Gene I've loved your reviews for years, and tailored many of my purchases based on them, because of your measurements and honesty. Matt, I love listening to how you present your information.
I love the honesty, humility, and intelligence with measurements to back up the claims, that’s why I really trust AudioHolics as the standard for reviews.
Accurate measurements are something I really miss in reviews. I do enjoy subjective reviews, but it is hard to take them for more than entertainment without something more qualitative to back them up. I also appreciate when a product is disassembled and the engineering behind the product is covered. When you find a publication that does good work, it makes easier to trust the veracity of their reviews. Sadly, you always have to remain vigilant because things can change. You folks are some of the good guys out there. Thank you for doing what you do.
I have been noticing this stuff going on for a while now, it's frustrating... Great video, and I truly appreciate everything you guys do, keep it up! 😉👍
Integrity is one of the greatest feelings there is. In ancient times, the Egyptians believed in living a life where your heart would be free from the heaviness of guilt. To live soo pure an ethical life, that your heart would be as light as a feather; and when you died, your heart would be weighed on a scale against a feather. But there was a turning point, that also correlates with the decline of this society which was soo great and prosperous that it built the Great Pyramids. It was when a concept was introduced that if you paid the clergy a tithe, the gods weighing the scales would reach out, and put a hand upon the scales, tipping them in your favor. This moral corruption triggered a period of infighting within the priesthood, which fascinatingly is directly related to King Tut, for It was his family who resisted this corrupt change, they lost, were ousted, and were then written out of history to cover up the scandalously coup of corruption, but their followers managed to hide the tomb, in a rushed fly by nite burial to protect his eternal soul, which also protected it from being found and looted, leaving all it's treasures to be discovered thousands of years later, allowing the glory of virtuous living to be sang once again.
Audioholics, Z-reviews and Hans Beekhuyzen are trustworthy. Z gives you the added bonus of being funny as fk too. Joe n tell & Thomas stereo are mostly ok ( they atleast give enough "read between the lines" hints if they don't bash). Steve Guttenberg is a lousy cockroach. He lies more for whoever pays more. Zero fidelity, Next best thing studio and New Record Day (that dude Ron, not Danny) are getting less trustworthy as the days go by.
@Mike Glavin Mike, i said Thomas is 'mostly ok' which inherently implies that he is NOT ok at times. If i were you, i'd stick with Z, Audioholics and Hans Beekhuyzen on YT. Hans is a precise knowledgeable powerhouse for everything audio, but, he tries to stay away from speakers except for active speakers. For speakers, it's either Z or audioholics. For higher priced speakers, which Z and audioholics don't do too much of, you can read stereophile. Even if stereophile embellishes sometimes, you'll atleast get good measurements.
@ W A, I followed Hans Beekhuyzen on YT for a while and thought his reviews seem genuine, but the MQA review which he swears by, and thought so highly of, left me a bit disappointed since I and many others have heard no such enhancement provided by the MQA unfold in, which creates some questions about what gives. Meridian who’s the “inventor” insists that the program enhances the enjoyment of music but so far not many listeners are convinced that it accomplishes anything worthwhile.
I really cannot stand that there are call centers dedicated to writing fake reviews from Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and other big box stores. With actual pre written scripts!
One of the reasons this problem exists is because of Google having a monopoly on the industry with UA-cam. Unfortunately, a company like Apple with the massive cash reserves they have decides to use it to provide yet another streaming service that nobody really needs or wants and is just helping to oversaturate that market. If they focus on creating a viable alternative to UA-cam and help pass on more of the revenue to content creators unlike the stingy UA-cam, they will be successful in driving out many of the people here who's already complaining about the restrictions and chump change that UA-cam gives or imposes on them. Instead, they decide to throw it at Hollywood directors, writers and actors to go make content that normally wouldn't have been given the green light (which is a reason why more crap is coming down the shoot). People don't have time to watch all these shows but they will certainly spend more time watching UA-cam than these streaming sites. Also, people don't necessarily want other options outside of Amazon Prime or Netflix but I know many of them want it for UA-cam.
When it comes to anything audio related, you guys are the only review I follow. Thanks for all the great content. Keep it up and enjoy what you are doing. Cheers
I would love to see more of the breakdown of internal components. Especially speakers. Watching Danny Ritchie, for example, take apart a Klipsch RP 600 and explain that the crossovers are worth about 3 to 4 dollars to make is important information...if it’s true. Granted, he is running an upgrade business so every syllable coming out of his mouth has to be taken through that filter.
Did you ever do a video about how the same speakers are made on the same assembly line? And how there's actually less products in the market than we think that sounded really interesting to me
The most dangerous ones are the professionnal and objectivists that are biased or influenced by manufacturers. Confidence is essential, and education too. So IMO the best way is to make the audience learn how to interpret measurements and put them in perspective with earing and psychology.
Great stuff Gene and Matt, much needed topic! Quick question on front wides for a 9.1.6 setup. Should it be the same speaker as the front mains or the surrounds or a bookshelf? Also, can it be bipolar or direct? For example definitive Technology towers have front and rear facing drivers. So are those bad for home theater and placement behind the screen? And should the front wides be positioned in the middle of the listener and screen on the side walls? And at the height of the mains or ear level with the surrounds? On topic though. Don't some reviewers get a significant discount if they want to keep a product? For example Gene, when you installed the RBH Sound sv661wr you didn't know its price and stated the pair cost but rbh guy said that was the single cost each? Speaking of that onwall, can it be used as a front wide speaker? Lastly, Matt Pose do you have a youtube video of your theater build? Are the speakers JTR speakers or others?
Gene or Matt if you could touch on my comment above any? I'd greatly appreciate it. Trying to figure out if a 9.1.6 is possible with old Definitive Technology speakers that are bipolar or better to switch to a new direct radiating speaker system?
