Shilling in Social Media and Ambiguity in Trade Rags

To be fair the review almost sounds tongue-firmly-in-cheek? I haven't read web Stereophile properly in years but this is almost taking the piss it feels like, just that they never break character.

 

It reads to me it’s great if you don’t have anything else to compare to. Page 1 is just preamble, most will doze off before page 2.

Vs the Bartok, Spring,Tambaqui, Terminator it does not hold up price aside.

 

Unequivocal, and no room for misunderstanding or questions about what he meant, Tyll's video review in which he listens for a while, groaning and wincing from time to time. Then taking off the phones and almost sobs the price into the mic.

If this Stereophile review is ironic, well, it had me fooled.

 

I read that as more of a dig on the Bartok than anything else, but it’s not super clear and thus a garbage review.

 

I'm just reporting what the SEO numbers show. Google is pushing video super hard which is why our reviews now contain a video portion. I've done actor work before but I'm afraid I can't crank out anything that holds up to what the Headphones.com lads are doing. At least not yet.

As for written stuff, Reddit seems to be reigning supreme. Basically for every topic you want, just add "reddit" to cut right through the commercial stuff.

 

Which in its own way is just as bad... at least the commercial stuff is professional bullshit.

It's in fashion to shit on legacy media but there's nothing worse than a masses who think they're smarter and above it, but are actually dumb and amateurish.

I only go to reddit Dunning-Kurgerville as a last resort... and bring my hazmat suit to keep the stink off. Something something IMO something something exceptions to the rule blah blah blah.

 

Well if we refuse to pay for our content then we get only what's for free.

At least here you can tell who's who. That's the main problem with reddit, everyone looks equally well-equipped to comment. There's of course the headphoneus supremus village which isn't far off from reddit.

 

Reddit and Discord are, in a sense, echo chambers of people wanting to validate their electrical engineering degrees and talk crap about having demoed nicer gear in order to strongly opine that "amps DACs don't make a difference"; when you ask them about the circumstances of their having demoed nicer amps and DACs, you find out that this one very strongly opinionated dude gleaned impressions at a hi-fi show using... 3D-printed single-BA IEMs that they made themselves that they guarantee are excellent performers.

Sure. Awesome.

Not sure about ASR since I don't go there unless I hear about something absolutely incredible like Amir claiming that the HD650 and HD600 are basically the same etc., but yeah the problem with the internet at large is that people can claim whatever they want to, and if enough people want to believe the same, it becomes the truth.

Anything else would be too inconvenient.

 

This.

The promise the internet held back in the 90s is laughable in hindsight; this idea of a better world... to think anything created and embraced by humans on a mass scale would evolve (or devolve) into anything but a massive clown show was incredibly naive. The bottom line is businesses and corporations profit from the stupidity of the masses

Oh and "amps and dacs don't make a difference" like "giant killer" are terms usually used by people who want to feel better about not spending money... it sucks but the hobby is expensive even if you buy high value/high performing items. The Wavedream isn't cheap but neither is the Yggdrasil.

There is this idea that anything "expensive" is automatically "bad, no good, evil corporation practicing greed and pushing snake oil". I honestly can't blame skeptics for being that way because alot of it is evil and greed, but absolutism is a foolish way to live life. The answer is always: its complicated.

 

SBAF is PBS Sneak Previews. Carefully curated opinions.

 

John Atkinson's measurements on the Mystique DAC suggested some issues, and he did a not entirely favorable follow-up review. I don't bother terribly much with Stereophile or any of the mainstream review outlets anymore, but occasionally the lab reports are interesting and cut against the grain of the typically glowing review copy.

Herb Reichert is sometimes a good read and has an interesting DIY background. A decent wordsmith, too, even if I mostly skip to the end of all reviews. I can't say I'd base many buying decisions off mainstream reviews, but at least they're a source of general information for things I'm considering.

Art Dudley's columns on vintage analogue and speakers are definitely worth a read. RIP. He really provided something different in a space if not explicitly dedicated to helping advertisers move units then pretty much effectively that.

Michael Fremer has his schtick, but I think it's reasonable to say he knows analog. He's also written plenty of bad reviews. Since turntables and arms and carts have more obvious mechanical and electrical needs and challenges and faults than, say, digital, I appreciate an expert voice on them. (While also looking for general takes in multiple forums.)

The blog and YT reviewers are... okay to poor. Some occasional entertainment to be had, but mostly that.

Forums are probably the best resource for research but require a fair bit of cross-checking and endless grains of salt.

Pretty much home auditions are the only reasonably surefire option, and I've done a bunch of them and still ended up with a few things I didn't end up loving. Oh, well, it's all (meant to be) fun.

 

I'm with you on this one. While there are certainly shills and hacks out there, a lot of YouTubers seem to be less willing to pull punches. I was watching a headphone tier list video recently (I don't recall who it was from) and was pleasantly surprised to hear the people in the video actually shit all over some of the headphones they were talking about. I guess it's a product of them generally being younger and not really giving a f**k along with the fact that they don't really need to rely on audio companies for ad revenue.

 

Do you know if any digitized copies of Listener are floating around? I've done some Google but it seems like the answer is no. I found one thread that claimed Art Dudley's daughter was considering digitizing them but I've only seen that one post even reference digital and 'Listener' in the same context.

 

Yep, this is the first forum that's felt accessible to me. The diversity of backgrounds here is a relief, I was tired of feeling like the new kid who hadn't listened to enough summit gear to be included. This place is very down-to-earth and I'm grateful for it