Why aren't there more honest and objective reviewers like ASR and Amir?

[noiseangel]

What a refreshing change it is to come here after reading the diatribe on other reviewing websites which always give favourable reviews no matter what they review or how bad it really is. There is never any detailed measurements or objective testing on the products and they always sing their praises. Its like the actual review is being lead by the vendor of the equipment.

Its as though they are being paid to review it in that way so they can continue to receive money for so called sponsorship's, when in actual fact it is just regurgitated manufacturer advertising blurbs for products that don't cut the mustard like what PS Audio has been exposed for by Amir. When he does expose this he cops crap which is totally unjustified when measurements DON'T LIE.

Im sure many people have bought products that have been reviewed by websites such as stereo***au and others only to come here and find out how crappy they really are. At least comments here are NOT CENSORED or members banned for having an opinion. If something is bad it should be called.

 

[Berwhale]

Welcome to ASR!

 

[renaudrenaud]

Why? Because you have to change the business first.

 

[Thomas savage]

Money, invested interests both commercial and social.

Welcome!

 

[noiseangel]

Welcome to ASR!

Thanks mate I love the honesty on here.

 

[dkinric]

Cognitive bias is a helluva drug

 

[noiseangel]

Cognitive bias is a helluva drug

Like $2500 power cables compared to a kettle cord?

 

[lemnoc]

You’ve got to understand that most audio reviewers wouldn’t know one end of a diode from another and have no idea about the underlying technology underneath the lid nor would they own any test equipment or even know how to use it properly. Like you said all you will hear is a rehash of the manufacturers blurb and/or how wide the sound stage is and disguise it as some sort of official review. LOL I think I would put stereo*** in that category too when it comes to reviews. Good for a laugh especially their glowing commentary of the PS Audio Direct Stream DAC that ASR slammed not so long ago.

 

[Razorhelm]

Also measuring equipment can be very expensive.
Many audiophiles do not like being told their equipment is bad.
Audio equipment is often expensive so it's hard to review large numbers of products without manufacturer's support and most unsurprisingly prefer to support sites which give them good reviews no matter what.

Amirm does an awesome community service here, along with everyone who sends items in for review.
Thanks to you all

 

[noiseangel]

Also measuring equipment can be very expensive.
Many audiophiles do not like being told their equipment is bad.
Audio equipment is often expensive so it's hard to review large numbers of products without manufacturer's support and most unsurprisingly prefer to support sites which give them good reviews no matter what.

Amirm does an awesome community service here, along with everyone who sends items in for review.
Thanks to you all

Granted test equipment is expensive. PS Audio turnover is probably in the millions of $$$ a year, so why does the direct stream DAC measure so bad? They have money, they own the test gear, did they not turn it on that morning? Perhaps the guys designing the gear don't know how to turn it on. I don't have an answer but if i bought one of those DAC's I would want my money back.

 

[lemnoc]

Also measuring equipment can be very expensive.
Many audiophiles do not like being told their equipment is bad.
Audio equipment is often expensive so it's hard to review large numbers of products without manufacturer's support and most unsurprisingly prefer to support sites which give them good reviews no matter what.

Amirm does an awesome community service here, along with everyone who sends items in for review.
Thanks to you all

These reviewers profiting out of lame reviews have no money to purchase test equipment ?? Next question is how long would they last as a business doing reviews which scrutinized the hardware like ASR does ?? LOL

 

[Jimbob54]

Because Amir despatches his nefarious henchman to dispose of any pretenders to the throne.

 

[Killingbeans]

Granted test equipment is expensive. PS Audio turnover is probably in the millions of $$$ a year, so why does the direct stream DAC measure so bad?

They turn to alchemy when science doesn't give them the result they were expecting.

 

[outerspace]

Because when you come to objective and scientific side you realize most of the DACs and amps are transparent, most of headphones, if equalized to one target, sound the same, only one really important thing for most of speakers is on-axis and off-axis frequency response, cognitive biases are huge and inevitable, etc. If all will know it then audiophile market shrink to zero. There will be very little to discuss or to buy. But gladly for sellers, marketologists and reviewers people will always be irrational and ignorant in some fields of activity.

