I designed my home to have 3 audio rooms of varying sizes. All have dedicated outlets and their own AC service and mains transformer all rooms are shape optimized. And are dead quiet and acoustically inert. I need this to design loudspeakers in. But honestly, you don't need such for average system playback. My main room is so quiet it makes you nervous to sit in if nothing is playing. But you will defiantly hear what the loudspeaker or system is doing. Would I be able to suggest audio gear for others based on what I hear in my rooms? maybe but it would be better to review in average rooms like most audiophiles have. And I do final listening tests in such spaces.
Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!
It’s almost sad, really. Some reviewers I’ve been reading for decades, when showing their rigs on YouTube, have absolutely horrible rooms. Weird shaped; too small w/o acoustic treatment; crap all over the place within the room or around the speakers; and on and on.
Had I known about the listening rooms they use to review gear in the past, I would not have placed such a value on what they were writing. I think reviewers should not just list the equipment they used in a given review, but be required to show their listening rooms, as well.
Turns out my listening room isn’t so bad, after all.
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As much as I distrust magazine reviews, and no longer believe anything the reviewers write, I still love audio magazines. A few years ago I got rid of 90% of my collection (mostly tons of Hi-Fi Choice, Hi-Fi News, Hi-Fi World - and a few What Hi-Fi’s etc) but there were certain issues I couldn’t part with. It’s difficult to say just what it is about these magazines that made me keep them, but it isn’t the veracity of the reviews. Sometimes it could be a main feature eg a show/nostalgia piece or an interview with an audio luminary, sometimes it could be the music reviews and sometimes it could be a feature on some readers system. I still have a few copies of the notoriously opinionated mid 1980s Hi-Fi Review. It was a riot to read but as I later discovered, it was also totally useless as consumer information. Chris Frankland, the one and only, would regularly try to convince you of impossibilities such as that a Linn Basik arm was better than a SME, or that the Linn/Naim 6 pack was the bees knees etc. ------ The Flat Response Magazine by Tom Tom Audio Nov 28, 2017 http://thetomtomclub.ning.com/m/blogpost?id=6506457%3ABlogPost%3A9465 |
To much may not be a good thing. Cardboard can absorb sound waves. To much cardboard can absorb a lot of sound waves. I remember several years ago being in a medical records room with several rows of medical records stored in cardboard folders. Just going from memory each row was about 40ft long. I was stranding at one end of a row and a fellow worker at the other end of the same row. I asked the worker a question at a slightly elevated speaking voice due to the length, distance, we were apart from one another. I could see his lips moving but did not hear anything. To make a long story short when hollering at one another neither of us could hear the other. The sound waves of our voices were being absorbed by the cardboard file holders. What frequencies are most easily affected? . |
It might be interesting to see what the members here would like to see in future reviews. The first thing I look for in any loudspeaker review is some mention of its ability to make the distinction between the timbre of different musical instruments as clear as possible. Secondly, and almost as importantly, I like to see how it compares with known all time reference products, eg Quad electrostatics, BBC LS 3/5, JBL l100 original, KEF LS50, Harbeth P3, Harbeth M40, Revel Ultima Salon, Wilson Sabrina, KEF Blade as well as stuff from the likes of Monitor Audio, ATC, Wharfedale, Magico, Q Acoustics, etc etc. Unfortunately I rarely see this in reviews.
A few words about the manufacturer, blah, blah, blah.. A few words about the components, construction, and if your lucky, crossover design. A couple of generalised lines about the way it plays a few select pieces of music. One short sentence thrown in discreetly that hints at possible limitations, and/or suggestion for the need of a subwoofer. Finally, a suggestion of how this particular product should be on everyone's shortlist. If you are lucky, you might even get thrown in as an afterthought some diagrams of impedance graphs, resonance waterfalls etc.
Basically, a whole load of non committal, non offensive carefully worded deliberately vague sales pitch.
Yes, there are a few exceptions such as Andrew Robinson, Amir at ASR for example who actually dare to put reviewed products into some of kind of comparative context. For that alone I guess we should be grateful. |
And those reviews, at least to me, carried some weight simply because I didn't have access to anything other than those reviews. No stereo shop near me ever carried much other than mid-fi and lo-fi stuff. And that is precisely why I am a bit disappointed when I see the rooms from some of these "rock star" reviewers.