One of my main beefs is advertising AV receivers with only 2 channels driven when they have 5, 7, 9, or more channels. I want to know how good the power supply is working and the only way is to rate amplifiers is full bandwidth, all channels driven at 4, 8 and maybe 16 ohms. Specs that show 2 channels driven at 1,000 HZ tell me nothing worth knowing. I'm old school and started out with Crown 300 power amps that would produce full power at nearly a dead short and still have low distortion.
Glad to see this being addressed...I often used amazon customer reviews to get an overview of a product and also see its reliability and if any issues...What you see lately are amazon may show 500 or 1,000 reviews for example but when you go to view Those reviews, you maybe find 10 to 20 actual reviews...Where are the rest? The other thing you often find is that the few reviews that Are posted, may not even be for the item in the listing! again WTF? so misleading
Great video! But I actually wish you guys would name some names of the products and the sites like your competitor that published that article about the oppo in a fancy box. Mainly so I know who not to trust if you don’t have a review of a product I’m interested in.
Audioholics thanks for the reply! Duly noted! Love your home theater knowledge, advice and reviews... Bought my HSU ULS 15-MK2 because of you guys... just got it today! And after some tweaking, I’m Completely blown away!! Brought my modest set up to the next level!
I only look at the one star reviews. If they are consistent I take that to heart. If they are random about stuff that makes no sense I often ignore them. The five star reviews are completely useless as are most of the four star. Bottom line look at the negatives and how consistent those are.
In regards to audioholics monthly traffic nowadays compared to 10 years ago, I would think you were basically the only website in town with quality evaluations! Same here on youtube! The market is way way way more saturated than it was even 5 years ago! Heck, you are one of the pioneers in this whole thing!🤔🤔🤫😉 Just something to think about because I think the contents great! Your comment about a hour in this conversation shows I stayed the whole way through listening and learning!😉🤗 I used to be employed selling extremely high end print advertising so that whole topic interests me as well.😁 I wouldn't be surprised if I was one of the 1st couple of 1000 people in the world to sell a Web based advertisement in the mid nineties🤪 It wasn't even a physical AD Banner back in those days it was just a link to the clients particular website. There was no graphic content to the add image and those days. Those were the days when I would call up a company and ask about this particular web product and the 1st thing they wanted to know is what a website was🤣😅🤣😅🤣🤣😅🤪🤪
I had a vendor on Amazon try to get me to remove a review on a car phone holder for a $25 gift card I declined and then an offer for $35 or $45 I declined and told em It was unethical and wasn't going to help them sell junk. Oh just remembered I got a question from another Amazon customer and answered it honestly and the vendor chimed in "STFU" lol... what scumbags!
The point of reference of the reviewer is HUGE. I have discovered that people don't actually know enough to give a decent evaluation of something in terms of quality. I have trusted reviews of products that were plentiful and positive only to realize that the people who are pleased with what they had purchased have no basis of comparison other than if they like it or not. Subjective reviews are unhelpful. You need some kind of standard to compare against when trying to get an idea of build quality or whether something is going to perform well against something cheaper.
Fake reviews are so prolific , they should be called bloatware . Real reviews should fall Into two discrete but similar results . UA-cam sound test - average living room With high end microphones and software That gives accurate results . Numbers don’t Lie . The other way to discern equipment : Using someone with enough knowledge To effectively break things down . Including Disassemble and pointing out each component . How much it cost ( per part ) The short cuts manufactures will take to Achieve the bottom line . Substandard . 4,000 speakers have 150.00 parts 50.00 In labour . Reputable companies like this one Should easily receive 5% or greater . Commissions . Not to having to overwhelm The viewer with ads . Some sites are drowning in these tactics . I would love to Know how much value is the consumer Getting . 18 months rotation and it’s already Dated .
I second the idea of discussing how much diversity is imagined in the marketplace. I discovered this when I found a graphic pen drawing tablet in a second hand shop and went looking for a stylus to use it. I learned that there was essentially only TWO different manufacturers for these devices despite the myriad of brand names they were sold under. There was wacom and waltop. Waltop made everything that wasn't wacom regardless of it was labeled as adesso or aiptek or manhattan or vistablet or a whole smattering of other names. In many cases, they didn't even bother to have a different housing or version of the template that made it their own, they just used the same exact device and put their own name on the thing. I became very disillusioned by this practice even more when looking into repairing things that didn't work like dishwashers and televisions and other electronics like DVD writers. Sony went to hell as a company when they stopped making their own stuff and instead buying LG stuff and sticking a Sony name on it, and I used to feel very comfortable shelling out more money for something sony because I used to be assured that it would be a higher quality and reliable product. Once the patent expired on Trinitron, I guess they no longer had an edge and I no longer buy sony products when once every electronic device i owned bore their name. Brand loyalty is a now a thing of the past for me (with the exception of Honda. I still like their stuff because they still focus on making it right.) I remember spending 4 hours in a store when I bought my PC because I was trying to rationalize how it was possible that I was leaning towards buying a Samsung monitor for less money than the Sony product because it actually looked like it had a superior picture. That was a first time experience for me, but I went with the Samsung and always someone comments on it whenever they see it how beautiful the picture is on it and it is now 20 years old. But diversity is gone. All kitchen aide, whirlpool or kenmore products are usually electrolux and interchangeable. I think that should be illegal. The fact that you guys take everything apart is the key to enlightenment. I feel like you really HAVE to know what's in it to even know it's a different product from something else these days. I've discovered that even something having Japanese made capacitors in it can make a huge difference in how long it can last. When the components cost more, the final product tends to show it especially over time.
Pay to play is not relavent any longer. But many people who review products are in it to nake money. As a former sales person and a reseller of vintage product , I am appalled at the poor quality of todays consumer product. That is why i only sell Audio from the 60s to early 80s. After the chance over to electronic everything, the number of went up features drastically. But sound quality suffered a lot. A 14 watt Marantz model 26 blows away just about every 100 watt mid 80s products including the Philips /Marantz products. This was just A/B listing test, much less scope measurements. Listen yourself .
