Magazine Reading with Jaded Eyes
Leafed through the HiFi+ at Barnes & Noble last night. I thought later about how my trade magazine reading has reached a different stage… yet again.
Many years ago… many, many years ago… I read them to find out what things sounded like. You know, how the last paragraph or two has all the meat and I would just read that, and then maybe scan the rest of the article if I was bored. I only read the equipment reviews – the music reviews never made sense to me (how are they supposed to know what kind of music I like?) although some background on the artists can be interesting – at least in pre-Google, pre-Wikipedia days.
Then I would just read the reviews of the ultra high-end equipment.
Then I would just read the reviews of the ultra high-end. written by the reviewers who frequently reviewed [aka knew something, anything about] the high-end.
Then I would read these particular reviews of the ultra high-end to see how much they agreed with what I had heard
Then I would read these particular reviews of the ultra high-end to see if and how subtly they pointed out the flaws in the piece of equipment
Then I would read these particular reviews of the ultra high-end to see if they had any clue about what was the important things that the piece of equipment did right and the important things that it did wrong.
Then I pretty much stopped reading reviews
Now, when I see a review, I think “cool, somebody is getting some positive press”. I mean, you know it is going to be positive, right? No reason to read the review. When I saw that the Edge G6 amp got reviewed in HiFi+, I thought “Good for Steven and the Edge factory, they got some positive press”. When I see the new Evolution Acoustics monitor speakers highlighted on the first page of the HiFi+ CES Show Report, I think “Good for Jonathan Tinn”. No reason to read the actual comments or reviews – they really do not matter. It is not like they are going to try and accurately place the sound of the piece under review in the context of its peers, the available associated amp [if speaker] and speaker [if amp] and with respect to the other components in its product line.
I am not sure what the next step is in my consumption of trade magazines.
But it probably ain’t gonna be pretty 🙂
Implict in your comments is a disdain not only for the magazines and the financial dictates that drive their conduct but also for all the reviewers. I would like to think that ther was a point 30 years ago when things were different, where reviewers like Harry Pearson were writing things worth reading and rereading. Unfortunately, Harry has been silenced and is no longer the force that he once was. Granted, most of the current crop of reviewers are clueless and too dull witted to realize their limitations. Given that, my question would be, are there any reviewers out there that you consider reliable? My answer would be a qualified yes; however that assumes that one takes the time to separate the wheat from the chaff and then with respect to the very few reviewers that have an original voice to understand the prejudices and priorities which they bring to the party and how those prejudices and prioites effect their perceptions.
Hi Fred,
No, my intent in that post was to be disdain-free and just enumerate dispassionately the different ways I have experienced the content of a trade magazine.
Personally, I do not really have disdain for reviewers and think they run the gamut of great to ‘trying hard’ to incompetent to unethical. Even if they were all great, today’s extremely litigious society [blog and show reports have a little more leeway], the dumbing down of the media for the lowest-common-denominator reader, a nutcase-rich angry society [how many times does a reviewer get screamed at until they tire of it all and stop writing incisive reviews?], and not to mention the Show Me The Money-based value system would have us right where we are now anyway.
So, not disdain but just weary, and kind of amazed at where things have gotten to these days. Maybe I am just feeling old. 🙂
Or maybe I just need a vacation… 🙂
Take care,
-Mike
Hi Mike,
I can’t believe I’ve been away from this blog for soo long…it’s one of the best in the biz IMO. Anyway…
As I (just) read your well-considered discourse on the sound of the big Wilsons, I kept thinking “why can’t the professional reviewers just write like this?” I mean, the piece was just so content-rich and on point. And I didn’t even have to suffer through passages like “…the inverted dome illuminated the delicate shimmer of the cymbals on ‘Joshua Judges Ruth’ in a manner that this reviewer has never experienced….”
Your honest reflections here on your personal involvement with the popular high-end press’ reviews only reinforces my beliefs.
This will sound stupid (mainly b/c it kinda is), but I’m to the point where I actually wince as I read some reviews of gear that I’ve personally heard (many times in many contexts).
Finally, I think that we all tend to romanticize the past. And I think that this holds for our judgements of the early reviewers (from the ‘Listener’ days, for example). Were they really that much better than today’s reviewers? I doubt it.
But they had far more power, b/c access was so limited – they were mighty gatekeepers of the knowledge. And think of the level of expectation bias that then entails.
Please note that my aim here is *not* to diss reviewers then or now, but I guess that I inevitably have. Oh well…
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks! We appreciate your, albeit much too kind, words of encouragement.
Yeah, not out to diss reviewers either… its kind of like dissing politicians… it is much more challenging and intellectually stimulating to try to figure out a way to determine which are the competent, yet ethical, reviewers from out here in audiophile-land.
And agree about the ‘ sounded fantastic on the “Judge Judy plays Carnegie Hall” symbol crashes at the end of minute 22’ type time-waster in most reviews. Back in Spimtricity [which someday will be disinterred], I spend many.many pages describing what I listened for in a single track of Radiohead – one of the points being that unless a person wants to write… and READ… several pages of detailed text like that, it is useless to try and communicate in any kind of depth what something sounds like in this fashion. At least that is how I see it, anyway.
Take care,
-Mike