I think it's a generation thing. Once upon a time we were more prepared to believe most everything we read. That was the way we were brought up, I certainly was. Whereas nowadays the world is a far more mistrustful place, and quite rightly knowing what we know about politicians, journalists, marketeers, algorithms, data mining etc
As @pinthrift says, We live in times of distrust and suspicion. We rarely give something, someone the time required for trust and friendship.
Whereas a generation once fretted over the murder of one president and the resignation of another, nowadays we don't even blink over carefully set up plandemics, the bombing of huge gas pipes causing untold pollution and unnecessary hardship, or the coming of an Orwellian superstate that believes in rule by fear, pumping out endless bad news hour after hour. Different times different world. Many still hope for a return to something approaching normality, but the rest of us try to adapt as the supply of red pills seems to also be dwindling. |
I see that many are coming to the defense of the reviewers and their rooms, which is fine. And I agree that you can't really tell how a room sounds simply by the looks of it, but I would argue you can make an educated guess. And I would argue an "educated guess" is what some reviewers are providing their readership. I've grown to realize that the room itself has the biggest impact on how my stereo sounds, period. And over the years, being a service member who moved around frequently, I've had my system in many, many different rooms of all sizes and shapes. All sizes and shapes within the budget of an enlisted service member's salary, that is. And through it all, a properly set up room has been key to my musical enjoyment, the key to the music sounding its best regardless of the equipment I had at the time. And more recently, I finally "splurged" on a bunch of GIK treatment which really opened my ears to what a properly treated room can do for any given stereo. Before that purchase, I always had make-shift treatment using what I had available. If I was going to spend a grand or two on something, I wanted it to be something that "mattered", like equipment, or so my ignorant-self thought. I wish I would have discovered proper acoustic treatment 40 years ago! Live and learn, obviously. And 30-40 years ago, we didn't have access to all the information available to us nowadays. Reviews in magazines were pretty much all we had. Stereophile (when sized like a reader's digest), Listener, TAS...awaited for anxiously each and every month and read cover to cover and dreamt about the gear that was in them. And those reviews, at least to me, carried some weight simply because I didn't have access to anything other than those reviews. No stereo shop near me ever carried much other than mid-fi and lo-fi stuff. And that is precisely why I am a bit disappointed when I see the rooms from some of these "rock star" reviewers. Man, that was long post.
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Thanks for the topic, audiodwebe. Home in the wilds of Maine for the last 40+ years, with an enduring passion to better good sound, the journals provided much sought after information. Music lovers are a generous lot. JGH, HP, Art, REG, JA, Herb and others provided nourishment of music choices and audio wisdom to so many. Oddly, the IMPORTANCE of the room - system integration is a more recent phenomenon, in my memory. The early years focused on how a speaker measured and sounded, then reverse engineering the sound of the components through said speakers. There was an early focus on DIY and kits, with Phile and TAS introducing the subjective approach, others following. Understandable, clear writing was extremely helpful in helping us build good systems. JGH & HP broke much ground in describing sound and pioneering the language of hi-fi. For so many of us, Art Dudley became our go-to. Art told stories. Each had a beginning, middle and a conclusion. Art brought musicianship (guitar); mechanical prowess (turntables and loudspeakers); broad music appreciation and knowledge (several genres with depth.) The legibility of Art's writing left us thirsting and eagerly awaiting the next issue. Both Art's sound rooms in two houses were sparsely furnished, everyday living spaces without room tuning. Art wanted it that way. Over time, you felt you had a trusted friend reporting his findings, with full integrity. Before Greg Roberts, owner of Volti Audio, moved his loudspeaker company from Maine to outside Nashville, a friend and I visited Greg to hear his horn Vittora speakers in a "Paul Klipsh ratio" living room. Greg is a former house builder. Turned out, Greg was bringing a Vittora set (18" active sub included) to Dudley's house the following week, for review. In emails with Greg later, he reported that he found Art's sound, "amazing." We live in times of distrust and suspicion. We rarely give something, someone the time required for trust and friendship. Wife Mary long ago that a friend is someone with whom you've worked through disagreements. I have little doubt that many reviewers have less than optimal rooms. I felt that way towards Art too, wondering what he would make of my obsession with room tuning, electricity, mods, fuses, dsp and the rest. But, damn, I loved Art and others who build my confidence and trust. More Peace (bold print for old eyes) Pin
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IMHO audio gear reviews are mostly for the purposes of entertainment except where objective facts are provided as part of researching gear. That is not to denigrate as much as properly categorize the purpose. There are so few lukewarm, much less negative reviews...they are there for the pleasure of reading. In terms of room, most reviewers know their room and their gear very well and if there is a difference by swapping out gear, they will hear it. I don't really audition gear until I get it to my room. After hearing it in their listening room, the reviewer will say "this isn't quite to the quality of my reference piece, but it punches above its weight and anyone would be happy to have it." There are like 5 reviews in the history of audio that don't say basically that. Finally, I believe in trained or dedicated listening, but short of an actual disability in hearing (i.e. partial deafness) I don't think you need to have the ears of a puppy to gauge gear quality. As long as you have a good baseline from listening to your own gear intently, you will hear if there is any delta. Or you will think you do, if you spent enough on the upgrade :) |
I havent read all of these posts so this has likely been said, however... I agree with the commenters that you cannot tell how a room will sound by looking at it. Even acousticians have a hard time designing a good sounding space, where there are millions in the budget. See, e.g., the David Geffen hall and its issues. So if the assumption is that throwing money at the acoustics of the space will necessarily solve the problem, not sure that is the case.