I feel a little embarrassed to have the Polk T15s as my left and right surrounds. Edit: I went an read the measurement review of the Polk T15 on Audioholics. I purchased these speakers with the rest of Polks T series speakers to replace a home theater box set from Pioneer. The receiver I had at the time was the Pioneer VSX-819H (no, there is no -K at the end). I recently wall mounted my T15s up high about 2.5 feet above my listening position. Personally, I have never been upset with the speakers with how I use them as surrounds. I don't have the best ear (trying hard to get better trained) but I'm no noob anymore. All of this to say but I'm not embarrassed anymore to own those speakers. They are working well for me now and they were a massive upgrade over the other speakers that I had. What I buy the same speakers today if I was doing the same thing all over again with the theater in the box set I had before? No, I wouldn't buy the same ones. And after watching this video and seeing so this for myself, going to be a lot more careful with how I digest reviews for products online. Thanks guys
I'm very new to high end audio. Thankfully I have a lot of experience with computer tech reviews and can spot bad methodology. I found you guys, but there's not enough reviews it seems like. Struggling to find good reviewers.
I find scanning lots of online reviews and sort of averaging the pluses and minuses from many sources helps, but I don’t know how much of it is legit (negative reviews can be fake too from rival companies). There is the element of groupthink too - repeated phrases used to describe something that many people are using. The internet is a blessing in that it brings people together but it also ensures a lot of groupthink, even across languages because of machine translation.
Congratulations on an outstanding post. Personally I tend not to take much stock in reviews. Especially consumer posts, which are almost always glowing or overly negative. Professional reviews I will way a little heavier, but even then, I tend be skeptical. Not that I find any issue with someone's integrity. I think most folks are honest enough, it's just that there is no way for any reviewer to know what suits my tastes, room, and expectations. An speaker a person really likes may not be a good fit within my room.
We will bring James back again. We might need to start a “Give James some gas money” campaign so he can come more. He lives close but still over an hour away.
gashead smart I feel like we covered this on a past video. I can’t recall which one. So there is nothing impossible about delayed and ported, but it adds a complication. The octave or so covered by the port is out of phase and this cancels the response of the sealed sub. It’s tricky to get the sealed and ported subs aligned with no cancelation. However difficult does not mean impossible. As for sealed and ported mixing of speakers and subs, it depends. Absolutely nothing wrong with sealed speakers and ported subs. Ported speakers and sealed subs can have the same problem as sealed and ported subs. The port, being out of phase, can cause interference with the sub. A high pass filter in the mains can fix this, but then the port would become useless. So in those cases I plug the port. My suggestions to others is to use sealed mains and sealed or ported subs if they can’t take measurements. It’s the best easiest way to get good integration (plugging the port in a speaker effectively makes it sealed). If you can take measurements, then you want to experiment. Try different combinations of sealed, ported, phase, etc. to get everything As integrated as possible.
You know there is a problem when "top ten" lists of audio products include mostly pedestrian gear. Someone posts a freak out about the superiority of certain imported ear buds that don't measure up. That cheap a/v receiver, DAC or maybe speakers you know aren't THAT great.
My partial solution is to calibrate UA-cam channels for trustworthiness. Very few channels get into this inner sanctum of trust. This is particularly true if I'm searching for an eventual purchase. In audio hardware, I tend to scroll past channels that look like dolts and wannabe influencers -- you know, the guy who finally bought a speaker or amp, and tries to do three or four unboxings, setting ups, and compares it to nothing but other one-off 'reviewers' he wants to emulate. We can all find channels like this -- probably a hundred in an hour. On the other side, there are channels and sites I *tend* to believe because of long term prior experience. And, I have long since *calibrated* them. In audio, their names tend to start with A and M, and S, and another S, sometimes G, and *not* P. The solution is left to the reader. With Amazon the game starts and ends in the weeds. But a technique I've used with some success is to first read the 3* reviews. That's because few if any reviewers will be influenced to offer 3* opinions. After that, I go back up and read the 2* reviews, which I can better calibrate having read the 3* judgments. Finally, I take a glance at 1* and 2* reviews just to find any glaring flaws being reported. Most of these are by dolts and the folks who returned a $1000 device because the pilot light was the wrong color or too bright. -Just one man's view.
I HATE LYING AND DECEPTION! LET THE BUYER BEWARE . . . especially nowadays when integrity and ethics have little to no meaning to people, who are lusting for money and power at all costs. especially yours! With all the products out there, it is hard enough and confusing enough to tell what is really good or inferior products. I recently asked a manufacturer a simple and legitimate question . . . and all he did was repeat what I already stated in my question to him . . . and when I called him on his incompetence, he wrote me back: “GOODBYE!” Why should we endorse or spend our money on sites that are fakes and phonies, much less on sights that are stealing written reviews and not providing real information about what they are supposedly selling? You see, those who have played this game of dishonesty, it is now coming back to bite them. Unfortunately, the mistrust they have caused is also affecting honest merchants and hurting everyone!
CR speaker test/reviews may not have been tainted by manufacturer influence or other dishonesty, but unfortunately they were unreliable and invalid and never matched my experience. After comparing their procedures against the science of the NRC, Dr. Floyd Toole and Dr. Sean Olive, I stopped wasting my time with CR.
There’s a certain loudspeaker that every hifi reviewer says is so amazing. Out of curiosity, I had to buy it and I found out that it’s nowhere near how they rave about it. But almost all the owners say it’s so amazing too. 😂🤣
Nathan Jones ... naaaaah ... I did get the RP600M, not to my taste but the reviews did state it had that slight shouty tone etc. I think it’s still a good product for its price and it holds its own. Great for a HT set up due to its price and it will do well in HT. For music it really depends on the person’s taste.
hushpuppykl please share. I’m curious what speaker you are taking about. I almost used the Klipsch speaker mentioned here as an example. It’s well liked and often referred to as neutral sounding. It actually has an elevated treble with some hash in the Hugh frequencies caused by waveguide reflections. The problem was we didn’t officially review it so it wasn’t as good an example. The measurements we take are free space and this accurate regardless of end user situation. However in room subjective listening tests are always going to be a matter of both room and personal taste. The more reflective a room is, the brighter a speaker will tend to sound. Sometimes people don’t like certain speakers simply because it’s a bad fit for their room. Of course it’s also possible the reviewers were just phoning it in with the review.
