I tend to see good in most people and choose to give them the benefit off the doubt until I have determined they don't deserve it. Certainly there are people with ulterior motives.
-
Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Stereophile Recommended Components 2024
- Thread starter GXAlan
- Start date
You do this among paid shills?
I don't understand the question. Are you suggesting that every paid reviewer is amoral?
Whenever I read an article on virtually and subject, I try to evaluate the point of view and bias of the writer before considering the information to be factual or useful. This goes for food recommendations, travel recommendations, political opinions etc.
Ones who make extraordinary claims without actual tests are either amoral or stupid. Ones who knowingly and actively try to mislead readers about the vital importance of basic controls in order to sell more ads or gather more clicks are either amoral or immoral.
It's the 99% who give the rest a bad name.
Last edited:
Multicore
Major Contributor
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2021
- Messages
- 4,567
- Likes
- 5,987
That's a thought. Perhaps the more analogous tradition in religious literature is hagiography. Each unit under test/review is a person somewhere from Pilgrim and Saint.
HiOne who make extraordinary claims without actual tests are either amoral or stupid. Ones who knowingly and actively try to mislead readers about the vital importance of basic controls in order to sell more ads or gather more clicks are either amoral or immoral.
It's the 99% who give the rest a bad name.
I am with you
but would not go as far.It is cynicism: Many (most?) of these people, know.
They also know that the money, the profit are in perpetuating those lies. And the vast majority of audiophiles, IME, believe
I would not call those who believe: "stupid". I would use "ignorant". I was one of them a few years ago.
The subjectivism ecosystem is strong. IME stronger than the movement toward educating audiophiles. As an exemple, Darko has about 345,000 subscribers.. meanwhile ASR has 37500 almost 1/10th...
OTOH , things are changing, and for the best, ASR (37.500) has more YouTube subscribers than S'Phile... (35,000) not by much but a sign of things turning toward the right direction...
Peace.
I would too. But I was specifically talking about the reviewers, not their readers/viewers. I can't even watch or read these people, the morass of idiocy or cupidity is just depressing.
And those are the ones whom I think of as absolutely dishonest and immoral.
Well I'm way more into ASR than the average Darko follower I'm sure, but his music recommendations are ace, as are his video production values. Both of those things get me to check him out every now and then. And have you ever tried a discussion with our august host when perspectives differ? It isn't pretty. So there's more to those numbers I reckon.
DoctorRobert
Member
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2020
- Messages
- 73
- Likes
- 156
I cannot help myself but wanting to chime in, in the discussion between pure objectivists and the 'let 1000 flowers grow and 1000 voices speak' approach.
I am totally OK with the idea that people buy audio equipment for other reasons than pure performance. I do it myself. The looks of stuff matter to me. I own and wear (not at the same time ;-)) more than one mechanical watch. However where it goes wrong is, that some people were lead to believe that when they spend more money, they will get better performing equipment. I have explained my neighbor a few times that buying expensive speaker cable (and putting it out of sight) is just wasting money. DACs are basically solved technology. If you want to buy a Transrotor record player, be my guest, but don't expect that is going to sound better than your everyday streamer.
A magazine like Stereophile continues to suggest that there is a magic sound quality that can be revealed to you if you pay the entrance fee, which is a lot. Good audio quality is much more a question of getting the basics right and room correction. (My best sounding system is also my cheapest, at my computer, where I have a relatively fixed position and can correct easily with REW). If people buy audio stuff as juwelry, it is totally OK. But too many spend substantial money on what are basically lies and fables, also spread by magazines like this. And that is not good. At all. And if you want to see that as a difference of opinion, then to me that is the difference of opinion between the judge and the thief.
I am totally OK with the idea that people buy audio equipment for other reasons than pure performance. I do it myself. The looks of stuff matter to me. I own and wear (not at the same time ;-)) more than one mechanical watch. However where it goes wrong is, that some people were lead to believe that when they spend more money, they will get better performing equipment. I have explained my neighbor a few times that buying expensive speaker cable (and putting it out of sight) is just wasting money. DACs are basically solved technology. If you want to buy a Transrotor record player, be my guest, but don't expect that is going to sound better than your everyday streamer.
