Reading these posts, it seems that many of you think reviewers are on 'the take,' as it were.
I wrote for TAS, was the Equipment Manager for Fi Magazine and wrote again for UltraAudio.com.
There was no 'take,' on any of my reviews. Nor are there any on HP's reviews or a large majority of the TAS writers. I knew several of them. The reviews are honest. How so many of you can allow yourselves to speculate endlessly - and with no evidence - is pretty disgusting. HP may make mistakes, but he reviews what he hears, but his ears are his reputation. Same with JV and Neil Gader and Fred Kaplan, when they wrote for TAS. John Nork and Cordesman: beyond even thinking they would write other than what they heard.
Has it occurred to you that reviwers worry that others won't hear what they hear and call them frauds? I wrote a review of the Hurricanes on Ultraaudio and someone wrote to ask me if I didn't find the ASL Hurricanes "smeared." I thought, "What????? Is he high?!?!" Those amps are in no way smeared. HOWEVER, when I moved them to a smaller room (13 x 20) from a larger one (23 x 45), they did not have the absolute realism they had in the larger room. I still have them 10 years later, and am putting them back in the larger area (in the basement) when spring comes, just so my friends can hear the difference between the two rooms. in the larger room, they sounded so alive, that after 20 years of listening to components, I was instantly dazzled and I hadn't even made it back to the listening chair.
Now, I also heard these at Lyric Hi-Fi, one of the most venerable of audio salons. i can tell you it was a dismal failure, and only my belief in HP made me acquire them months later. And they sounded every bit as real as he said, and, i assure you, i did NOT have Nola Grand References. I had Hales Revelation 3s, but I'd had several amps on them and it was like going from a propeller plane to an F-16. No lie here whatsoever.
So, if you KNOW what you're talking about and you KNOW reviewers who took money for reviews (the idea that a reviewer did a good review so the manufacturer would advertise is stupid: we get NOTHING out of it, and were never, ever told to write a good review in order to generate income).
As my late mother would say, when her nieces and nephews would say they hated broccoli/spinach/green beans, or whatever, "Have you eaten them before?Invariably, the response was "No." I knew to duck, 'cuz I KNEW the exact wording that would fly out of her mouth: "if you haven't tasted them, you don't know what you're talking about, you stupe (stupid person), so shut your mouth."
I detest the petty speculation about dishonest reviewers and how we all do it to get the manufacturer to advertise. i knew Dave Wilson, Luke Manley, Mr. Nudell, and others, and owned their products long BEFORE I ever became a reviewer. They wouldn't even DREAM of suggesting a good review in order to advertise. They didn't need to: their products spoke for themselves, good review or not.
Kindly shut it, unless you have proof of this. Writing an accurate review is what gives us credibility. Missing obvious flaws diminishes it, and in the industry, that's a death rattle if you want to review someone's products, and they say, "Aren't you the guy who said so-and-so's speaker had a suckout in the mid bass??? Uh, no, thank you, I don't think we'll be providing you with samples." And you are dead - and usually fired. ESPECIALLY from TAS.
