While checking out what other websites are talking about the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest I came across this thread at Steve Hoffman’s forum:

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=153011

Which talks about what kind of music a new exhibitor should bring to a show with them.

I don’t know who any of these people are, I am not registered there and the site does not let you see people profiles unless you are registered .

Well, besides disagreeing vociferously with the suggestion that exhibitors should not play show-goer’s CDs because they will invariably sound bad [a true signature of a bad sounding system all around, eh? If the system can’t play the music that an audiophile loves, then what use is that system for that audiophile? An accent for the livingroom decor?] - our suggestion would be to bring music that you love.

If the exhibitor brings music they love, or just music they want to play to see what it is like, then at least one person [i.e. the exhibitor] in the room will be enjoying the music. Sure, show some eclecticism - don’t just bring country, but bring some of your runners up like western and rock-a-billy and country-rock and bluegrass, etc.

This has the side effects of at least putting the exhibitor in a good mood and of attracting ‘like minds’ who love the same music. There is also a level of honesty implicit in this kind of approach - which we happen to think is a good thing.

Yeah, we get blasted for this approach [as being ‘unprofessional’] from some other dealers and reviewers - who, in another industry, would not let people test drive their prospective new car, or maybe just for 2 or 3 minutes [yes, there are still car dealers out here like that - ones that we visit just ONCE] nor review a car without Corinthian leather bucket seats [OK, my metaphor sucks - but moving on…].

This year I feel that we want to bring mostly things we have gotten recently: a CD by the Dave Holland Quintet - Extended Play [yeah, yeah, plenty good audiophile quality - but the songs are long - a no no at shows and it is complex enough that it’s depths are hard to plumb in just a few listenings… like Radiohead … except it is Jazz . Oh, and way less complex than Sun Ra or even Ornette Coleman - or is that Ornette Coleman and even Sun Ra?].

Anything else? I don’t know … usually we just do a mad rush through here and pick things we like and want to hear. The only problem is that Neli and I usually disagree significantly on the selection. So - we just end up with a his and hers side on the CD and LP collection at the show.

Mike Fremer and J.A. seem to be of the opinion that the Mass Media is to blame for the small size of the audiophile marketplace - as they editorialize in Stereophile.

regmac over at the Asylum described problems with this perspetive [look, I post a link to the show report there then I kind of check to see if there are any questions, and so I am over there. So I peek around to see what is happening. Seems that people are a little nicer to me and nastier to each other over there].

Messrs. Atkinson and Fremer are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore!

I agree with most of the thrust of this post - essentially that the Mass Media is the mass media. They conspire to help their owner corporations make more money in every way this side of blatant murder - and they just don’t seem to be focusing much on keeping high-end audio out of the hands of wealthy adults.

So, lets look at this a minute.

We want more people in high-end audio? It is called marketing. It is a known science.

Dealer organizations, Manufacturer organizations, and dealers and manufacturers themselves can put ads in U.S. Today, the Wall Street Journal, NYT, Inquirer, Car and Driver, Robb Report, … whatever.

Depending on the quality of marketing, and the investment, … and considering that we are starting out with essentially zero percent of the population, we could double, triple, … even grow the market by 10 times without relying on GREAT marketing [great marketing is Apple’s marketing of the iPod and iPhone].

The problem is, how many manufacturers could handle this? Some are at capacity now. Some can grow by 2X .. maybe. The ones not shipping anything can fill in the gaps, but then we have all these new people in the hobby getting second rate gear.

And what about customer service, repairs, and reliability?

So, the growth would have to be slow if it is not to collapse and make a bigger mess of things than they are now.

If we accept that dealer’s graphical restrictions makes it counter-productive for them to run ads, and that dealer and manufacturer organizations are hard to start, hard to keep from going corrupt, and hard to raise funds within a hobby that is shrinking,… then we are left with the fact that it is the manufacturers (M) that need to advertise. OK, like Honda or, say, Bose.

In order for the M. to justify this, they need to have a good dealer network, spare capacity to deliver product, a product that does not change versions every Tuesday, a product that is reliable, and enough profits to be able to afford to advertise.

I think that the number of M’s that satisfy all these requirements must be close to zero - which is why we don’t see these ads. [except for the every Tuesday part, Esoteric might be close].

There are a lot of pieces and parts of the show report - kind of sprinkled in amongst almost 2000 photos - and even I forget where I said what.

