I was just kidding. Stereo Review had a reputation for never giving bad reviews. They used to argue that all amps sound the same, preamps, cd players etc.. You just bought on features, not sound quality. |
"I have the original 360 that came out yes ago and Stereo Review raved about..."
Stereo Review gave rave reviews on everything. I don't think they ever gave a bad review in the history of the magazine.
"Wow REG claims these speakers are "In many fundamental ways they are in the top echelon of anything out there."....These sell for $199! He says they aren't just good for the money but good period. Anyone heard these things? "
If you buy them, just make sure you can return them. Use the same policy you would use if you were dealing with the government or a drug addict relative: Trust but verify. |
To be fair, I don't think I've ever seen a pair of high end JBL speakers on display in any audio store. I suspect that the main reason that most people don't talk much about them is lack of exposure. I could be mistaken, but if I recall correctly, I don't think they had them on display at any of the CES's either. If I knew they were on display somewhere, I wouldn't mind checking them out.
Looking at Revel, they have the marketing and in store placement needed to have a large user base. |
"01-12-15: Wildoats
I posted because TAS is allegedly a serious high end mag. As I said, the review didn't refer to the speakers being good for the price but being contenders for being good regardless of price."
They always say stuff like that. How many times have you heard: "They hit the ball out of the park with that one." "This component punches way above its weight class." "Competes with products costing several times more." "All out assault on the state of the art" "If I didn't know the price and had to guess..." "If you're looking to get off the merrygoround, this is it." "I heard things on my recordings that I never knew were there." "Finally, a component that bridges the gap between...." "I'm put my money where my mouth is and bought the review sample." "Sets a new standard for price/performance in this category." "Highly recommended."
Sound familiar? If you are looking to get better sound, throw the magazines in the garbage. |
I don't have anything to do today so I decided to do an experiment to kill some time. I went to Stereophile's web site and clicked on reviews for speakers. I don't have any audio magazines at all, so it was my only option. I scrolled down to the conclusions sections of the first 10 or so reviews that came up. Didn't look at who the reviewer was, I just went through the list. Here's a quote from the end of each review.
I kept thinking that Sjöfn HiFi's The Clue was probably extremely goodmaybe even some sort of breakthrough, especially for the price.
Wharfedale's flawlessand remarkableJade 3 punches way beyond its price. In fact, I'd recommend that anyone with a speaker budget of up to $5000/pair consider the Jade 3you can use your savings to buy a better turntable or electronics, or, better still, spend it on some of the super reissue vinyl that's flooding the market.
At $1500/pair, this speaker is an extraordinary value. It has become my favorite bookshelf speaker for under $2000/pair.
Revel's Performa3 M106 is an extraordinary bookshelf loudspeaker. Its strengths impressed me across the board, especially for a speaker of its size and price.
Once again, Dynaudio has done it. Can you justify spending any more than $3000 on a pair of speakers?
Phase Technology's $1400/pair PC60 CA stands out from the pack. In fact, I strongly recommend that anyone shopping for bookshelf speakers costing up to $2000/pair place these near the top of his or her list.
ATC's SCM19 v.2 delivers bass extension, detail, fullness, and presence to such greater extents than its smaller sibling, the SCM7, that I consider the $2200/pair more it costs to be more than fully justified. Indeed, I consider the larger speaker to be so much the better value at $3699/pair that I fear that for many listeners, buying the SCM7 would be a false economy.
I've now reviewed several dozen bookshelf speakers, and can think of none that offers more sound quality per dollar than the Elan 10.
As such, it's a testament to the ability of creative speaker designers to trickle technology down from the highest of the high end to affordable prices.
GoldenEar Technology has produced a stunning achievement in the Aon 2, with strengths that are unusual for a bookshelf speaker of this size and price.
For $1000, I can't imagine obtaining significantly better sound than from a pair of ClairAudient Ones properly set up and used within their dynamic range low-frequency extension limitations.
