Most idiotic subjective review comments

[DonR]

Paucity of Rigour And Trustworthiness

Poor Recollection and Tinnitus

 

[Phorize]

Poor Recollection and Tinnitus

Profit Related Audio Tosh

 

[MattHooper]

On the other hand, if Herb R. tells me that the latest Sharknado cable, featuring platinum plated locking Jaws plugs, gives improved front to back depth, I'm putting that opinion in the idiotic category.

Understandable. I'd put it in the "ignore" category myself.


That said: personally, I don't dismiss someone who falls prey to bias effects - all of us are susceptible. And from someone being wrong I don't conclude they are always wrong. For instance I've seen some pretty bad arguments from otherwise technically knowledgeable people here, but I don't therefore put everything they say in the "B.S." bin. I keep attuned to notice when they do in fact offer good arguments/evidence.

On the same note, while that cable review goes in to my "B.S" folder, I've found Herb to write some insightful impressions of gear I'm familiar with or have owned (e.g. speakers).

 

[Vacceo]

Just posted on a video from OCD Mike some hours ago: "Chinese speaker with a Jewish name, if that doesn't tip you off that there is a lot of profit in that puppy, then you better go back to school".

Sure, I work in a school. I teach about people like you, they are called racist scum who, under the right circumstances, look the other way when genocide comes.

Google the video of you want, I'm not linking that filth to give visits to a human waste like that.

 

[RayDunzl]

Most idiotic subjective review comments

If the review of music itself is to be included, maybe check out Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective...

Example:

Arnold Schoenberg

"A regular Friday audience, 90 percent feminine and 100 percent well-bred, sat stoically yesterday through thirty minutes of the most cacophonous world premiere ever heard here -- the first performance anywhere of a new Violin Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg....Yesterday's piece combines the best sound effects of a hen yard at feeding time, a brisk morning in Chinatown and practice hour at a busy music conservatory. The effect on the vast majority of hearers is that of a lecture on the fourth dimension delivered in Chinese."

(1940 review in the Philadelphia Record, p. 163)

 

[anmpr1]

If the review of music itself is to be included, maybe check out Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective...

Musical taste has always been up and down. But in the case of Schoenberg, was the review invective? Some might point to his use in analogy of China and Chinese. Or possibly chickens and higher dimensional speculation, No doubt it was invective, directed toward Schoenberg. The newspaper reviewer (sourced by Slonimsky) reported how the composition was essentially incomprehensible to western ears. I think that is valid. He might have been unfair to hens. Probably he was. The reviewer's reference to women was, no doubt, a subtle hint at fashion over substance, but the audience was polite albeit perplexed. In that, he was calling Schoenberg fashion music. Something you were supposed to like because you were supposed to like it, even if it didn't fit well.

Using cultural analogies is helpful, but often not accepted in a certain 'polite' society. One thing I concluded from my extended stay there... Chinese is a tonal language that is quite difficult to understand (and speak), for those brought up in western romance languages, and languages stemming from Anglo-Saxon and German, etc.. In fact, enunciation is seriously difficult, much harder than reading and understanding Chinese characters. Many homophones making understanding words out of context impossible. Phonetic reading is, of course, out of the question.

One can find the same sort of reaction in westerner's confrontation with the Chinese opera-- in my mind one of the most beautiful and aesthetically coherent art-forms ever produced by the mind of man. However, I would not be mistaken if I conclude that for most westerners it is incomprehensible, totally unlistenable as a source of musical enjoyment. Even many younger Chinese scratch their heads over it.

One thing I would question, though, is the reviewer's reference to the 'brisk morning in Chinatown'. I presume his was a reference to Philadelphia? In China, at least in the large cities, there is no 'brisk morning' hubbub. Everything is 24/7.

Anent Schoenberg. He had his own prejudices, having no compunction criticizing what he didn't understand very well, especially when he figured that his own musical and compositional 'talent' was questioned. For example [discussed in Prophets of Decline, the Worldviews of Heinrich Schenker and Oswald Spengler], Schoenberg looked away from Spengler's culture-civilization critique of 'modern' music. Why? Because for Arnold, Spengler was simply 'not musical', and therefore had little business going about saying anything important toward the topic. A non-sequitor, inasmuch as the very form of Spengler’s book [Decline of the West] demonstrates both a mythic depth and an inspired poesy/prose style—one that, by analogy and in comparison, exists much higher within the aesthetic hierarchy than anything Schoenberg created using mere notes. The problem here is that Arnold took it personally. You can never take things too personally if you are a professional.

