HiFi is Brilliant!

Hi,

Hifi mags seem to print just great reviews of hifi equipment. Is everything really that great? Is equipment loads better than it ever been? Should magazines be more critical? Should they print more bad reviews? What does everyone think?

SCIDB

 

Very different to the old days Dean.

I remember frequently reading bad reviews in Answers, Practical, Popular, Review etc.
Today the magazines seem less inquisitive, less probing and less prepared to challenge a manufacturer.
I suspect this is because the market is so small and advertising revenue so precious.

 

There are plenty of bad reviews (mostly written by bad reviewers) - what we need are critical reviews.

 

Maybe what we need to do is demand that they do a better job and keep at it online. Might get through to them eventually.

What I'd love to see in more reviews are:
- Comparative tests against other competing equipment (preferably popular kit so that we have a kind of benchmark to work against).
- Reviewers doing more with confirming synergy between kit (or not as the case may be). e.g. confirming whether the class A amp they're testing is capable of doing a good job with inefficient speakers.
- Ensuring that they tease out the sonic differences in presentation between kit. How often have we read a comment of "this kit has brilliant drive to it, but don't call it a one trick pony as it still does blah really well too". Chances are that said component is just as compromised as any other bit of kit out there and if it's good at one thing, it's probably at the expense of something else. Would be nice if the reviewer would not hopelessly gloss over the areas that the designer has compromised on.
- Not bother telling us what a component looks like. Just show us some photos, then tell us what the build quality is like, preferably inside and out.
- Do bother talking about the key functionality and understand something about the product so that it's capabilities are discussed in a relevant manner. I remember reading a review a few years back where the manufacturer in question was slated for missing a connection type (might have been a dig out on a CDP). The relevance of this is down to the user, let them make the decision on how important it is, just tell us what functional differences there are.

 

There have been at least three stages in magazine reviews that I'm aware of. I've got a nice stack of late 50s Gramophone magazines, and a similar quantity of mid-60s Hi Fi News. The reviews in these tend to be very dry and dead-pan and whilst eminently 'sensible' they don't actually give much clue as to how the kit sounds. The measurements, whilst welcome, are really too basic to help much either. This coupled with the poor photography and printing of the day would make this approach unattractive to many now. I still love leafing through them though. The whole Gramophone archive is online here.

The stuff I remember from the late 70s through 1980s e.g. Hi-Fi Answers, Hi-Fi Review etc were very clearly agenda driven, they 'supported' certain UK brands and dealers that advertised and tended to slag off that which didn't fit in these confines. Opinionated and on occasion laugh out loud funny, but again of little real use to anyone interested in buying audio kit. Quite the opposite IMO as in many ways it sent me off down a blind alley.

The modern UK audio press seems remarkably dumbed down to me, lots of pretty pictures coupled with a little vacuous verbage of blandly nodding approval. The pictures are actually far more informative than the text. Some of the content is just embarrassingly bad IMO, really lazy writing. I suspect the notion of upsetting no one, especially advertisers, is paramount.

It seems some other countries may fair better than the UK. I remember seeing a Japanese magazine that had much more in-depth reviews that ran to many pages. The equipment was often dissassembled and appeared very thoroughly scrutinised. I think there are some European magazines, possibly German, that used this approach too, but as I speak neither language I'm going on impression alone, and not anything like a recent one. This would appeal as long as it balanced both the objective measurements with subjective listening and pulled no punches. I certainly don't buy any of the current UK crop. Stereophile is half decent, I've not seen a TAS for years and I'm out of touch with other US mags. I rather liked The Listener, though that went down the pan years ago.

Tony.

 

yes, it almost seems that they only reviews items they like these days...

 

Quite a few of the reviewers today are the same as those in the late 70s/80s/early 90s (when I subscribed to quite a few mags) - Jimmy Hughes, Alvin Gold, Malcolm Steward, Keith Howard, Noel Keywood, and a host of others. They seem to me to be quite consistent, holding similar views throughout the years (irrespective of my opinions at to their reviewing 'style'), but some of the newer guys seem terrified of saying something negative, even when you can plainly read between the lines that the piece being reviewed is average at best, and a dog at worst.