Now, heres another look at the OP:
"Wow REG claims these speakers are "In many fundamental ways they are in the top echelon of anything out there."....These sell for $199! He says they aren't just good for the money but good period. Anyone heard these things? "
To me, it just fits in with all the other reviews. |
"01-13-15: Onhwy61
Skepticism good. Cynicism bad."
I assume that was addressed for me. Its probably true, but I still go back to the OP.
""In many fundamental ways they are in the top echelon of anything out there."....These sell for $199! He says they aren't just good for the money but good period."
The reason I can be cynical is that the magazines seem to say the same things over and over. I mean if almost every speaker they review in a certain price point "punches way above its weight class", maybe its time to adjust expectations for speakers at that price and call them normal.
Also, I feel its extra important no to do this with entry level products, like we are talking about here. People in the market for this type of speaker, usually don't have the knowledge and experience yet to make sound judgements. They get sucked into that feeding frenzy mentality, where they need to get that hot new speaker at a super low price. In reality, I think most of know that the main reason speaker A is the must have new speaker, is because it was reviewed after speaker B. If we were to swap the review dates, speaker B would be the hot new speaker to have. (I'm just making a general point here. Not every word is meant to apply to the Infinity speaker the OP started the thread over.) |
One last post, just to be clear, but I wasn't saying anything negative about the Infinity. I just don't think the audio press always puts reviews out in ways that can best help readers make a good choice. What does the speaker suck at? That's what I want to know. lol. I'm going to find out anyway as soon as I listen to it. Might as well just tell me first. |
Hesson11,
I tend to agree with you overall. But, I didn't mean that comment to be taken completely literal.
"What does the speaker suck at? That's what I want to know. lol."
See the lol at the end? I try, but no one ever gets my humour. Oh well, back to the issue at hand.
"While some may have characteristics that are not to my taste, remember that reviewers are ideally writing for readers with widely varied tastes, not just their own."
That's a very reasonable assumption on your part, but it's not true, more often than it is. Usually, a reviewer asks a company to review a product. They hear something in a store or at a show that they like, and that usually leads to a request. You would think that whoever the boss is at the magazine hands out the reviewers assignments, but that's not the norm. It does happen like that sometimes, but most of the time, the reviewer picks a product and then asks for permission to review it. While this is not a practice they hide, to their credit, quite often they will talk about this in the review itself, I don't think it best serves the readers. If a reviewer only picks stuff he knows he is going to like, we know how the review is going to go. For me, personally, I would like to see the reviewers take on more of a challenge. So if, for example, a reviewer doesn't like ribbon speakers, I want to see him review one. It'll make for a better comparison. I'm willing to bet that a reader will get more out of a review like that, than he will from someone who starts off already being sold on the product. |
Onhwy61,
"As I stated above, REG is an outstanding reviewer. Rather than lump all reviewers together, take the time to figure out if some of them actually know what they are talking about."
Fair enough. But I'll ask the same of you. Here's one of my posts from yesterday.
"01-15-15: Zd542
You know, if you really want to get best results, it would be a good idea to plan the whole system, and how everything will sound working together. If you go that route, its amazing at how good the sound quality can be investing a relatively small amount of money. Its definitely more work, but the results will be worth the time.
Zd542 (Threads | Answers | This Thread)"
But getting back to your concern, maybe you can get to know the reviewers better yourself. I know who Robert E Green is. I used to read audio magazines when I was a kid. Over the years I've meet all these guys either at CES, The Stereophile show or at B&M dealers, and am no more impressed with any of them, than people who are not reviewers. The impression I get is that they are hired more for their writing skills than audio. If I were to hand you and REG the same exact component to review, I'm willing to bet that you would do just as good a job, maybe even better. |
"What do the Infinities suck at?"
Read the post again. No one said that. |
"I was amazed at how terrible they were. Boxy sounding and like they were out of phase."
They probably were out of phase. Did you do any troubleshooting to be sure? |
