There's some reasonably meaningful information that I can glean from the various youtube reviewers.
1. Build Quality - does the thing seem well-constructed
2. Fit & Finish - related to 1 but does the thing look and "feel" nice.
3. Features
4. Functionality - do the things in 3 work well?
beyond those items my BS meter starts to redline pretty darned quickly. When it gets to rambling on and on about the "special music sauce" coming from a given item, I'm out ftmp. Frankly, as far as components other than speakers are concerned I really don't need listening impressions at all. The measurements tell me everything I need to know. And even with speakers and headphones measurements get me almost there and hearing what some aging hipster or smug connoisseur thinks about the sound doesn't help me much at all.
Here's what I'd need to see in a Steve G or any of the other subjective audiophile reviewers videos (of speakers specifically) for them to really mean much to me:
1. Establish a baseline for comparison. Pick a set of speakers to use as your point of comparison. These should be moderate cost, and they should be carefully set up and EQ'd for neutrality in your listening room. Ideally, they should be "good" speakers in a measurable sense. Make this public information so I know what you are using for the process.
2. Sit in a chair with a blindfold on and an A/B switcher in your hand and listen to the speakers you are reviewing and switch back and forth between them and your baseline (carefully having volume-matched the 2 sets of course) and describe your impressions while not knowing which speakers you are actually hearing. Pick the ones you prefer and make the result public.
3. Do the same as 2, but this time after having carefully set up and EQ'd the speakers under review for neutrality as well. So now, a blind test with both sets of speakers properly "set up" in the room. Give us your listening impressions (which are blind of course) and choose your favorite. "But why would you want to EQ all speakers so they sound the same???" say the subjectivists. Simple - because if I can EQ speakers so they all sound the same, why do I need to spend thousands of dollars on speakers? I'm not in audio to see how much money I can spend on gear. I'm interested in getting great sound for as little money as possible. I want to try and determine at what point I can stop spending more because I won't get any audible improvement.
I think watching a video of any of these guys doing the above would be fascinating and extremely revealing. However, I also think there'd probably be a lot fewer of them before too long if they did do that. Watching Steve G pick his baseline speakers instead of the review set costing 5 or 10 times as much a few times would be highly entertaining! lol...