I finally stopped all mag subscriptions last year, and I don't feel I'm missing out on what is happening in the marketplace: I glean most info from the websites & forums. I'm sure publishers are acutely aware that they need to change their business model, and fast, because they cannot possibly sustain a large readership with the bland nonsense currently being produced.

 

Hi Rob,

I remember that as well. Some things, rightly or wrongly, get a good roasting. I do thing that the smaller market has a lot to do with it. The circulation figures of some magazines are small.

SCIDB

 

Hi Mr Cat,

It seems that way. I do know that was the case in HiFi+. HiFi News & Hifi World are not keen on reviewing things that are bad.

The downside is that we don't get to know what these bad items are.

SCIDB

 

I haven't bought a magazine since last summer and don't really feel the need to do so. My most regular purchases were HiFi World and Stereophile.

I find the former was worth a read and the latter mainly good for the adverts.

There is no magic bullet for these magazines, like most people I look on-line for most info these days. However, I did think that the quality of World both editorially and content wise was a bit poor for the cover price and they should be able to address that pretty quickly.

I'd like to see more readers systems, more of a 'HiFi Doctor' section where the writers try and help a user out with their system, more room treatment and much better procedures with analogue reviews.

For instance, how often do we see arm 'X' reviewed with TT 'Y' and cart 'z' before being compared with arm 'C' on TT 'D' with cart 'J'? What really gripped me was the 'Transfi Terminator' review which really damned it with feint praise and ended by highlighting a low bass problem, without detailing any of the possible causes or what steps were taken to alleviate it.

I think if this had come from SME or REGA it would have merited more words and a fairer crack of the whip.

I wouldn't buy anything based purely on a review but I wouldn't even really consider auditioning anything based purely on a review in one of the UK-based mags.


Edit: On re-reading; It wasn't a bad review and didn't slate the arm, maybe I am being a sensitive owner. However, no measurements to support the disjointed comment about the low bass, no measurement comparison with the Jelco etc. And does anyone really know what makes an arm cause the 'soundstage to tail of rapidly beyond the edge of the speakers'?

P.S And a much better, more interactive web site. These guys should have cornered the forum market and they haven't even tried.

 

Hat's exactly how it works in most cases. HiFi world for example receive and test most kit before they decide to do a full review. Freelance reviewers tend to review stuff they already heard and liked. Maybe bad reviews would sell more mags though, just like peope love to read bad news in the papers

 

That is very true.

The old Flat Response and Review magazines thoroughly enjoyed ripping some poor sods pride and joy to pieces.
Some of the stuff written at the time about MF, Cyrus and Audiolab was quite shocking. With hindsight it was also quite obviously written without even listening to the kit - or they were lying.

It made interesting reading I suppose but do we really want to read that sort of thing?
Doesn't really do any good and potentially can do a lot of harm if the manufacturer is out of favour.

 

The little A5 Choice books were the exception I think during that period.
Good detailed reviews with a full lab test followed by auditioning using comparisons to live sounds and recorded music. They also used individuals and panels for the assessment.

I've got the entire set and they prove very useful for looking up vintage kit.

 

Hi,

More crtical reviews are needed. In the latest Hifi News, Keith Howard is constanty the most critical reviewer. He does point out what he thinks is bad in a product.

SCIDB

 

Hi Rob,

Those "Flat Earth" mags seem to have agenda of some sorts. They slagged off a lot of kit. It did affect a number of companies.

It seems they didn't always review the hifi gear. Ian Rankin, author and ex editor of Hifi Review, allegedly admitted that he didn't always listen to stuff before writing the review.

SCIDB

 

Hi Dean,

Yes there was the famous story about the Pink Triangle TT that was returned from the reviewer having been 'reviewed' and was still in the sealed carton.

That's the problem with reviews based purely on opinion and minus the science. Anything can be written and if it sounds half plausible and the writer has reasonable form, it can influence buyers. The fact that it might be complete fiction cannot be proven.

I remember this being discussed once before and I wrote a mini review of something (was on PFM I think a few years ago) just to illustrate the point. It was said to be quite plausible and seemed accurate enough but was of course entirely made up.

