"Julian Fowler" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 11:16:19 +0100, "citizensband"
wrote:

I've been reading a great number of threads with considerable
interest on
here recently, and I've arrived at the conclusion, the biggest single
factor
when buying audio equipment, is the badge placed on the front of it.

Isn't that true of just about anything that's bought/sold? Skoda's
nice "reverse snobbery" point this out for cars.

Lets take a look at Hi-Fi reviewers who work for magazines, I've read
hundreds of reviews over the years. How many people have they
brainwashed?
How many perfectly acceptable pieces of Hi-Fi equipment have they
crucified?
What qualifications do these people posses?

None at all - what did you expect?

An amp that sounds like a tom cat being castrated without an
anaesthetic to
them, may sound wonderful to someone else. At the beginning of the
year, I
read two reviews on a Sony AV amp, one thought it was the best thing
since
sliced bread, the other slated it!

Perhaps a good test for a reviewer would be to give him a listening
room and
ten top of the range amplifiers. Let him keep them for a week and
listen
until his hearts content. Then bring him back in the room blindfolded
and
ask him to identify each amp as it is played back to him randomly. I
suspect
the results would be very interesting!

Well, if the 10 amps are doing their jobs correctly, then he/she
*shouldn't* be able to tell the difference. Except, of course, amps
(and more particularly those at the high end of the market) are likely
to sound different (by design).

Surely, at the end of the day, buying and listening to Hi-Fi is
totally
subjective?

Yes and no. If you've been following this group you'll have realize
that there are two extreme positions:

* the "I want components that provide me with a sound I like" posse
(including, albeit not exclusively, the vinyl & values brigade).
These folks are (by definition) totally subjective.

* the "I want components that reproduce recorded sound as accurately
as possible" contingent (who will typically be pro-digital /
solid-state and quote specs/measurements). This camp does bring a
degree of objectivity - to someone here, an amplifier that doesn't
colour sound is *by definition* better than one that does.

Of course, most people sit somewhere between these two :-)
and then get killed by the crossfire.



At the end of the day, there's no substitute for listening to music
you like through the system/components you're planning to buy -
preferably in the environment that you're going to end up using them
in.

--
RobH
The future's dim, the future's mono.