But one of the themes this year was influenced by a ‘Cranky Geeks’ episode (online or special TiVo download) that crystallized, for me, the problem with most reviews in our industry. Although Cranky Geeks was talking about the software industry - it applied equally well to ours [and the Washington Press Core as well, but let’s not go there].

That is that the press is serving as the Public Relations arm of the Industry. The corporations. They take press releases [well, in high-end audio, we don’t need no stinking press releases - so our reviewers have to do more work], massage it, and spit it back out as a review.

Thinking about this off and on during the last few weeks as I do the kind of laborious task of juggling CES photos, I think that there are telltale signs of reviews that are really just PR - that really just server as pages for the industry to link to, to serve as an incentive for the industry to donate free equipment to get more of, a safe place to advertise on.

And those signs are that it reads like PR.

PR, like your prototypical salesperson, never, ever, ever say anything bad about what they are selling. Nothing that can even be *slightly* construed as negative about the piece of equipment.

Now reviewers are famous for putting in clues that seem like they maybe might be a hint at what they really think about the component.

But, think about it. All components have a sound and have issues. .

So most reviews are like describing a car crash by saying over and over again how great the car was - and about what songs were playing in the car at the time of the crash.

Anyway, I grew up respecting the press as being honorable, reporting what was really happening, very often DIFFERENT from what the official spin was about the events. Now it is all in support of making more money. Not making waves.

And the only reviewer who I have any confidence in that they actually write real reviews is Mike Fremer.

Sure, he ignores his prejudices, and ignores how badly his poor sad room affects the sound, and ignores the fact that much of his system equipment is flawed and affects what his results are going to be. So he ain’t perfect [and he has some anger management issues - or at least, he should learn to count to ten before posting. I know. I know. Many people want me to count to a billion before posting]. But I think he is the best we got. [Which is saying a lot about the state of the press industry here, huh?]. And I think he has been getting better.

HP hasn’t written a real review for years and years. Art Dudly, Srajan are runners up - and they may be just as good as Mike, but I just don’t read enough of their reviews, especially of equipment that I am familiar with that have easily agreed-upon issues.

As far as the other reviewers go, as far as I have time to read their copy - uh, well, there is really no reason for me to go farther.

I haven’t met Mr. Fremer, nor Art Dudley and have no specific desire to do so [I emailed once or twice with Fremer about 6 years ago]. I have met Srajan at shows when he used to go to shows here in the U.S. [and he is the only member of the press that acknowledges we exist - all the others try hard to ignore us because we encroach on their (abandoned, as this post testifies) domain] but he doesn’t review stuff I am familiar with - and I instead mostly end up reading his editorials.

Anyway, to wrap this up - it is not like reviewers, in general, are any more a**holes than the rest of us - in fact, of the few I see at shows, most of them are just like the rest of us. It is just that I see the responsibilities of being a reporter differently than they do.

[We are still at the Alexis Park, scheduled to leave in a few hours, missing, hopefully, some nasty weather that was imposing itself on travelers yesterday.]

Jeff Day’s show report is interesting, and disturbing in a couple of ways.

First, it looks like I missed a couple of rooms [in particular Sander’s room with his new InnerSound-ish speakers and his immediate neighbors. Damn. Twice in that area of the St. Tropez I had to stop photographing because the 3 2GB memory cards I use were all filled up. Next year… more cards. Or bigger cards.]

Second, there is this quote:

“The Soundlabs are even bigger than the Klangfilm Bionars, which is amazing in itself. The Soundlabs are so big in fact that I couldn’t get far enough away to get the two front channel speakers into the lens of my iPhone. The rear channels were equally astonishing. If you have a really big wallet and a really small thingy, these babies will compensate for both. Guaranteed. For those of us with a modest wallet and a big thingy, look elsewhere.”

Ignoring the judging of speakers on the focal length of the iPhone camera with respect to the size of the exhibition room [hey, we’ve all seen people evaluate the performance of a product based on all manner of weird stuff. Whatever…], and people’s fascination about the length of this particular appendage on other people [no, no, large penises are a fine thing] - the idea of critiquing the character of the owners of a product, instead of the product itself, besides being content-free and distracting from the matter at hand e.g. the sound of a room at a show, is, in my opinion, a prime example of the decline of the professionalism of the professional journalists not only in our industry but across the board.