Even if the reviewers' rooms are compromised, many reviews / reviewers (John Atkinson for one), DO discuss how a product sounded in their room versus the co-reviewers room. He even measures the response, with speakers, and publishes the graphs showing differences. He will offer comments. If i recall, Michael Fremer's room has some bass boost below 100 hz. Atkinson comments on this often. And even if the rooms are compromised, their rooms are (presumably) consistent / not variable. Therefore if Fremer says that component A has such and such a sound, whereas product B has this and that sound, He is comparing within the same room and system. So the differences will or will not be there, irrespective of the room. My biggest peeve is that reviewers hearing should be tested and published. The opinions of ~75 year old man have to be taken with a grain of salt, considering most that age probably cant hear above 9 or 10k hZ. So if they are telling you there is no roll-off or there is airiness in the sound, that may be the case, but its not at frequencies above those... |
@larsman +1 "I'd rather hear from a reviewer who might have a 'real world' listening space like most viewers would. A review from an acoustically perfect space would give me no information at all about what I might expect in my own place. " |
Over a decade ago it was not uncommon for editors to send true (dif) balanced components to reviewers whose systems were not. And in their write ups/reviews they would say they could hear no difference, proving both editors and reviewers weren't that bright. I would call them out on it to no avail. After way too many of such examples of stupidity I gave up |
@prof maybe my irony didn't come off so well. The OP was making the point that someone whose listening room is a mess or absolute disaster clearly can't be relied upon to subjectively review equipment or music, so I was making the contrarian point that someone whose listening room looks like like nearly all the "audiophile" rooms I see clearly can't be relied upon either because their listening setup and equipment doesn't reflect real-world conditions. As you rightly point out, people create the room they want. Some "test" equipment by listening to "audiophile" tracks and some people listen to music on the best setup they can afford. I'm sure if some people saw my listening room they'd be aghast.. And while it's not Michael Fremer-boarding-on-horder messy, it's also not the audiophile ideal. |
I would not want to review equipment. It would take the enjoyment of the music away for me. I would not be able to separate the work side from the relaxing pleasure side. Listening would become work all the time for me. I grew up in the 1960s watching TV. So for me any class or seminar I had to watch on a TV screen felt like entertainment for me. If the speaker is in front of me in person it feels like work, but if they are on a TV screen it feels like entertainment. It was the same years ago when playing golf with the customer. I could not relax and enjoy the game. I felt I had to be attentive and aware of everything and anything I said and did. When I get into the stereo upgrade mode it is all about listening and discerning differences. The pleasure of just hearing the music becomes secondary. Fortunately, once I am satisfied with the sound I can get out of upgrade mode and go back to enjoying the music. I’m the last person that could sit there and take notes while listening to music. |
@prof +1000 Some audiophiles are wannabe reviewers and some still are simply envious of the fact that reviewers get to play with all that gear while they can’t. Audio reviewer bashing has become sport for some, often with an unwarranted level of cynicism directed. Some of the bashing is surely warranted, but much of it is not and, as has been stated, reviews are simply a good starting point to making a good buying decision. |
@erik_squires Yes. There's plenty of self delusion here. Professional reviewers are paid peanuts. Therefore even after buying their equipment at deep discount, they still have no money to buy nice apartments or even big rooms. They collect old equipment and free review media, so their tiny rooms will always be cluttered and way below optimum. They claim their golden ears are saving them, but perhaps they just have a good turn of phrase? Best to listen for ourselves, in our own rooms, when we can make the chance. |
Really? I used to review a bit, and have known many audio reviewers. I can’t think of a single one who thinks of themselves that way, or who approach their reviewing just to promote a product. Does it matter how they see themselves? Besides I was referring to paid professional reviewers. I find owner/amateur reviews to be generally far more relevant.