 

[Jimbob54]

Granted test equipment is expensive. PS Audio turnover is probably in the millions of $$$ a year, so why does the direct stream DAC measure so bad? They have money, they own the test gear, did they not turn it on that morning? Perhaps the guys designing the gear don't know how to turn it on. I don't have an answer but if i bought one of those DAC's I would want my money back.

Disclaimer - I have never heard any PS audio DAC.

I think the simple answer is PS audio dont build them to measure well and neither do their customers care.

Their whole schtick and therefore justification for price is the story about how they get to the end result and that measurements arent the full story.

Now, that would be all fair and good, not what many ASR folks would view as a good approach for building or buying a DAC, but all well and good . IF IT SOUNDED DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER DAC. I am not aware of any properly conducted test where anyone has been able to determine a difference between their DACs or any other properly functioning unit when level matched and blind.

So , their customers are happy because they believe it does its job exceptionally well (it must do, their music sounds great and they paid $000 for it) and their brains tell them its the DAC doing its magic. We take a bit of guilty pleasure in knowing they overpaid for what is viewed here as "poor" performance.

I'm also pretty sure PS audio know exactly how their DACs measure both during the design process and on release. Schiit are living proof that manufs that make terribly measuring DACs can also build very accurate ones when that is what they choose to do. PS audio have clearly not felt that need. I am sure they could- but that would be a little upsetting for their target market.

 

[Zensō]

The high-end audio market, like other luxury markets, is more about status/wealth-signaling than what it purports to be about (high fidelity audio). I think this is particularly bad in audio due to expectation bias and the vanishingly small sonic differences between budget and exorbitantly expensive gear (with less expensive gear ironically often providing higher performance). Most subjective reviewers are simply taking advantage of this dynamic to further their personal goals (mostly to generate income I assume).

 

[617]

Amir is legitimately crazy.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Because audio manufacturers will not send or loan their equipment to an objective reviewer. Someone like Amir, or Archimago or Peter Aczel before him are rare because they will tell people that a piece of equipment is just junk. I remember the last time that happened someone at Stereophile panned a solid state piece of equipment made by Conrad Johnson (branded under another name which I think was Motif) and CJ refused to send anything to a Stereophile reviewer for years after that, so bad reviews are a no go in formerly underground audiophile magazines like TAS and Stereophile because they depend on those manufacturers for equipment loans and advertising revenue--in short for their very existence.

By contrast the three reviewers I mentioned earlier take no advertising and their equipment loans come (or came in the case of Aczel for the most part) from the audiophiles themselves. This allows them to be objective and at times brutally honest in their critiques.

 

[suttondesign]

But gladly for sellers, marketologists and reviewers people will always be irrational and ignorant in some fields of activity.

And very few reviewers are so rational as to digest NKS, much less consider a cellular automaton a good avatar.

 

[CDMC]

I think the simple answer is PS audio dont build them to measure well and neither do their customers care.

Their whole schtick and therefore justification for price is the story about how they get to the end result and that measurements arent the full story.

I'm also pretty sure PS audio know exactly how their DACs measure both during the design process and on release. Schiit are living proof that manufs that make terribly measuring DACs can also build very accurate ones when that is what they choose to do. PS audio have clearly not felt that need. I am sure they could- but that would be a little upsetting for their target market.

You hit exactly why PS Audio and other companies continue to sell underperforming products for high prices and succeed far better than companies with better products. PS Audio and most "high end" companies are selling a story and prestige, not specifications, not quality. It is the same reason people purchase a Bentley, Rolex, Brioni suits, and Tiffany. They aren't interested in the best quality, they aren't interested in the best performance, they aren't interested in value, they are interested in the story and prestige and will rationalize a multitude of reasons for their purchase rather than admit the truth, i.e. I bought it because I like it, it makes me feel good, it impresses others.

Even the most rational among us suffer from this. Just one example, you go out on a date, you take your nice car if you have more than one. When I go to meet a new client, I take my Porsche or my wife's BMW instead of my 24 year old Toyota Land Cruiser, even thought that is what I drive most of the time and prefer. Why? People equate the quality of their attorney with their office, the suits they wear to court, how much they charge and the vehicle they drive. Very few people are comfortable with an attorney that shows up in a Honda Civic. The fact is there is no correlation between the foregoing reasons people choose an attorney and the actual quality of the attorney. I have litigated against $800 an hour attorneys that are clueless and terrible at their job and $200 an hour attorneys that are among the best in their profession.