A magazine like Stereophile continues to suggest that there is a magic sound quality that can be revealed to you if you pay the entrance fee, which is a lot. Good audio quality is much more a question of getting the basics right and room correction. (My best sounding system is also my cheapest, at my computer, where I have a relatively fixed position and can correct easily with REW). If people buy audio stuff as juwelry, it is totally OK. But too many spend substantial money on what are basically lies and fables, also spread by magazines like this. And that is not good. At all. And if you want to see that as a difference of opinion, then to me that is the difference of opinion between the judge and the thief.
I don't really care much. If people want to waste their money, but enjoy doing it, what's the harm really?
Look at expensive performance cars. What a waste of money if you obey the rules of the road and don't drive like a moron. Same difference, paying for looks and quality of build. The roads are not for fun so performance cars are no different than audio jewellery really.
Look at expensive performance cars. What a waste of money if you obey the rules of the road and don't drive like a moron. Same difference, paying for looks and quality of build. The roads are not for fun so performance cars are no different than audio jewellery really.
How about introducing luxury tax on this ultra expensive gear? Not a friend of tax at all, but there are instances of taxing certain behaviour (like progressive taxes on performance cars in EU, tobacco or gasoline taxes). Going back to my previous post, if someone can pay $375K for turntable, they might as well pay $375K in extra luxury tax to feed the poor.
Lucky buyers would even have more to show off with. Their $375K piece of gear just became $750K piece of gear and at least couple of tax dollars will eventually reach the ones that need them (after government wastefully spends most of it).
Lucky buyers would even have more to show off with. Their $375K piece of gear just became $750K piece of gear and at least couple of tax dollars will eventually reach the ones that need them (after government wastefully spends most of it).
Nope, there is a clear difference. Those expensive sports cars really do perform better, and their better performance has been conclusively proved using objective test methods.
The fact that their extra performance can't be legally utilized on public roads is a completely different matter.
MattHooper
Grand Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 11,332
- Likes
- 20,218
I’ve come to like Darkos channel. It’s very well produced, often entertaining, and informative.
Does he have some views that I disagree with? Sure. But I’m a big boy, I can make my way through somebody else’s claims and decide what I find plausible, valuable or not.
But then I’ve never been inclined to entirely dismiss someone just because there are some things we disagree about. Especially if they also bring some good stuff to the table.
Just like I can weed my way through the occasional dogmatism on ASR, to appreciate lots of great content.
Darko's okay, at least if I watch his stuff I don't switch off after a minute like I do with some of the others. He doesn't waffle and, as you say, there's sometimes useful info.
He has pretty good taste in music, too.
I just don't forget his is is just a sales and marketing channel, like most of them. But then I often used to watch the 30 minute Karcher pressure washer infomercial too.
Never bought one, but it was a great infomercial.
anything other than a topping amp is total BS...everything else is fake crapRecommended Components Fall 2024 Edition | Stereophile.com
Every product listed here has been reviewed in Stereophile. Everything on the list, regardless of rating, is genuinely recommendable. Occasionally we get letters of complaint from manufacturers who object to being included in, say, Class B—but inclusion in Class B is a thing to be proud of...www.stereophile.com
One of the highlights is seeing the Storm Audio ISP Evo getting A+ for digital processors not just for theater use.
For amps, AHB2 and Schiit Tyr in A class.
I think the speaker list is interesting in showing how preferences can deviate. B&W for example has the ability to make neutral speakers but chooses not to and in the rooms that the listeners are choosing they do seem to like it.
Importantly, many of the reviewers probably have lost their high frequency hearing so the uptilt may not be as noxious in blind testing as compared to the measurements might predict. The strengths of the rest may translate into a good experience.
The one missing part of audio science is *how* stereo imaging masks frequency response irregularities. We know that mono listening helps distinguish speakers and what is preferred in mono is also preferred in stereo, but I would imagine that there may be ways to enhance the masking effect of stereo and one analysis of the B&W treble involves how much HF gets thrown backward.
MattHooper
Grand Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
- Messages
- 11,332
- Likes
- 20,218
The practical result is the same, no benefit for money spent.
No. You can take a high performance sports car to a race track and enjoy the use of superior performance there. Wherever You take Your expensive audiophool equipment, it still does not perform the way a snake oil salesman claimed it would.
Do you want to guess what % of sport and suspersportcars are driven aggressively on track by the owners? In many cases... driven at all? :-D They serve the purpose of jewelry, which is basically identical to audiophile esoterica. *Every* human hobby is about embracing passion and abandoning rationality.
Similar threads