Maybe you weren’t terribly good at, or didn’t put much effort in to weeding through reviews. I have gradually improved at weeding out reviews which contain sins of commission, but I still can’t account for those which feature sins of omission. To not mention issues that could prove problematic is a general malaise these days. We see it everywhere from a school reports to employer references.
Ah, looks like you were maybe to high in your expectations regarding reviews. So were tens of 1000s of others who were brought up on the UK press in the 1980s.
Why did you need reminding? Once upon a time I took professional reviews seriously. After all, they were written by experienced journalists who usually spoke with a voice of authority. As has been already mentioned several times in this thread, they are nothing such. In fact reviews are very little more than a rough guide. This salient fact is not always apparent to those who are new to the big and often bewildering world of audio. As the OP stated, it can be disappointing for audio novices to eventually discover that professional reviewers are not experts in anything at all. Far from it. They just have better access to a wider range of equipment than we do.
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bipod72 I see no reason to denigrate how anyone else enjoys music, be it their choice of room furnishing, single chair or whatever. If that is the way an individual likes to focus on listening to music, how could that be "insulting" to the music? One could just as well say that people who spend a lot of time on a place like audiogon discussing gear are in to the gear, not listening to music. But that would no more be necessarily true than seeing someone's set up which has lots of gear. This forum has a whole section devoted to people showing off pictures of their gear.
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Nothing is more insulting to the music than some audiophile's listening room that is set up like some sterile audio lab with a lone chair centered in a room where nothing is allowed to "live" in it except for some aesthetically awful acoustical panels, all their high-end gear stacked on the floor, and speakers set up to imply the person doesn't actually listen to music. They hear it but they're not listening to it. |
curtdr Yes the "underused dedicated home theater" has been a theme that has often cropped up in the dedicated home theater forums (e.g. AVSForum). One really should go in with a realistic idea of how many people will likely use the theater and how often. In my case though I created a projection based home theater system, I didn't want a dedicated room that felt separated from the rest of the house. I merged it my two channel listening room, which is the front living room of the house on the main floor. It's a high performance room in which dark curtains can be pulled all around the room to cut screen reflections for a very dynamic, big image and immersion. But it is bright and cheery by day, eminently accessible and comfy, and so my family is often in there and I used it every day, whether for reading, listening to music, watching movies or TV etc. I didn't go with awkward looking home theater chairs in such a room, but had a huge sectional sofa custom-built, which has come in handy as I've had many guests watch sports and movies with me there. Once you have a room that feels like you are going off in to some other dark pit to watch movies, it can actually feel to some people more of a barrier. |
Maybe they're reviewing based on how most people in real life would use the gear... it's only the minority odd "audiophile" ducks that isolate themselves in a perfect chair in some perfect little space away from the rest of the life of their homes. Andrew Robinson has an interesting take on this, as he does on many practical things... He has a video where he discusses his ten biggest mistakes on his audiophile journey; the biggest mistake was the dedication and expense to build a perfect separate theater room... it was underused, and when he went to sell his home later, the theater room detracted from the home's appeal and ended up being a big waste of money. |
Really? I used to review a bit, and have known many audio reviewers. I can't think of a single one who thinks of themselves that way, or who approach their reviewing just to promote a product.
Maybe you weren't terribly good at, or didn't put much effort in to weeding through reviews. There isn't a speaker I've owned or had in my house for which I haven't seen a quite accurate review.
Ah, looks like you were maybe to high in your expectations regarding reviews.
Why did you need reminding? Pretty much all reviewers, and most audiophiles, would tell you to listen for yourself. Generally it makes sense to use reviews to narrow down speakers you would be interested in auditioning. They point you in some directions. Reviews normally aren't substitutes for auditions. Though I can think of at least one speaker that I bought based on a review or two, since I could not audition it anywhere. Though I already had experience with the brand and I didn't just expect to love it because I read some good reviews. I'd sell it if I didn't like it. It was an excellent speaker, sounded mostly as it was described in the reviews.