Matthew Poes ... it’s a nice square box, one circular driver in the front only. Ssssshhhh ... You are really spot on about speaker and room. I used the Sony SS CS5, it was ok but I was dissatisfied with it in my living room and bedroom. Handed it to my gf. Her living room has a lot more stuff and it sounded so much better. Frankly, that speaker with a decent amp (Yamaha RN803) and the right room is a nice system to own for a mere $750 thereabouts.
One of the biggest scam in the 80s was CD players , new electronic Reciever's and several bookshelf speakers. CD players was the worst in terms of change of paint on the chassis, change the color on the display. But the spec's were the exact same as the original mfg. Pioneer , Marantz , Sony all had the own engineers and R&D to make there own products. And there the licensing of that product. (At one time in the mid 80s ,Panasonic's parent Brand Mas, was mfg 18 different brands that all were the same machine. This is were the countries started to tell these mfg that they had to tell the truth. Mitsubishi was the only one that did not licence there product for consumer use. This is were it really started . Now CD,DVD, AV Reciever, ,tuners. All are being looked at very closely to make sure be is not being put on the net.
Yes it is true what you were saying about the fake reviews. I like some of Amazon prices, but hate the review because most of the reviews on a product will include a variety of items not pertaining to the original product that you were looking for. I have also noticed some reviews get deleted or not posted at all. I would know because I have placed my own review and if I hate the product they will not shoe my post. For this reason I look for audioholics most of the time before deciding on a purchase. Thank you Gene.
I ran into the same thing bro..amazon lists high numbers of reviews to sell a product but when u check those reviews, there are but a handful actually listed and alot of those arent even for the listed item!
Reviewers have in the past, written a positive review of gear from a company they had stake in. Peter Aczel . In the mid 2000's, a reviewer was given a set of VMPS RM40 speakers to review. He got explicit instructions on setup, which he failed to follow. He asked to send the speakers back vs writing a bad review. The manufacturer (Brian Cheney) had to show him in person. The RM40 went on to win show awards and wide praise. The moral of the story? Doesn't matter if you have a PHD in composition, if you are clueless about audio equipment, you should not be allowed to write reviews. Writing a bad review based on improper setup is just stupid. Magazines (Stereophile) praised incompetent speakers (Alon) because of high price and fear of losing ad revenue. This was initially a lower grade, and then got raised. Transparently fake. FWIW: Oppo dealers would not allow the 105 and 103 (for example) to be in the same demo room. The 103 cost 1/2 as much and sounded as good. RGPC power gear was measured to have more noise on the output than on the input, but got positive reviews. Imagine this. "This vacuum cleaner leaves more dirt than it picks up, but I love it!" A British reviewer claimed his sponsor's cable product was somehow superior to blue jeans cables, he went so far as to make a claim that they were shoddily made. BJC confirmed that the guy was lying and never had their product. Amazon, Google and other sites are rife with fake reviews both + and -.
I love those cheap polks. Sound great to my ear, even better then high end in some cases, but I wont actually buy em myself just because I know. I hate that i wish i could just buy what i think sounds good instead of digging into the tech for several weeks.
Only measuring can be objective. I have few cheap audio equipments what burn my mind. I dont have professional equipment to do "pro" measurements but for all my measurements I`m use ARTA with good sound card which is properly calibrated, osciloscope and REW. 90% of all superb reviews from magazines are fake good payed advertisement.
One thing on fake reviews ,on the Polk t15 6.5 in 2way. It looks like this speaker was made to compete with the parts express (Dayton audio b652 6.5 in 2 way) these were praised by everyone as a fantastic speaker. But it had its problems. It is made for a dorm room ,computer , small office. For voice as well as music. But a 60 pair of speakers. Ok . I bought several pairs (4) and broken in 2 and was pleased with the speakers. But it was no we're close to my Marantz HD 440 8in 3way, or my Mistubishi ds616 150 wat done tweeter ,full cross over,not just a cap for cross over. Probable the biggest difference was the Athena B1 125 watt 2way with the teteron tweeter,and that very well designed 6.5 in woofer. A heavy 5/8 inch wall a sofistacated crossover. The Athena was 229.00 back in 2004 ,them Klipsch bought then. But compared to the Dayton b652. Night and day difference. .
Yep I saw this stuff recently with the vizio p quantum 2019 tvs. There were 20 five star reviews on vizio website before the tv even came out. Since walmart pull reviews from manufacturers websites sometimes. Those reviews were on walmart and Sam's club websites almost a month before the tv released.
Amozon is a joke in the review area. I have seen so much lying and bullshit talking about certain products that middle and high schools kids were making comments.
Hi Gene and Matt. I have purchased a few Klipsch RP line speakers. I'm glad I did. In my opinion they sound great. Maybe not the best but there's no such thing as a PERFECT speaker. I had seen one of your reviews about the stats on multiple tower brands, I can't remember the exact title but I'm glad that I did purchase the Klipsch RP series and I had boughten them before that review had come out and seen that I made a good choice. Keep up the great work Gene, Matt and James. Just wanted to add in that I'm consdering adding another pair of RP-8000f's to my existing pair of RP-8000f's for a 4 speaker stereo set up. I'm just having a little difficulty figuring out what preamp and amp to drive all 4 of the Rp-8000f speakers. I was considering the Parasound line. If you could.give me your thoughts and opinion, that would be great.
