When people make comments I think we also need to ask some questions. What is your source? Interconnects? What system are you using as a reference? Saying an amp is dark and slow for instance really means nothing if you do not add some point of comparison.

It is human nature to praise one's newest possession. It is also self-delusional as to what one can now hear (for the most part). Since it is a matter of perspective, what has changed but one's expectation? Are any of us really honest enough with ourselves to acknowledge that we may have just wasted hundreds of dollars which we did not need to? By the same token, some give glowing reviews so that they can create enough interest to be able to get rid of the dud. Just as people over react when reading a good review, they much more over react when reading a bad review. As humans we latch on to what most would consider an inconsequential flaw and magnify it out of proportion to the exclusion of any redeeming qualities. 9 people may praise a product, 1 may condemn it and everyone hangs on the words of the person who trashed a piece of equipment. Why?

It is human to get caught up in hype, but see how quickly the hype dies when just one person says anything bad about the same product.

There are discerning ears here, and their reviews are held in high esteem. Just don't expect to be able to hear the same things that they do, because no two systems are ever exactly the same, much less two identical pieces of equipment or recordings. A first pressing CD will not sound the same as one which is numbered 100,000; how much more an amp that is made on a Monday versus one that is made on a Wednesay or a Friday?; or one that is listened to in Seattle during the rainy season different from one that is being listened to in Chicago during a blizzard? The difference is not in the equipment but in the hearing of the two people. Ride a Miata with the top down for 4 hours and then try to do a review - chances are your ears are very tired, so they will hear differently than when having 12 hours of sleep, much less the hour of the day. You hear much better in the morning and late evening then you do during the middle of the day.

For a good review, tell me that you listened at all different parts of the day, over many days. And you had better not be stressed out when listening.

 

[kelly]

Bias is a funny thing.

I myself am very biased but not in the ways most people seem to think I am. Here are some of my biases:

If two things are very similar, the cheaper one is better. This is almost the anti-cable philosophy. Some people say that we only hear differences because of a placebo effect--we WANT to hear a difference when something costs more. We WANT the more expensive thing to be better. Not I. I'd much rather the cheaper thing be better and sometimes it is. These are the things I'm always looking for in anything whether they're audio components or computer parts.

When I get something new, I am MORE critical of it than at any other time. Oh sure, people have this idea of "He owns it so he wants everyone to think it's great." But nearly everything I buy has a 30 day return policy and I'm known to use that policy! In the first 30 days, I'm practically trying to talk myself out of owning something. I'm looking for flaws that I'm going to have to live with if I end up keeping the thing. (An exception to this might be used gear but used gear is practically break-even so there's no ownership bias at all there for me. I've sold a couple of things before posting any real opinions, as some of you may have noticed.)

I am a technology whore. What does this have to do with anything? If it's a newer technology that's claiming to be better, I'm drooling. I want better everything. But this is also known as setting up expectations and I can be let down rather easily. If something is better enough to make me replace something I already own, it really needs to live up to its claims. But yeah, I have a bias--I want new stuff to have a reason to exist.

And finally, I'm a tad anti-corporate. That almost goes hand in hand with wanting the cheapest best thing but the truth is if two items were identically priced and packaged with identical function and performance but one came from Sony and one came from a mom and pop, I'm probably going to go with the mom and pop. Not always--sometimes it's just not convenient and I realize that's true for others more often than it is for me so I recommend accordingly, but there's a bias there. I'd always rather buy from THE guy running a company than a sales drone.

I've said this before but I'll say it again: ALWAYS question people's motives. I've done my best to stay honest in terms of my reviews (since hey, I don't get paid, journalistic integrity is a luxury I can afford) but I do have my own opinions. And when I tell you something is the best, it's because *I* think it's the best. Sure, I'll tell you if I think some people might like it even if I don't but man, if I didn't think I was right about something, I'd shut up. I promote my own beliefs because I believe in them. I think it is every man's obligation.

 

[KR...]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sentral Dogma how so?

I posted that in jess, but just the fact that you would start a team is in and of itself elitist, since it's whole point is to show how much better you are than them.

Sweet irony my friend.