Example of a piece o’ crap, useless review

@jhnnrrs @aolmrd1241 I can’t speak directly about the other sites, but having written reviews for Soundstage for 17 years I can tell you that all they strive for are thorough and honest reviews, and BTW they have a site dedicated specifically to “budget” gear (Soundstage Access) so they don’t only review “uber high-end” equipment. Over all those years I was never told to write anything other than what I heard, and all of what I wrote always made it to publication without any alterations (other than some light editing) whatsoever. Furthermore, to ensure the reviews were as useful/rigorous as possible all reviews had to contain a relevant comparison section, and if you didn’t have a comparable product on hand or couldn’t get something you didn’t get the review, period, and all the equipment in the reference system used during the review was always fully disclosed at the end of the review. All this put together makes for what I call rigorous and credible reviews that are likely trustworthy and well worth reading and using to help decide which components are worth pursuing further.

After writing and reading reviews for many years it gets pretty easy to tell which reviews are more objective, thorough, and honest and which are more useless, superficial fluff so just dismissing reviews out of hand because the site uses ads will block you from a lot of truly useful and helpful information that is out there. Some basic tells for me is if the reviewer compares the review sample to other product(s) to give some critical perspective on the sound, the reviewer shares any shortcomings/limitations and/or unique sound signatures the product has (they all have them), and the reference system is fully disclosed. There are some good reviews that may miss some of these, but if any of those elements are missing I consider it a red flag and read with a jaded eye. Last, you can kinda tell just by the way the review is written whether it’s by someone who really did the work as opposed to a guy who just throws out a bunch of generic platitudes. Sorry to drone on, but that’s my approach to it and I’d encourage you to seek out those good sites/reviewers rather than throwing out the whole bunch for using advertising or because of some bad apples out there. There is some extremely helpful and informative info out there if you have the time/patience to uncover the gems. Again, FWIW.

Having given it a little more thought.

I would not call it a review. More of a quick note that the table exists and may be worthy of further investigation. An information note.

I flipped through the most recent edition. There are full format reviews (under the heading of xxxx Focus) on a number of the components: Burmeister turntable, Vandersteen speaker, Magico speakers, and some others. These all contain sections on associated equipment, and are in depth. The “reviews” in between in depth Focus reviews look like an attempt to cover more equipment. With the hundreds of components, there would be no way to cover them all in depth. So, it looks like a way to say something about more.

Given true long format reviews typically take six months to do. It is really not that surprising that each issue could only contain a few of these. Do the math. 

Dear siox -- So what do you think of John Mendelsohn's review of Led Zeppelin I in the March 15, 1969 issue of Rolling Stone? Well over a half century ago, I read printed reviews of new albums and audio equipment in an attempt to enhance my music listening enjoyment. Some reviews were informative, some seemed to be page fillers, and some seemed to simply be a platform for reviewer biases. Take a deep breath and exhale. Enjoy the music.

Given true long format reviews typically take six months to do. It is really not that surprising that each issue could only contain a few of these. Do the math.

@ghdprentice I can’t speak for TAS, nor would I care to, but at Soundstage we had three months to complete a review. I used to use the first month for break in and initial impressions and the next two months for critical listening evaluation and writing up the review, and that was sufficient time IME.

Out of curiosity, of the full format reviews how many provided a comparison to a competitive product? I’m gonna guess none and will be shocked if it’s higher than that cause that’s just not how they roll. Much quicker/easier that way although much less informative and useful IMHO.

It’d be nice to see the transfer functions of various cartridges, tonearms, etc. It could be measured, and could provide some clues about what kind of sound to expect. I’ve owned different turntables and cartridges and some of them sounded very different for sure, much more different from each other than comparing different digital devices.

You know, it could be possible to make a device that wiggles the needle in a very precise way, something that’s not a spinning vinyl disc that drags the needle through its grooves. Now imagine if you used a digital source to drive the needle wiggler, and now you hear the music coming through your cartridge, tonearm, and phono stage, with all the associated coloration. You could even get nice thumps coming through the speaker if someone jumped too hard on the floor. The only thing missing would be the rumble from the spinning platter and the wow and flutter from the warped record. But that could all be simulated. This would drastically reduce wear and tear on the needle.