Wish I knew who the corrupted reviewers are. Wouldn't be surprised if "letter 26" reviews was corrupted. But who knows? Maybe he's honest with unfortunately ears.
One of the weirdest things is media reviews on Amazon. Customers are reviewing the movie, not the product. The review is for talking about the product, the physical item you got. How strong is it? Did the discs come loose in shipping. Did Amazon ship it in a bubble mailer again and naturally damaged the corners. It's not meant to be a movie review section like rotten tomatoes. Same for books, music etc.
Kind of makes you wonder about so many youtube channels where a guy reviews all of these different audio pieces at his home. I'm sure you know a few of them. One of the guys doesn't even show the stuff he is reviewing! WhatHiFi looks suspect, though at least they will make comparisons and say they like one product more than another.
Somehow I missed this video, you know your an industry leader when the scammers and scum bags start stealing your content to attempt to add to their non-existent credibility. Really when you think about it in the audio community you guys are so well known for un-biased reviews and analysis that typically if someone sees your logo they immediately know it’s not purchased fluff. It’s unfortunate the leeches of the world have found a way to exploit that.
This has been part of our technology sadly I get emails from the vendor or the manufacture of everything i buy from amazon i never did this until i bought Mother board for a AMD CPU, there socket is not the best wont go into details i also saw the same comments i made on new-egg , Sadly most don't like to take the time to make a commit on something unless they are unhappy with it. Most site are very aware of buyer looking at reviews. it is sad but most electronic products are not the quality they use to be IE an air conditioner use to last for many years, new central air system don't last near as long, Years ago the cars use to be poor quality they have changed and last much longer the other things that wear manufactured seem to last forever.
When I read reviews I pay the most attention to the middle of the road reviews the over zelous ones may be intentional and the horrible ones are probably idiots that did something wrong the average ones are usally more reliable unless there all good or all bad... You know the truth is somewhere in the middle thing.
Here is my opinion on the following interconnects. 1. XLO: very spacious but kinda agressive and therefore fatiguing 2. Consonance: clear souding cable but constricted soundstage 3. Van den Hul: strange cable. Constricted soundstage warm sounding in the mids and bass but thin in the treble 4. Audioquest: very warm and soft sounding. 5. Tara Labs: they use Monster like turbine connectors. Will destroy the connectors on your equipment, so I did not even try this cable. The search for the neutral and balanced sounding interconnect goes on.
I will never ever lie about a review on any audiogear or speakers i review! I have a full time job that pays my bills i will never ask my subscribers for money or I will never take money from an audio company I have a huge passion for Music playback and Audio gear thats enough payment for me but my channel has some kickass subscribers ! POP the HOOD !!!😆
Tee-Jay The Stereo-Bargin-File that’s great and i think we always need people who review like you do. I have a full time job that pays my bills but Gene and I still need something to make this feasible. The equipment I use to take measurements is valued at thousands of dollars and what Gene has is even more expensive in the form of his AP. My camera rig and lights is also well over a thousand dollars. All this work puts wear and tear. Going to shows costs time and money. Running a website costs a lot of money. All of this necessitates a model that also allows profit on reviewing gear. But it must be done with integrity.
I soooo wish I knew who tried to get 30k for a "review" I wonder if it's one I watch, hell expose them so we know not to watch them, it deffinately points out there not honest and on the take and there moral compass is off so I don't wanna listen to them... channel Name abbreviations maby...
I can’t and won’t say. First because it’s hearsay. I heard it from a vendor’s PR guy. It was told to me in confidence but I wasn’t provided with a copy of the email or given permission to share. I would guess this person would sue us if we even hinted. It would obviously be a big hit to their channel. Another manufacturer told me a story about a character from a few decades ago who used to request expensive products and money in exchange for positive reviews. He was an original influencer (this was like the 60’s or 70’s) and many major manufacturers played along.
Gene I've loved your reviews for years, and tailored many of my purchases based on them, because of your measurements and honesty. Matt, I love listening to how you present your information.
I love the honesty, humility, and intelligence with measurements to back up the claims, that’s why I really trust AudioHolics as the standard for reviews.
Accurate measurements are something I really miss in reviews. I do enjoy subjective reviews, but it is hard to take them for more than entertainment without something more qualitative to back them up. I also appreciate when a product is disassembled and the engineering behind the product is covered.
When you find a publication that does good work, it makes easier to trust the veracity of their reviews. Sadly, you always have to remain vigilant because things can change.
You folks are some of the good guys out there. Thank you for doing what you do.
I have been noticing this stuff going on for a while now, it's frustrating... Great video, and I truly appreciate everything you guys do, keep it up! 😉👍
AudioHolics the standard for reviews. Excellent work.
If you don't name your competitor who was essentially frauding people. How can I avoid them?
Integrity is one of the greatest feelings there is. In ancient times, the Egyptians believed in living a life where your heart would be free from the heaviness of guilt. To live soo pure an ethical life, that your heart would be as light as a feather; and when you died, your heart would be weighed on a scale against a feather. But there was a turning point, that also correlates with the decline of this society which was soo great and prosperous that it built the Great Pyramids. It was when a concept was introduced that if you paid the clergy a tithe, the gods weighing the scales would reach out, and put a hand upon the scales, tipping them in your favor. This moral corruption triggered a period of infighting within the priesthood, which fascinatingly is directly related to King Tut, for It was his family who resisted this corrupt change, they lost, were ousted, and were then written out of history to cover up the scandalously coup of corruption, but their followers managed to hide the tomb, in a rushed fly by nite burial to protect his eternal soul, which also protected it from being found and looted, leaving all it's treasures to be discovered thousands of years later, allowing the glory of virtuous living to be sang once again.
Audioholics, Z-reviews and Hans Beekhuyzen are trustworthy. Z gives you the added bonus of being funny as fk too. Joe n tell & Thomas stereo are mostly ok ( they atleast give enough "read between the lines" hints if they don't bash). Steve Guttenberg is a lousy cockroach. He lies more for whoever pays more. Zero fidelity, Next best thing studio and New Record Day (that dude Ron, not Danny) are getting less trustworthy as the days go by.