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Herb Reichert's review of the wharfedale diamond 225's is right on! I bought them soon after reading his review. I listen mainly to my Tannoys now, but still own the 225's. For a speaker costing a mere $449, they embarrass some costing much more. He also mentions the Hana el cartridge, not so much a full review, but what he does say about it, I must agree. It Is a fabulous moving coil cartridge for the money. |
Reviewers exist primarily to promote product. I can hardly think of a single review which came close to describing what I later heard in person. [OK, Alvin Gold reviewing the Ruark Prologue ll's, but even there he forgot to mention their sibilance). The great majority of products that received glowing reviews turned out to be crushing disappointments in real life. [fully loaded Linn/Naim six pack was shockingly bad when I'd been expecting near perfection] Time and time again I reminded myself to never again trust ANY reviews. It's the oldest adage in audio but you really do have to listen for yourself. Decades of reading reviews lead me to arrive at the conclusion that professional reviews in audio magazines were no better than what I might find in a consumer reports magazine such as the UK based Which?
A straight head to head or a group test could highlight the difference between products and more usefully the strengths and weaknesses of each one. However, these types of reviews risk giving offence to some of the people the reviewer needs to stay on good terms with and appear to be becoming increasingly uncommon these days. Some of the more honest of reviewers, Andrew Robinson for one, have even talked about the the normally taboo subject of behind the scenes politics of reviewing. I like the way he will always come out and tell you that you will need a subwoofer when describing any bass restricted loudspeaker. This is a huge deal and should never be casually glossed over the way so many do. He also seems to have one of the visibily better demo rooms out there as well as providing a second opinion via his partner Kristi. It's plainly obvious that he does not have to confine his impressions to only near field listening where the room must matter less. |
I’m not as concerned about reviewer’s rooms as many others here. Yes, of course room acoustics affect speaker performance. It’s not for nothing room EQ is all the rage these days. However...I’m less in to hand-wringing over the photos of reviewers rooms for these reason: Per the work of Floyd Toole and others, speaker room interactions are more unreliable in the bass, but nonetheless Toole has explained that the emphasis on room acoustics is sometimes overstated. This is because our brains have evolved to "listen through" the acoustics of a room to perceive the direct character of a sound source. That’s why we generally easily identify the character of people’s voices in a vast array of real-iife acoustic scenarios. If the surrounding acoustic information so baffled our brains that sources had no defining reliable characteristics, our hearing wouldn’t have been of much use. I have found this to be true in my own experience auditioning speakers. I’m a "speaker nut" and when I’m on a speaker hunt my auditioning is wide-ranging (even traveling to hear different speakers). Through careful listener positioning - taking various positions to listen, careful speaker placement, I’ve easily been able to get the gist of a speaker’s character in pretty much every room. I have NEVER been surprised by the sound of a speaker I heard in one room, when I heard it in another. I mean, I even auditioned the Harbeth speakers in a room that was literally a gigantic open warehouse room, and yet I simply placed my listening position and speaker arrangement as I have in my 15 ’ x 13’ room at home...and I heard the same essential sound as I heard when I got the speakers in to my room. So it is quite possible to get a good take on speakers in a variety of different rooms. It reminds me of the time I heard MBL 101 speakers which I’d become obsessed with. I was able to hear them at a TAS reviewer’s home who had a notoriously, hilariously tiny listening room. I mean, closet-sized with BIG MBL omnis. It was the BEST I have ever heard those things sound. Absolutely incredible. And the descriptions he gave in his MLB reviews were right on regarding the pluses and minuses of that speaker. Finally, I don’t just take some single review as gospel. Like many, I think, I tend to gain a level of trust with a reviewer insofar has I’ve noted he/she is listening and noticing things I care about sonically. And insofar as his descriptions of speakers I am familiar with have been accurate. And further, I triangulate the impressions with what other reviewers have written, and what other audiophiles have reported. Very often these converge quite nicely. So for instance I have found Fremer to be quite accurate in his descriptions of speakers I’ve owned or have auditioned. Even Herb Reichert has been extremely accurate to what I’ve heard. For instance his comparison of Harbeth with Joseph Audio speakers, both of which I’ve owned, got right to the gist of exactly the character differences I heard. Finally, when it comes to correlating what reviewers write about speakers, for instance in Stereophile, while you can always find embarrassing moments of a mismatch with the measurements, generally speaking I’ve noticed that the reviews tend to track fairly well with what JA measures. Very often certain characteristics cited by the reviewer show up in the measurements. (Fremer is actually pretty good there too). A good reviewer may not describe a speaker as precisely as measurements, but they can often give the gist of "what it actually sounds like" quite well. IMO. |
What is a great room, what is a bad room? I've recorded in underground water reservoirs with over 20 seconds echo and recorded in rooms that have produced 1000s of gold records, at the end of operating jet engines and in opera houses that were reserved for royal invitations only over the last 35 years and I can tell you some of the most popular rooms for recording sound very strange. The playback room shouldn't add anything, closed headphones do a good job of showing the proper vision of the mixing engineer and that's about it. How can a listener judge a recording as if they were all the same? Some engineers care some don't and all of them are working with a budget, there is no standard recording sound studio so how can there be a standard sound in a playback room. After you hear a song you are very familiar with your brain will compensate for the acoustics in about 5 seconds in whatever room you listen to it in.