Although this is a new low, there have been other instances where very popular reviewers have made comments that are overly bold, aggressive, and incorrect or unsubstantiated. For example: “full range speaker X does not go much below 40Hz”, or “CD player Y is inferior to its competition vis-a-vis its red book performance”. Tell us how you measured the output of the speaker [but, oh, the magazine that eschews measurements]. Tell us how you moved the speaker around to try and get it out of the room nodes. With what speakers are you comparing the low-end to with respect to the energy expected from a speaker in this room. etc. etc. And similarly, what players are you referring to with better red book? In what WAY are they better?

Anyway, I’m not sure we are going to start naming names here but we do try to avoid sweeping stupidities here at Audio Federation, and do try to talk about the SOUND of things, and WHY certain things are superior or inferior examples of various qualities desirable from the point of view of a system designed for music reproduction.

If we ever succumb to the prevailing malaise with respect to replacing straight talk with sensationalistic flame bait, like saying something like… oh… that 99% of reviewers are clueless or whores [thanks F.C. ] when the number is really closer to 90%, please PLEASE let us know.

OK. I’ve said it. Wanted to say it for a long time. Whew! That feels better. Well, a tiny wee little bit better.

I will refrain from disparaging the mental prowess of the person who came up with it, or much worse, the industry that continues to promulgate it.

For those of you who can’t imagine using anything else, think about this:

Spades… fall .. off. Well, not very often, that is because we tighten the fastener, jiggle the cable a little, tighten some more, jiggle some more, … until we hope no one moves anything or walks near anything. Anything which might, over time, jiggle the cables loose and caBLAM something shorts out and there is a big mess of a bill to pay.

The solution?

Replace ‘C’ shaped spades with one shaped like an ‘O’, i.e. a washer. Reduce the mass of the washer (and of the fasteners) if you want to improve the sound while your at it.

Won’t jiggle loose. No having to tear skin twisting the fasteners so very, very tight. Sleep better at night. Reduces stress while re-re-re-positioning of the speakers.

And it will work with 99% of the binding posts out there.

Only company I have seen do this is Acapella, and only with their cables hard-wired to the speaker crossovers [and they use a loop of braided conductor, not a washer-like doohickey].

The fact that the E.U., worried that children might receive .00001 volts by touching an exposed binding post, made manufacturers shield binding posts with plastic, but still let the children pull loose the spades and ruin $100K pieces of equipment just shows how much this industry is used to walking lemming like over the cliff of unintentional short-circuits.

OK. Get on it you cable manufacturers you.

[Comcast has been down again, or rather, depending on how you look at it, we just got our SEVENTH cable modem in the last 8 weeks. Well, the first one was melted by the lightning strike, so MAYBE Comcast was not at fault for that one, but, … 7?]

OK, on to our topic of discussion.

When dealers lose or drop a line, they often ‘blow the stuff out’ on Audiogon or Ebay at ridiculously low prices.

Is this stupid or what? Don’t dealers care about making money? [Of course not, you may joke, if they did they’d be in a different business ]

Dealers [and sometimes distributors] are angry when they lose or drop a line. Understandable. But why sell their stock at such low prices?

The traditional explanation is that they do it to ‘punish’ or ‘hurt’ the line. To get back at the people who used to be their suppliers of the products in the line.

But, half the time they are

1) dropping a line because the distributor or manufacturer is selling out the back door at low prices anyway, so who’s it going to hurt?

And the other half is because they are

2) getting dropped because they are discounting to much for the comfort of the supplier. So why sell them even cheaper yet? Seems like the discounted prices, although higher, were selling just fine, otherwise they would not have gotten caught.

[We are ignoring the other half 3) where the supplier or dealer is just plain psychotic and extremely paranoid and sees daemons and ghosts appearing and telling them things that make no sense at all].

The Blow Out is going to hurt the dealer doing the Blowing Out’s pocket book because they invested time, energy and money into the products and are now selling them cheap cheap cheap.

Anyway, just another stupid thing people in this industry do in their spare time, I guess.

And you others not in the industry , are probably thinking, blowouts? cheap cheap cheap? WHERE?

Well, I’m not going to make it THAT easy, and besides, it changes over the weeks and months. But the ones that are irritating to us [and are the best finds for you people ] are good brands that do not get discounted on a day to day basis. So check Audiogon, and find a dealer who has ‘lots of product’ they are selling of a line they no longer carry, at prices way below what the market will bear because they are pissed off.