@Mike Glavin Mike, i said Thomas is 'mostly ok' which inherently implies that he is NOT ok at times. If i were you, i'd stick with Z, Audioholics and Hans Beekhuyzen on YT. Hans is a precise knowledgeable powerhouse for everything audio, but, he tries to stay away from speakers except for active speakers. For speakers, it's either Z or audioholics. For higher priced speakers, which Z and audioholics don't do too much of, you can read stereophile. Even if stereophile embellishes sometimes, you'll atleast get good measurements.
@ W A,
I followed Hans Beekhuyzen on YT for a while and thought his reviews seem genuine, but the MQA review which he swears by, and thought so highly of, left me a bit disappointed since I and many others have heard no such enhancement provided by the MQA unfold in, which creates some questions about what gives. Meridian who’s the “inventor” insists that the program enhances the enjoyment of music but so far not many listeners are convinced that it accomplishes anything worthwhile.
@@wa2368 I definitely would watch out for that Joe N Tell guy. 😉
I really cannot stand that there are call centers dedicated to writing fake reviews from Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and other big box stores. With actual pre written scripts!
One of the reasons this problem exists is because of Google having a monopoly on the industry with UA-cam.
Unfortunately, a company like Apple with the massive cash reserves they have decides to use it to provide yet another streaming service that nobody really needs or wants and is just helping to oversaturate that market. If they focus on creating a viable alternative to UA-cam and help pass on more of the revenue to content creators unlike the stingy UA-cam, they will be successful in driving out many of the people here who's already complaining about the restrictions and chump change that UA-cam gives or imposes on them.
Instead, they decide to throw it at Hollywood directors, writers and actors to go make content that normally wouldn't have been given the green light (which is a reason why more crap is coming down the shoot). People don't have time to watch all these shows but they will certainly spend more time watching UA-cam than these streaming sites. Also, people don't necessarily want other options outside of Amazon Prime or Netflix but I know many of them want it for UA-cam.
Her name is Wojcicki...a feminist liberal. All of social media is ran and controlled by the left.
Another good topic. Your subject matter and discussions lately are getting more relevant and interesting.
I'm really interested in knowing more about all of the rebranded clone equipment.
42:15 I know they're not a manufacturer, but Wide Open West does that. I've posted multiple times under my account and it was never posted.
When it comes to anything audio related, you guys are the only review I follow. Thanks for all the great content. Keep it up and enjoy what you are doing. Cheers
Guys, you are educating the public. There have always been people leeching and ripping off others. Nothing new. Push back! It's the only way.
Gene, im here because you not only speak my language but you speak YOUR mind!! Don't ever change man...
Kirk Cunningham heck yea!
I would love to see more of the breakdown of internal components. Especially speakers. Watching Danny Ritchie, for example, take apart a Klipsch RP 600 and explain that the crossovers are worth about 3 to 4 dollars to make is important information...if it’s true. Granted, he is running an upgrade business so every syllable coming out of his mouth has to be taken through that filter.
Did you ever do a video about how the same speakers are made on the same assembly line? And how there's actually less products in the market than we think that sounded really interesting to me
Didn't this all start with the corruption of audio magazines and their product reviews?
Most consumers don't know about extension, colouration or neutrality.in speakers.
The most dangerous ones are the professionnal and objectivists that are biased or influenced by manufacturers.
Confidence is essential, and education too. So IMO the best way is to make the audience learn how to interpret measurements and put them in perspective with earing and psychology.
Great stuff Gene and Matt, much needed topic! Quick question on front wides for a 9.1.6 setup. Should it be the same speaker as the front mains or the surrounds or a bookshelf? Also, can it be bipolar or direct? For example definitive Technology towers have front and rear facing drivers. So are those bad for home theater and placement behind the screen? And should the front wides be positioned in the middle of the listener and screen on the side walls? And at the height of the mains or ear level with the surrounds?
On topic though. Don't some reviewers get a significant discount if they want to keep a product? For example Gene, when you installed the RBH Sound sv661wr you didn't know its price and stated the pair cost but rbh guy said that was the single cost each? Speaking of that onwall, can it be used as a front wide speaker? Lastly, Matt Pose do you have a youtube video of your theater build? Are the speakers JTR speakers or others?
Gene or Matt if you could touch on my comment above any? I'd greatly appreciate it. Trying to figure out if a 9.1.6 is possible with old Definitive Technology speakers that are bipolar or better to switch to a new direct radiating speaker system?
One of my main beefs is advertising AV receivers with only 2 channels driven when they have 5, 7, 9, or more channels. I want to know how good the power supply is working and the only way is to rate amplifiers is full bandwidth, all channels driven at 4, 8 and maybe 16 ohms. Specs that show 2 channels driven at 1,000 HZ tell me nothing worth knowing. I'm old school and started out with Crown 300 power amps that would produce full power at nearly a dead short and still have low distortion.
Glad to see this being addressed...I often used amazon customer reviews to get an overview of a product and also see its reliability and if any issues...What you see lately are amazon may show 500 or 1,000 reviews for example but when you go to view Those reviews, you maybe find 10 to 20 actual reviews...Where are the rest? The other thing you often find is that the few reviews that Are posted, may not even be for the item in the listing! again WTF? so misleading
Great video! But I actually wish you guys would name some names of the products and the sites like your competitor that published that article about the oppo in a fancy box. Mainly so I know who not to trust if you don’t have a review of a product I’m interested in.
Hometheaterreview.com was the website that gave a glowing review of the Lexicon OPPO blu-ray player.
Audioholics thanks for the reply! Duly noted! Love your home theater knowledge, advice and reviews... Bought my HSU ULS 15-MK2 because of you guys... just got it today! And after some tweaking, I’m Completely blown away!! Brought my modest set up to the next level!