My point? Using an ethnic or cultural analogy in a meaningful context, in order to compare and contrast, is not ipso facto something that is necessarily (or even quite possibly) a slur, idiotic or invective. A slur happens when one consciously denigrates another group, because they are a group. I don't think that was the reviewer's intent at all (I admit to not knowing his views on China and Chinese, only his views on Schoenberg's violin concerto, so I could have it wrong). I do draw the line at criticizing chickens. They can't help themselves.

Finally, in judgement, one must beware of committing an anachronism. The review was 1940.

 

[mhardy6647]

If the review of music itself is to be included, maybe check out Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective...

Example:

Arnold Schoenberg

"A regular Friday audience, 90 percent feminine and 100 percent well-bred, sat stoically yesterday through thirty minutes of the most cacophonous world premiere ever heard here -- the first performance anywhere of a new Violin Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg....Yesterday's piece combines the best sound effects of a hen yard at feeding time, a brisk morning in Chinatown and practice hour at a busy music conservatory. The effect on the vast majority of hearers is that of a lecture on the fourth dimension delivered in Chinese."

(1940 review in the Philadelphia Record, p. 163)

so... yeah... did the critic like it, or otherwise?
Can't quite tell...

 

[composer]

There are some words that should be less to instant jail when used in audio domain.

One of those is "transparent"

 

[composer]

If the review of music itself is to be included, maybe check out Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective...

Example:

Arnold Schoenberg

"A regular Friday audience, 90 percent feminine and 100 percent well-bred, sat stoically yesterday through thirty minutes of the most cacophonous world premiere ever heard here -- the first performance anywhere of a new Violin Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg....Yesterday's piece combines the best sound effects of a hen yard at feeding time, a brisk morning in Chinatown and practice hour at a busy music conservatory. The effect on the vast majority of hearers is that of a lecture on the fourth dimension delivered in Chinese."

(1940 review in the Philadelphia Record, p. 163)

Well the "worst" in music history, was yet to come
There were at time serious clinical studies claiming that Schoenberg's music was unhealthy for your body

 

[antcollinet]

There are some words that should be less to instant jail when used in audio domain.

One of those is "transparent"

What is wrong with transparent.

Your host here uses it often.

Relatively easily understood, as what goes in is what comes out (like light through a transparent window). No distortion* no change in FR* etc

*audible

 

[MattHooper]

There are some words that should be less to instant jail when used in audio domain.

One of those is "transparent"

Why? It can be a serviceable description.

trans·par·ent

• (of a material or article) allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen.
• easy to perceive or detect.

Take speaker A which has plenty of colorations and resonances. These can obscure sonic details about the recording and call attention to the sound of the speaker itself. Then take speaker B which is free of those colorations and resonances. The result is that, unlike speaker A you can more easily "hear through" or "hear past" the sound of the speaker (they "disappear" sonically) and the details of the recording are presented without some being obscured or distorted. Also allowing you to more "easily perceive or detect" the character and details in the recording.

Describing speaker B as "more transparent" seems a perfectly apt use of descriptive language.

 

[Steve81]

The Sound​

From initial listening, the LEAR LUF 4C conveys a wintery cool sound signature with crystal clear highs and tight lows. The sound styling can best be described as a frost-covered meadowland perturbed by rays from the distant sun. That is to say that the sound is not overly cold as you may expect in balanced-armature sets but the LUF-4C does manage to work a degree of warmth into tracks.

Courtesy of AH surprisingly.

 

[egellings]

Does it come with a serving of special sauce?

 

[Spkrdctr]

Geez! You guys never let me down. As a unrepentant snake oil discoverer (well, I used to be). I found this thread just now. Lo and behold, I read all 6 pages and your submitted material of pure BS and Scamming has given me chest pains! Where else on the internet can I go and read 6 pages and have chest pains? Only ASR and our faithful members can bring so much quackery into a thread that it causes me to reach for medication. Oh and I want to call you all out, I have taken so much medication from the snake oil brought forth on this site and properly ridiculed, that my Doctors will not give me any more pills!!! So, chest pains and no pills. I guess that is a sign that ASR members are the best at what they do. Shining the light of truth on the unending stream of snake oil products in audio. Job well done guys!

 

[anmpr1]

I read all 6 pages and your submitted material of pure BS and Scamming has given me chest pains!

Chest pains, eh? Are you sure it's the posts? There seems to be a lot of that going around, lately. Probably, just a coincidence.

