So what you’re saying is that most “reviews” have no meaningful content pertaining to the primary function that the products are manufactured and sold to perform. That they’re conducting no analysis, nor scrutinising the design, function, or manufacturer claims.
Well then, it sounds to me like you’re reading ad copy. Stop doing that ;)
I feel like most written reviewers just want to show they know how to weave a great story and write great prose and inspire us by talking about recordings that 99% of us never listen to and have no clue about. Interestingly I get more from YouTube reviews of late than I ever did/do from from most written reviews.
Most YouTubers reviews are “boring” and formulaic in that they tend to just break down each aspect of bass, mids, treble, soundstage etc. But I actually learn something about how the thing actually sounds! And I’m not talking about Zeos, that guy is a mess of a reviewer (although somewhat entertaining on occasion).
It also doesn’t help that most reviewers, instead of providing negative reviews, don’t review things that they don’t like so you never really know what they like and what they don’t like, which is arguably more important.
@Melvillian yeah true. I sort of understand where they’re coming from on that front (time/money), but it does make it hard for consumers. Basically when you don’t see many/any reviews for a mass market product, that’s a potential red flag.
IME most audiophiles don’t know how to listen critically. They‘ve no clue what to listen for or how to assess it. Let alone how to explain it. Besides. Riveting articles about the new hotness you want to buy gets people talking, makes more money, and keeps the hands that feed paying the tithe.
I still have no idea what on earth pace rhythm and timing (PRaT) means. But they love to paint the walls with it in the UK.
In this case, absence makes more sense to me. It needs substantial contextual costs (due to f**ked replicability and super high variability), which are too much for untrained/inexperienced people. Moreover often fails to add anything interesting to the table even when speakers actually damn good -- learned this from my own experience. It does help for personalized purpose and situation, but not for reviews.
So, on population level, my view is, (1) writers don't understand what they measure (running any sw with dayton mic per se isn't hard but too many factors to be controlled), (2) even cautious readers can't understand omitted information (that inherently happen in this context). = Can't benefit anyone. Numbers/graphs may do more harm than good..
@BenjaminBore I used to use "PRaT" when describing stuff a long while back. Nowadays I'd call it a mixture of impact, decay, microdynamics etc. Basically "driver go brrr then stop" fast, ability to render low-level information haha.
Of course, no idea if others have the same definition.
@Lyander whatever it was originally meant to define, if anything, it seems that the interpretation varies so wildly that it is essentially meaningless.
Also keep in mind the speaker guys are usually old, especially those who do reviews. Some are rrrreally old. So even if the tech becomes easier and more reliable, those old people will likely somehow find a way to screw things up or have a hard time understanding the science behind the data.
We will just wait for the younger generation to take the lead. Some already started...
Agree that measurements can be hard. But if you’re a so called “professional” reviewer or publication, if you can’t pull off a decently reliable FR and impedance sweep, that’s kind of not cool. Yes a measurement can’t tell you exactly what it will sound like or whether you’ll like it for sure, but just like headphone measurements, gross errors in design can be easily seen/exposed.
Headphones measurement is way way way easier in getting reliability. For speakers, different approximations (e.g., quasi-anechoic) rely on heterogeneous assumptions, thus result in very different stories even for the same product. Even so not space-invariant. There are handful personal failures that led me not to require speakers (as a whole loudspeaker system) measurement AT ALL from reviewers any more.
Impedance curve could be ok. But hardly add anything on top of by-part results that are already available elsewhere.
Also, "professional" pubs ONLY mean academic journals or equivalents. All require objective evidences anyhow, Anything else is just for fun, and no different from a collection of personal anecdotes. No credit is given to "pro"-reviewers as we all know. Ultimately $$$.. who pay for that?
I always assume any reviewers no different from randos we see in this or other forum everyday. Some more experienced. Some less. Combining that with extremely low review fees (compared to "real" quantitative pro-realms), there's no reason we can expect decent tech background from them. At the end of the day, audio reviews are just another form of impression posts with better formatting.
I may give it a shot myself at some point just for fun. Will need to setup outdoors for the non-bass FR and then figure out how to do a proper ground plane test for bass. Will see if I can get close to the FR of Stereophile or Soundstage (NRC) or if I’m way out to lunch here haha (probably that).
Your points taken. But praising reviewers who measure and blaming those who don't are not the same at least to me. Maybe my personal bias -- been more often fooled by graphs than helped. Rather request pro-reviewers to use less enthusiastic wording, honest comparison, and not to BS what they don't really understand. Measurement gets too low priority in my POV. If they do and explain it right, that's cool though.
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