I only look at the one star reviews. If they are consistent I take that to heart. If they are random about stuff that makes no sense I often ignore them. The five star reviews are completely useless as are most of the four star. Bottom line look at the negatives and how consistent those are.
Great vid. This could lead into a show by you called What's the guts?
In regards to audioholics monthly traffic nowadays compared to 10 years ago, I would think you were basically the only website in town with quality evaluations! Same here on youtube! The market is way way way more saturated than it was even 5 years ago! Heck, you are one of the pioneers in this whole thing!🤔🤔🤫😉 Just something to think about because I think the contents great! Your comment about a hour in this conversation shows I stayed the whole way through listening and learning!😉🤗 I used to be employed selling extremely high end print advertising so that whole topic interests me as well.😁 I wouldn't be surprised if I was one of the 1st couple of 1000 people in the world to sell a Web based advertisement in the mid nineties🤪 It wasn't even a physical AD Banner back in those days it was just a link to the clients particular website. There was no graphic content to the add image and those days. Those were the days when I would call up a company and ask about this particular web product and the 1st thing they wanted to know is what a website was🤣😅🤣😅🤣🤣😅🤪🤪
I had a vendor on Amazon try to get me to remove a review on a car phone holder for a $25 gift card I declined and then an offer for $35 or $45 I declined and told em It was unethical and wasn't going to help them sell junk. Oh just remembered I got a question from another Amazon customer and answered it honestly and the vendor chimed in "STFU" lol... what scumbags!
I really value your videos for your honesty and transparency in your reviews of products.
Audioholics, you are a class act
You Gene, give great thorough reviews, and even go to the extent of doing proper bench testing...i salute you brother! 👍👌
The point of reference of the reviewer is HUGE. I have discovered that people don't actually know enough to give a decent evaluation of something in terms of quality. I have trusted reviews of products that were plentiful and positive only to realize that the people who are pleased with what they had purchased have no basis of comparison other than if they like it or not. Subjective reviews are unhelpful. You need some kind of standard to compare against when trying to get an idea of build quality or whether something is going to perform well against something cheaper.
Fake disc reviews usually have some clown talking about " 4K CRISPNESS " when in actual fact most movies have 2K DI...that is all...
Fake reviews are so prolific , they should be called bloatware . Real reviews should fall
Into two discrete but similar results . UA-cam sound test - average living room
With high end microphones and software
That gives accurate results . Numbers don’t
Lie . The other way to discern equipment :
Using someone with enough knowledge
To effectively break things down . Including
Disassemble and pointing out each component . How much it cost ( per part )
The short cuts manufactures will take to
Achieve the bottom line . Substandard .
4,000 speakers have 150.00 parts 50.00
In labour . Reputable companies like this one
Should easily receive 5% or greater . Commissions . Not to having to overwhelm
The viewer with ads . Some sites are drowning in these tactics . I would love to
Know how much value is the consumer
Getting . 18 months rotation and it’s already
Dated .
I second the idea of discussing how much diversity is imagined in the marketplace. I discovered this when I found a graphic pen drawing tablet in a second hand shop and went looking for a stylus to use it. I learned that there was essentially only TWO different manufacturers for these devices despite the myriad of brand names they were sold under. There was wacom and waltop. Waltop made everything that wasn't wacom regardless of it was labeled as adesso or aiptek or manhattan or vistablet or a whole smattering of other names. In many cases, they didn't even bother to have a different housing or version of the template that made it their own, they just used the same exact device and put their own name on the thing. I became very disillusioned by this practice even more when looking into repairing things that didn't work like dishwashers and televisions and other electronics like DVD writers.
Sony went to hell as a company when they stopped making their own stuff and instead buying LG stuff and sticking a Sony name on it, and I used to feel very comfortable shelling out more money for something sony because I used to be assured that it would be a higher quality and reliable product. Once the patent expired on Trinitron, I guess they no longer had an edge and I no longer buy sony products when once every electronic device i owned bore their name. Brand loyalty is a now a thing of the past for me (with the exception of Honda. I still like their stuff because they still focus on making it right.) I remember spending 4 hours in a store when I bought my PC because I was trying to rationalize how it was possible that I was leaning towards buying a Samsung monitor for less money than the Sony product because it actually looked like it had a superior picture. That was a first time experience for me, but I went with the Samsung and always someone comments on it whenever they see it how beautiful the picture is on it and it is now 20 years old.
But diversity is gone. All kitchen aide, whirlpool or kenmore products are usually electrolux and interchangeable. I think that should be illegal. The fact that you guys take everything apart is the key to enlightenment. I feel like you really HAVE to know what's in it to even know it's a different product from something else these days. I've discovered that even something having Japanese made capacitors in it can make a huge difference in how long it can last. When the components cost more, the final product tends to show it especially over time.
Pay to play is not relavent any longer. But many people who review products are in it to nake money. As a former sales person and a reseller of vintage product , I am appalled at the poor quality of todays consumer product. That is why i only sell Audio from the 60s to early 80s. After the chance over to electronic everything, the number of went up features drastically. But sound quality suffered a lot. A 14 watt Marantz model 26 blows away just about every 100 watt mid 80s products including the Philips /Marantz products. This was just A/B listing test, much less scope measurements. Listen yourself .
I feel a little embarrassed to have the Polk T15s as my left and right surrounds.
Edit: I went an read the measurement review of the Polk T15 on Audioholics. I purchased these speakers with the rest of Polks T series speakers to replace a home theater box set from Pioneer. The receiver I had at the time was the Pioneer VSX-819H (no, there is no -K at the end). I recently wall mounted my T15s up high about 2.5 feet above my listening position.
