Recent content by rdenney

It’s the test protocol and the transparency with which it and the resulting measurements are reported that makes a review authoritative. A paid reviewer’s measurements are still useful unless the reviewer is lying about the test protocol. But dishonesty can happen whether or not the reviewer is...

I don’t care if test equipment is up to any particular standard, as long as it works as intended and is fully disclosed. Amateur review equipment is fine on a hobbyist site. Ethics don’t require fancy equipment—ethics requires honest disclosure and commitment to good faith evaluation. A Umik and...

Then why were they described by the manufacturer as "extra-linear"? And why the harassment? If he never intended them to have a flat response, he could just say so instead of attacking everything in sight because it revealed that they are not, in fact, "extra-linear." This is a common issue...

I’ve been thinking about this. An organization with an established legal fund and a logo is a deterrent. Member reviewers can post the logo…”Member of …” and adhere to a basic canon of ethics (rather than submit to some testing standard that may merely serve to make hobbyist reviews...

Whereas this would be a weakness in any outlet with journalistic pretensions, it's actually not a bad position for individuals who write casual reviews on the Internet. Back in the early days of online activity, I was deeply involved in triathlon groups and also in bicycle science groups...

You’re in a drive-through. You ordered a drink and it was served at near boiling. Also, the lid wasn’t properly installed or it was ill-fitting so that the mere acting of taking it from the drive-through clerk caused it to pop off. It had been filled to the brim, and you were holding at an...

In any situation leading to litigation, and from my non-lawyer perspective, there are two things one must ascertain: 1.) is the law favorable to my defense, and 2.) do I have a good set of facts? So, the first service of such an organization would be to provide a library of the characteristics...

It looks to me like Thomas Norton threw the fit. The measurements were good and did not in any way explain the first reviewer's impressions. His own subjective listening heard a few of the same effects as the first reviewer, but did not draw the same conclusion about the overall sound. And that...

They are trained (noting the difference between training and education) to apply accepted methodologies in appropriate contexts. Example: Does most any structural engineer question, say, the ASTM Steel Manual? They do not--they accept that the Steel Manual has been validated by the credentials...

Data. Yes, there are reviewers in various fields out there who make pronouncements and don't allow a response. Fortunately, none of the review channels relevant to this topic are limited in that way. All of them allow open rebuttal, and real data in that rebuttal can be persuasive. This is...

I keep reading stuff like this and it bugs me. Good engineers are good engineers precisely because they are empathetic, if by that one adopts the definition of feeling what others feel. Being able to crawl inside the user's perspective in understanding use cases and user needs has been a...

A couple of mine, still a work in progress. I'm thinking of one of the usual variations on one of the usual arrangements of various phases of the event with these two plus two or three others. These aren't much different from others, except that they’re mine. :) Camera was a Pentax 645Z...

Journalism ethics does imply a right of reply on the part of persons targeted in an article. The BBC describes their policy for such here. The reply itself can be a statement or a quote, as long as it is fairly reported. The journalist is responsible to explain what's being claimed with enough...

C&D letters are common, perhaps, but that doesn't mean well-meaning people shouldn't push back on them. Often, it is not used to notify an infringer in good faith, but to intimidate someone into believing they are an infringer whether or not they really are. It's used in that way because it so...

Hmmm. Roger Russell acquired the first anechoic chamber at McIntosh Labs in 1972 and built a very large walk-in chamber in 1978. Are the 70's long enough ago to be "old school?" And they had analyzers for measuring spectra long before that. Some of these would trace spectra out on moving...