Go ahead and take advantage of their temporary lack of business sense, better our readers than some random Mary or Joe, but be aware that only the best dealers will offer any support if the product turns out to be broken or not as new as they said it was.

How do you tell if they are a reputable dealer if you don’t already know? Check out their other product lines. Are they heavily discounted on Audiogon and elsewhere or are they top notch lines whose manufactures require some amount of integrity and service of their dealers? [Many dealers lie about what product lines they carry, especially on their websites, so this can be problematic sometimes]. Call them up and tell them you are interested in the most expensive thing they sell, not the thing they are blowing out, and ask them how much will they knock off the price for you… If they start talking about 40, 50, 60 percent or more [some will set you up as a ‘dealer for a day’], you might just figure that they are not going to be carrying THAT line for much longer either, and that another Blow Out will be soon forthcoming, at even higher discounts.

The upshot? You dealers, stop being stupid. Ask around before you pick up a line to see if a distributor or manufacturer is selling direct at 40 - 60% off. Don’t just assume that because what they make or distribute is a great product that they have a clue about building a brand or how to take care of the customers who will one day have to sell these darn products, or , heaven forbid, get them repaired.

And if you lose a product line, please sell it at market [demo] value. Why toss away money? And how the heck else you going to sell anything again? People will just wait around for you to drop whatever they are interested in and get THAT at fire sale prices.

While going over what I thought were the better sounding rooms at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, I realized something.

Most of the rooms excelled in one or another particular category of sonic preferences, but were only average, or so, in the others:

Sweet: Intuitive Design + Amber Wave Audio

Impressive: FM Acoustics + Acapella [MBLs, duh, Wilson + BAT and Classic Audio + Atmosphere. have too many problems, but notice how the most easily accessible and impressive rooms garnered most of the attention on the forums?]

Sophisticated: YG Acoustics + Krell + DCS [and Apogee]

Enjoyable: Odyssey

I think this also makes sense from a show reporter’s duty to try and convey what various people would like had they heard everything and were able to rule out the, uh, not so prefect rooms more quickly.

I am trying to get a Linnie to tell me why and how he likes his system - so we can add / understand this category of preference that some people have. Not sure any Linnies will talk to me anymore after the last report, but… we’ll see. It can’t just be about brand loyalty and a few good components… Then again, this is the only thing going for about half [optimistically] of the lines out there, so maybe it is for Linn too. [Hmmmmm…. boy, a lot of lines are popping into my head that this is more than obviously true for….]

————————–

Are we nuts to say nice things about equipment that we do not get free to ‘evaluate’ for 6 months, a year, forever? When these manufacturers do not pay us $500 to $3500 a month to run ads?

You would think so to look at some [but not all!] of the ‘professional’ show reports out there.

We have thought [mostly Neli because she thought it was funny. Me, it just did not seem like it was going to help the situations any], over the years, about giving out ‘Q-Tip Awards’ to various rooms because we thought they needed encouragement to improve the sound of their room. You know, a kind of not-all-that-funny Worst Of Show list of rooms. [But you have to admit, many rooms are just going to sound terminally bad because of the way they set them up and the way chose their components. Assuming they care, of course, they could use some honest feedback about what someone else thought they did right and wrong].

But perhaps we should really give them out to various reporters / reviewers, not exhibitors. Of course, we’ll probably get even less coverage of our rooms than we do now.

It still won’t help them be more honest or get better ears… but in the interest of accurate show reporting, perhaps it does make some sense.

[Oh, and I am sure all you industry people are going to speak right up on this one, huh? But seriously, the rest of you people, you can comment at any time. Really. Don’t have to register anymore or anything. Easy and Free. We know you are out there Do you prefer giant treatises or photos? Never mind, doesn’t matter, we got both - we [me, ugh] just did another component swap workout here and should have new photos up here today or tomorrow.]

As pointed out in the last post, there seems to still be some old school high-end audio exclusionary tactics in our profession:

“High Fidelity is only for rich [need we say old, white, men?], classical-music lovers only whose system must only be evaluated by comparing their system to the sound of acoustical instruments.”

Somewhat shocking that these attitudes still exist.

