Another thing...

Can’t tolerate that reviewer’s voice again for a replay, but when he discussed the Bartok’s value, don’t remember that he mentioned that Bartok is also a world class streamer as well. So you save the cost and hassle of choosing and integrating an Aurrender or equivalent in your system. Missed a huge capability of the Bartok. Not such a thorough assessment after all. Much ado about nothing.

Here's the latest and hopefully, the last word on the matter. 

If you keep up with hifi news, you’re aware of a recent event of the litigious variety.

I’m not going to dig into that mess here except to say that if you’re a hifi manufacturer you may want to look into the details for a case study in how not to do things.

What I find as troubling was within minutes of the video reveal, all kinds of men, it’s always men, were making wild accusations, crazy assumptions, and flat out the sky is falling type claims. Yea, on par for Internet behavior.

I’d like to set the record straight, as straight as I can based on nearly 20 years as a reviewer, the last 10+ working full time as such. Here are a dozen observations based on that experience.

• Lawsuits against reviewers are not common.
• I’m no lawyer but I do know you can’t get sued over expressing an opinion about how a piece of hifi gear sounds.
• Since lawsuits are not common and you can’t get sued over expressing an opinion, I don’t know of a single reviewer who skews their language to avoid being sued. [footnote 1]
• You can, on the other hand, get sued for misrepresenting objective data like faulty measurements of hifi gear and while I have no direct experience here I understand from colleagues that lawsuits over measurements are also not common.
• Speaking only for Twittering Machines (me), I review every product that arrives in Barn regardless of how I feel about it.
• I have written negative reviews and some of those reviews were of products from companies that were/are advertisers.
• A negative review isn’t truthful by default, just as a positive review isn’t dishonest by default.
• The notion that positive reviews can only be trusted coming from people who also write negative reviews is faulty (self serving) logic. There’s nothing easier than writing a negative review—the Mona Lisa sucks!— so anyone saying you can trust them because they’ve written negative reviews may very well have written them just to be able to say, “You can trust me because I’ve written negative reviews.”
• The reviewers I know, and consider friends, are honest hardworking people who care deeply about the quality of their work. More than likely, just like you do.
• People who comment negatively about the trustworthiness of reviewers as a blanket statement are typically not trustworthy.
• Humans make mistakes, which is why I send out a preview link for fact check purposes prior to publishing a review. [footnote 2]
• I avoid reviewing gear from companies that behave in an appalling manner.

Addendum

The above referenced (and linked) matter has been resolved to Cameron’s satisfaction according to his post on Head-Fi by way of a mea culpa, a fall on a sword, and other offers.

1. While not related to getting sued, I’ve seen people suggesting that reviewers don’t write negative reviews for fear they’ll get cut off from the supply of review gear. Based on my experience, this is nonsense for a few reasons:

• Most manufacturers I know do not read reviews on a regular basis.
• Nearly every manufacturer, or their rep, I’ve dealt with appreciates honesty.
• Of the negative reviews I’ve written, all but 1 manufacturer, who closed up shop, came back asking for another review.
• The reviewers I know, and consider friends, are not afraid to be truthful.
• People who believe reviewers are generally fearful and easily corruptible are typically revealing aspects of their own thinking/behavior.

2. I had one instance, just one years ago, where my contact asked me to change the wording in my listening notes, i.e. they were not asking me to correct a fact but to alter my listening impressions to make them sound more positive. I said no, tersely, and explained the meaning of “for fact check purposes”.

All the best,
Nonoise

Sorry but an article written by a reviewer about this subject is not the last word. In fact it really means nothing. I got a real kick out of "its always men". Is this comment the result of the fact that this hobby consists almost entirely of men, or that we men display a proclivity towards this type of behavior? 

"Rather this is extremely poor conduct by a well-known manufacturer, caught in the act of threatening a reviewer over a negative review, making frivolous threats and then denying that any threats were made..."

Deja vu!

Remarkably like the situation involving a speaker manufacturer whose initials are Tekton...