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And sometimes “the room” is just voodoo. Long living room and dining room,,38x16,,divided only by brick fireplace that’s centered, with peaked ceiling at 16 feet,,open on both sides of fireplace. Last week I’m working on placing tongue and groove pattern board on the ceiling. I’m up on a scaffold with my head at @15 feet, behind the fireplace. Music playing in the living room, on the other side. I love my system, always sounds wonderful. Up at the ceiling, the music sounds 3 dimensional, floating. I climb down, it sounds normal great. Back up on the scaffold it’s wow. I love that kind of stuff |
What if you wear John Lennon specs? You are not the first to make this recommendation as Jim Smith makes it in his book but there is no way on Earth a reviewer's perspective is skewed off base due to failing to remove eyeglasses. What's next, mandating a uniform size and shape of ears? Augmenting or reducing the size of the schnoz? What about beards? Yarmulkes and Taqiyah? |
I recall posting a reference to a thread about "simple tweaks" to our systems and mentioned one of the easiest tweaks for people who normally wear glasses was to simply remove them ! Apparently the idea is still met with derision judging by this post in the current thread about reviewer’s listening rooms.
You just can’t take anything a reviewer says seriously. We have no idea whether their hearing isn’t damaged or irregular in some way. We don’t know the acoustics of their rooms. We also have no idea whether they know anything about the way the human hearing system works. Or whether they even care.
A fair bit of sound, particularly at volume is heard via bone conduction slightly before our brains can register it. Removing a pair of glasses is bound to affect the way sound is perceived by the listener and not least because of the lack of reflections. Since vision competes with hearing for attention at all times music will always tend to sound clearer in a darkened room/ late at night or with ones eyes shut. I usually notice a slight increase in the precise placement of voices and instruments immediately when I close my eyes. Give your brain less to do and it will usually do it better. |
I recall posting a reference to a thread about "simple tweaks" to our systems and mentioned one of the easiest tweaks for people who normally wear glasses was to simply remove them ! Apparently the idea is still met with derision judging by this post in the current thread about reviewer's listening rooms. " remember that one over the top review when jonathan skull announced to the world he removed his eyeglasses when listening and voila, everything sounded better and different!!! 🤣😂" Noting that the reflective qualities of Michael Fremer's record collection could be responsible for his listening environment, I don't see that a pair of glasses being regarded as a reflective surface only inches from our receptors [ears] wouldn't make a meaningful difference as well. I wonder if the engineers who designed the famous Neumann KU-100 microphone in the shape of a human head ever considered a special model wearing eyeglasses ? Try it even if you don't regularly wear eyeglasses and if you don't hear a difference may I suggest a visit to a hearing specialist ? It definitely makes a difference ! |
The number one thing that I want to know about reviewers, particularly when they are past 70, is their hearing test. Most of us in the hobby are around that age and we all have some frequency loss somewhere. It just doesn't make sense to hear Reichert or Valin or Fremer go on about how they went to the original Same Goodys and then accord them Golden Ear Status. However if I know that their deficits are similar to mine then I can put their reviews in a meaningful context |
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@mikekuller yes, Herb's room is certainly not something to write home about, but he has the gift of critical listening. His reviews are outstanding, always an enjoyable read. He and the late Art Dudley are/were my favorite writers. |