The typical stuff one can read posted by Bored Angry Self-Absorbed Guys in the forums is more egalitarian, but still exclusionary: Only tubes, only solid-state, only ‘my favorite brand of the week’, only panels, etc.

But, in our experience, people are much more reasonable in practice. Real people with real systems have their preferences, but they laugh about them, or they are forthcoming about the trade-offs that their preferences require compared to the alternatives.

Real Audiophiles seem to be much more pragmatic and practical and not as fanatic as the people posing in forums, and the audiophile ‘public persona’, would indicate.

This is too understated… When people think about audiophiles, and when they read the forums, it seems like 99% of us are wacko and unpleasant to boot. But people with real systems that they care about and work on are only occasionally unpleasant and rarely audiophile bigots.

[Now, it doesn’t help that the anti-audiophile brigade are some of the most bigoted people one would hope never to meet - but it being unfashionable to pick on people of color or the foreign born - they turn their hate to us.]

It is my stipulation that 99% of the people are nice people and that this 1% is not only unpleasant, and has chased away most people off the forums, but that they have chased away most of the people who might otherwise be interested in this hobby.

So, I am not for censorship, but um, can’t we keep a handle on publishing hate-filled diatribes? The anti-audiophiles on AVS Forum and the angry men on Audio Asylum have already chased away many of the reasonable 99%. If Stereophile, many of whose members live on AA, continues going this direction, I predict that they will 1) soon close their doors, and 2) it will just solidify a number of people’s attitudes towards audiophiles as being exclusionary, unfriendly, holier-than-thou, and not too rational.

The point then, is that all music can be good [and bad], including Rap for those of you who are over 35. All technologies can sound good [and bad]. All people, including audiophiles, can be good [and bad].

OK, if you haven’t read this As We See It editorial at the front of this month’s Stereophile [November 2007], don’t.

It is a startlingly transparent view into how a bitter old man can embarrass himself in public. I would suggest to JA to avoid doing any more of these to try and preserve whatever generous status history will assign Mr. Holt at this point.

This “high end audio is what I say it is and anybody who disagrees with me is a __________” is so, so, … so speaking to the adolescent males of the species with too much testosterone and an undying sense of self-importance [yes, it plays right into the hands of the forums where similar modes of thinking rule. On purpose? I don’t know. The topic of how Stereophile is more and more often targeting this same audience is for another post].

Reminds me of the similar people on car forums [I go there every 4 years or so when I need to find out about the current state of the auto market].

These people shout that cars are only supposed to:

1) Handle well [engines in the center, please], or
2) Go fast [in a straight line, of course, you Corvette owners know best], or
3) Be reliable [aka not American made], or
4) Be American made, or
5) Have good mileage [Hybrids], or
6) Have 10 ton towing and hauling capability [here in the west, *sigh*], or
7) … many others

and any other reason to evaluate how good a car is is angrily shouted down and flamed.

For those of us not fanatic about cars [I figure 80% or so of our readers], we can see that this is ridiculous. All of these reasons may be valid for different people, and that a weighted mix of these features is most often what is important to most individuals.

Yes, double blind testing has its uses [but mostly its abuses]. And certainly there is a place for science in high-end audio [though remarkably few of the people advocating this have any clue what science is. And besides, funding is, uh, lacking? AWOL? Laughable? But needed if any real research is to be done in the public domain.]

But the ideas thrown around in the article about ‘disciples’, ‘gospel’ and ‘talented reviewers’ smacks of traditional patriarchal dominance of our hobby and that day is thankfully, long gone, dead, buried, and composted. [the net gave the ignorant a voice for the first time in history, and it is obnoxious; but this is better, in my opinion, than a few moldy olds pontificating from on high].

So, in case it wasn’t clear, it is OK to evaluate your system subjectively, objectively [as if this really exists], a mix of the two, by color scheme, weight, size, technologies used, maximum SPL, origin of manufacturer, personality of manufacturer, towing capacity, or what have you. Sure it may not sound good [If you want it to sound good, use subjective evaluations. Duh.]. Welcome to the free world. Welcome to high-end home audio.

Reviews of audio equipment are compromised because reviewers are compromised. They cannot be trusted.

Both print and online magazines are compromised because one never knows if they are writing positive reviews in response to advertising dollars, or trying to solicit new sources of advertising dollars. One thing is proven, that bad reviews chase away advertising dollars.