This is one of the reasons why I say there should be balance in reviews and reporting between opinion and hard technical facts obtained by measurement. There is often correlation between the two. For example, if a turntable is found to be subjectively poorly pitched and unstable in tempo, but throws out a stunningly good set of speed stability measurements, I'd like to think that questions would be asked and that we'd see some probing. Ditto a soggy and warm sounding amplifier that turns out to have a ruler flat response, near zero distortion and super low output impedance. Even if we later discover a perfectly reasonable explanation for the disparity, alarm bells should be ringing in the first instance.

 

A lot of kit sounds OK at low to reasonable volume, to me at least. Not surprising, as most kit is designed in the same general way, with the same kinds of CAD and manufacturing processes that offer generally much more consistant quality control than in the past.
I suspect that there's also rather less to hifi than we like to think.
And of course, once you start using science and fact as a base, you end up talking about things like EQ and saying that, actually, Cerwin Vega make very good loudspeakers. As audiophiles, we just know this is ridiculous. EQ is the work of the Devil (not our bub, the other one), and Cerwin Vega make cheap PA speakers ;-)

 

The magazine industry in general is in decline. The audio industry in general is in decline. Combine the two and you have a set of magazines with no budget to be 'championing'.

Reviewers do not go the extra mile anymore as the amount they earn hasn't really gone up since the mid-1980s, due to those declines and because writing is no longer considered valued. I stopped reviewing multichannel loudspeaker systems for home theatre magazines when I worked out that the amount of time spent opening the boxes, setting the system up, listening to it, writing that up and reboxing the equipment meant I was earning about £20 per day. If I then contacted the manufacturer to get an inside viewpoint on the design of the loudspeaker system, that might add an extra day or two to the whole package, lowering the rate still further.

It used to be possible for magazines to assign in-house staff to do the investigative work, but that was when magazines had in-house staff. My magazine's editorial department is a team of me; others have more, but the more editorial members they have the more review writing those editorial members do to save money. So, all those championing bits of investigative journalism have gone away.

This is somewhat different from the situation in other countries. Germany, Japan and China still have vibrant audio industries and the amount of money spent in advertising and received from circulation means the reviewers can be paid enough to investigate the products thoroughly, and there is an audience receptive enough to receive balanced reviews. Here, I'm still receiving mail from readers who are disgusted that I have introduced a dangerous level of objectivity into reviews by discussing chipsets instead of simply stating that products are 'magic boxes full of precious things'.

Yes, we do preselect, although I am less inclined to do this. I prefer more objective writing, and that includes the good and the bad. We are living through a very grey time in a lot of audio now; few things are remarkably good or bad, most are 'meh!'. Unfortunately, this doesn't make for an entertaining magazine, as it seems most readers want raves or annihilations... so we chose to filter instead.

We live on 'Clarkson Island'.

 

Thanks for the insight Alan which is valuable and candid as always.

Do you have to use paid journalists for the investigative work?
Why not trawl net land and get some enthusiastic amateurs on board. We've seen plenty of reader systems in the past so perhaps expand this and get the readers to do some work. If someone happens to have built a great amp or spent months perfecting a pair of speaker, use their knowledge and experience to fill your magazine.

 

Some of the reviews I've seen over the years make me think that some professional reviewers are already enthusiastic amateurs (and perhaps not even enthusiastic).

I think there's also an element of self-fulfillment in this "everything is going downhill". Seems to be resulting in magazines with ever-decreasing amounts of meat on the bones.

There are things I want to know about products, and from knowledgeable sources independent of the manufacturer/importer/distributor/retailer. Including (but not limited to), whether performance meets specification (and specifications which are "complete", not with convenient omissions), whether physical construction is appropriate for the price, how the customer is treated when things go wrong.

I don't really care whether this happens on paper or electronically - but I do care that it be done competently (and independently). I don't know what the finances required are. But I do think that, as customers and potential customers, we need to get clear of the mysticism and vested interests that have held sway for so long. Certainly I don't see myself paying money for some of the reviewer ego-trips (and ego-massages) that seem to have become too prevalent.

Thought for a while that HiFi Critic might be part of a way out of the dark ages, but that doesn't seem to be the case.