On the other hand, for your ASR dollar, where else can you get this kind of 'you never know what you are going to find in the box' experience? Where else? I've been around here for a while, and I continue to be pleasantly amazed, often surprised, and always come back for more.

 

[Ornette]

How about some idiotic comments by a cable manufacturer whilst being interviewed by a subjective reviewer?

Well, we make the less expensive XYZ interconnect on a machine—[...] But we also make handmade interconnects that take over an hour to build just for one pair, which we then run through some tests and give a serial number to.

When we build 'em by hand, we can scrutinize the materials through listening tests before putting them in the cable. Whenever I get a new spool of conductor material, we build a test assembly and listen to the signal in one direction, then flip it around and listen in the other direction. I mark the spool with the direction of the cable. What direction they wind up in the cable itself is dependent on which cable it's going in. It may run in either one direction or another! In many cables, we'll run it in one direction in 6'-and-under lengths, and flip it around for longer lengths. If we made it all by machine, we couldn't do any of this.

Another thing: We may run the signal wire in one direction and the ground wire in the other. Whatever sounds best. When we build our most expensive stuff, the XXYYZZ, sometimes it's murder to find a spool of cable or conductor material to build it with. People want 'em, but we can't get the materials that have the sound for it.

 

[Ken1951]

How about some idiotic comments by a cable manufacturer whilst being interviewed by a subjective reviewer?

Well, we make the less expensive XYZ interconnect on a machine—[...] But we also make handmade interconnects that take over an hour to build just for one pair, which we then run through some tests and give a serial number to.

When we build 'em by hand, we can scrutinize the materials through listening tests before putting them in the cable. Whenever I get a new spool of conductor material, we build a test assembly and listen to the signal in one direction, then flip it around and listen in the other direction. I mark the spool with the direction of the cable. What direction they wind up in the cable itself is dependent on which cable it's going in. It may run in either one direction or another! In many cables, we'll run it in one direction in 6'-and-under lengths, and flip it around for longer lengths. If we made it all by machine, we couldn't do any of this.

Another thing: We may run the signal wire in one direction and the ground wire in the other. Whatever sounds best. When we build our most expensive stuff, the XXYYZZ, sometimes it's murder to find a spool of cable or conductor material to build it with. People want 'em, but we can't get the materials that have the sound for it.

Drug induced delusion. It's amazing these folks can get these words out.

 

[anmpr1]

When we build our most expensive stuff, the XXYYZZ, sometimes it's murder to find a spool of cable or conductor material to build it with.

Is that an actual quote? Very funny. Murder, eh? Since Cable Guy is in a forensic mood, he might have said, "...sometimes it's murder to find a spool of cable or conductor material to build it with, but when we find it, it's highway robbery what we charge our customers!

 

[irontortoise]

How about some idiotic comments by a cable manufacturer whilst being interviewed by a subjective reviewer?

Well, we make the less expensive XYZ interconnect on a machine—[...] But we also make handmade interconnects that take over an hour to build just for one pair, which we then run through some tests and give a serial number to.

When we build 'em by hand, we can scrutinize the materials through listening tests before putting them in the cable. Whenever I get a new spool of conductor material, we build a test assembly and listen to the signal in one direction, then flip it around and listen in the other direction. I mark the spool with the direction of the cable. What direction they wind up in the cable itself is dependent on which cable it's going in. It may run in either one direction or another! In many cables, we'll run it in one direction in 6'-and-under lengths, and flip it around for longer lengths. If we made it all by machine, we couldn't do any of this.

Another thing: We may run the signal wire in one direction and the ground wire in the other. Whatever sounds best. When we build our most expensive stuff, the XXYYZZ, sometimes it's murder to find a spool of cable or conductor material to build it with. People want 'em, but we can't get the materials that have the sound for it.

Translation:
“We buy this cable premade in bulk for the cheapest Chinese factory we can. Then we mark it up to CRAZY prices and tell a ridiculous story about them. Then people buy it from us! I’m about to buy my second yacht! Thanks for helping us con those folks. High five!”

 

[anmpr1]

Generally, the music scene hasn't gotten to the point of 'high end' audio weirdness. Most musicians tend to live on the 'bang for the buck' end of the price point. Although when it comes to guitars, there's just as much weirdness as in high-end audio. However it usually takes a different form.

I found this while slumming. $85.00. My bet is that they are well made, although I'm not sure the intended customer. In any case, since I can't play like Joe, I'll stick with twenty dollar generics.