Online magazines are compromised further by the fact that reviews are ‘linked to’ by the manufacturers of the equipment that was positively reviewed, increasing the magazines popularity with search engines, which attracts more traffic, which allows them to raise their advertising rates.

Reviewers also are compromised by:

1) Having to conform to the stated policies of the magazine they work for

2) If they do not write positive reviews, manufacturers will not want to lend them equipment for the next review

Dealers who write reviews are also comprimised because no one ever knows if they are saying something in order to try generate more sales.

Individuals, which includes reviews at the above mentioned magazines and dealers, are firther compromised because:

1) One doesn’t know if they are an idiot or not

2) One doesn’t know if they are a shill or not [for those that don’t know, and apparaently some do not, a shill is someone who pretends to be an individual but really works for a dealer or manufacturer]

3) One doesn’t know if they are just conforming to the natural human tendancy to praise the equipment they currently own [and disparage that which they no longer own].

4) One doesn’t know if they are just trying to praise, or disparage, a piece equipment because they like, or do not like, its particular manufacturer.

————–

The point is that all reviewers, and therefore all reviews, are compromised.

They can’t be trusted!

Or can they?

What we can trust is that some reviewers care about their reputation. How they see others see them, and want others to see them.

What we have is:

** REPUTATION-BASED TRUTH **

Both institutions (like magazines and dealers) and individuals (reviewers at those magazines) have reputations - good or bad, or just plain weird.

The argument here is that you CAN TRUST People, and Organizations to more or less behave and write reviews in accordance with their view of their reputation, based on how important that rep is to their personal views of themselves, to their personal self-worth.

——

Take, for another example, TV news reporters.

Edward R. Murrow - apparently [sorry, before my time] had a reputation based on his dedication to telling the Truth.

Some popular networks, and their reporters, have a reputation based on the consistant ridiculing of other’s political ideologies. They can be ‘trusted’ to report in a way that always conforms to this reputation they and their organzation have.

Some reporters whole reputation is built around their ability to get the next scoop, the next Big Story, not having anything to do with the truth, necessarily.

——

So, back to audio,

We have some magazines whose reputation is built on all the published reviews being positive (Positive Feedback [see this recent castigation of non-positive reviews], Inner Ear)

We have some whose reputation is closer to that of Murrow, but which is distorted by what they judge to be ‘truth, but in a responsible manner’ (Stereophile, 6moons). [Here we start entering the domain of serious reporting ethics, the necessity of having to report news without ever having ALL the facts - something too serious for this post, or this website].

[The Absolute Sound and HiFi+ seem to have a mix, there being so obvious, to me, reputation associated with the magazines as a whole, except that of this plurality of reviewers with different types of reputations].

Then you got the ‘Malcontents’, as Inner Ear called them this month [are we malcontents? I hope so ]. These peoples reputation vary, sometimes being just ways to publically express their need for anger management, or remedial logic 101, classes. Our rep, as I see it, is that we try to shed light on the very high end in a ruthlessly honest, but inclusive, manner - in a way that seeks ways to explain the what, how and why that the high-end is not just some morass of similar sounding components all rated ‘A+’.

You also got your netizens, who consistantly praise their own equipment as being the very, very best the world has ever seen, and disparage everyone else’s as either ‘been there done that’, or ‘being privy to a special network of only the best audiophiles [i.e. not you! ], I have heard that your gear sucks in comparision to my gear’. Their reputation, as they see it themselves, is built upon some variation of everyone thinking that they have the best equipment in the world.

—–

The point is, they are all behaving in accordance to what they want their reputation to be.

Some people care about their own reputation. Some not so much. The ones that care the most seem to be the more consistant reviewers: Mike Fremer, J.A., Srajan for examples.

But it is not a given that their reviews are ‘better’, or worse, than that of other reviewers. It is just that some reviews can be trsuted to be written to be within the context of the individual reviewer’s, and their organization’s, reputation.

—–

The final point, finally, is that everything DOES sound good and everything DOES sound bad.

Everything sounds good to reviewers who are not all that critical of each single aspect of the sound something produces, whose rep is based on welcoming nearly all components into the wonderful world of high-end audio.

Everything sounds bad to reviewers whose rep is based on being very critical of the sound a component produces, always comparing it to what it ‘could be’, if someone had just put a little more effort into its design and manufacturing.