Personally, I have never been upset with the speakers with how I use them as surrounds. I don't have the best ear (trying hard to get better trained) but I'm no noob anymore. All of this to say but I'm not embarrassed anymore to own those speakers. They are working well for me now and they were a massive upgrade over the other speakers that I had. What I buy the same speakers today if I was doing the same thing all over again with the theater in the box set I had before? No, I wouldn't buy the same ones. And after watching this video and seeing so this for myself, going to be a lot more careful with how I digest reviews for products online. Thanks guys
I bought the T15's for the TT setup, littl subdued on treble, the Dayton B652-AIR was much clearer on the top end
I would that there are other regulations than US, thus these general sratements may be incorrect.
We love you because you keep manufacturers honest, so if you can please don't stop telling us the truth.
Thanks so much for sorting some of it out for us.
I'm very new to high end audio. Thankfully I have a lot of experience with computer tech reviews and can spot bad methodology.
I found you guys, but there's not enough reviews it seems like. Struggling to find good reviewers.
I really admire the work you all do.
Yep, there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in our hobby, unfortunately
I find scanning lots of online reviews and sort of averaging the pluses and minuses from many sources helps, but I don’t know how much of it is legit (negative reviews can be fake too from rival companies). There is the element of groupthink too - repeated phrases used to describe something that many people are using. The internet is a blessing in that it brings people together but it also ensures a lot of groupthink, even across languages because of machine translation.
What HiFi and their award's.. always questionable..
Congratulations on an outstanding post. Personally I tend not to take much stock in reviews. Especially consumer posts, which are almost always glowing or overly negative. Professional reviews I will way a little heavier, but even then, I tend be skeptical. Not that I find any issue with someone's integrity. I think most folks are honest enough, it's just that there is no way for any reviewer to know what suits my tastes, room, and expectations. An speaker a person really likes may not be a good fit within my room.
Where is james?
We will bring James back again. We might need to start a “Give James some gas money” campaign so he can come more. He lives close but still over an hour away.
@@PoesAcoustics I love listening to your views on audio.
@@PoesAcoustics Matt.what's your thoughts on using sealed and ported together in a system?
gashead smart I feel like we covered this on a past video. I can’t recall which one.
So there is nothing impossible about delayed and ported, but it adds a complication. The octave or so covered by the port is out of phase and this cancels the response of the sealed sub. It’s tricky to get the sealed and ported subs aligned with no cancelation. However difficult does not mean impossible.
As for sealed and ported mixing of speakers and subs, it depends. Absolutely nothing wrong with sealed speakers and ported subs.
Ported speakers and sealed subs can have the same problem as sealed and ported subs. The port, being out of phase, can cause interference with the sub. A high pass filter in the mains can fix this, but then the port would become useless. So in those cases I plug the port.
My suggestions to others is to use sealed mains and sealed or ported subs if they can’t take measurements. It’s the best easiest way to get good integration (plugging the port in a speaker effectively makes it sealed). If you can take measurements, then you want to experiment. Try different combinations of sealed, ported, phase, etc. to get everything As integrated as possible.
A “life coach” tried to pay me to write fake reviews. I said no efin way.
Thx for the vid and the views on fake revieuws and share the knowledge about companies
that are not completely honest about their products
You know there is a problem when "top ten" lists of audio products include mostly pedestrian gear. Someone posts a freak out about the superiority of certain imported ear buds that don't measure up. That cheap a/v receiver, DAC or maybe speakers you know aren't THAT great.
My partial solution is to calibrate UA-cam channels for trustworthiness. Very few channels get into this inner sanctum of trust. This is particularly true if I'm searching for an eventual purchase. In audio hardware, I tend to scroll past channels that look like dolts and wannabe influencers -- you know, the guy who finally bought a speaker or amp, and tries to do three or four unboxings, setting ups, and compares it to nothing but other one-off 'reviewers' he wants to emulate. We can all find channels like this -- probably a hundred in an hour. On the other side, there are channels and sites I *tend* to believe because of long term prior experience. And, I have long since *calibrated* them. In audio, their names tend to start with A and M, and S, and another S, sometimes G, and *not* P. The solution is left to the reader.
With Amazon the game starts and ends in the weeds. But a technique I've used with some success is to first read the 3* reviews. That's because few if any reviewers will be influenced to offer 3* opinions. After that, I go back up and read the 2* reviews, which I can better calibrate having read the 3* judgments. Finally, I take a glance at 1* and 2* reviews just to find any glaring flaws being reported. Most of these are by dolts and the folks who returned a $1000 device because the pilot light was the wrong color or too bright.
-Just one man's view.
thank you guys,
I HATE LYING AND DECEPTION!
LET THE BUYER BEWARE . . . especially nowadays when integrity and ethics have little to no meaning to people, who are lusting for money and power at all costs. especially yours!
With all the products out there, it is hard enough and confusing enough to tell what is really good or inferior products. I recently asked a manufacturer a simple and legitimate question . . . and all he did was repeat what I already stated in my question to him . . . and when I called him on his incompetence, he wrote me back: “GOODBYE!”
Why should we endorse or spend our money on sites that are fakes and phonies, much less on sights that are stealing written reviews and not providing real information about what they are supposedly selling? You see, those who have played this game of dishonesty, it is now coming back to bite them. Unfortunately, the mistrust they have caused is also affecting honest merchants and hurting everyone!
Amen!
Audioholics equal truth and integrity.
I thought Sound United is owned by a private equity firm and their investors?
They don't pay them ...they give them a few units for free
Only 3 I've ever trusted was what hifi.co.uk and home cinema review and you guys that's it.
Lexicon mc14 and Bryston sp3. Is basically the same
CR speaker test/reviews may not have been tainted by manufacturer influence or other dishonesty, but unfortunately they were unreliable and invalid and never matched my experience. After comparing their procedures against the science of the NRC, Dr. Floyd Toole and Dr. Sean Olive, I stopped wasting my time with CR.
Agreed and supposedly Harman helped them improve their testing procedure since then.
Congratulations on 100k subs!!!
There’s a certain loudspeaker that every hifi reviewer says is so amazing. Out of curiosity, I had to buy it and I found out that it’s nowhere near how they rave about it. But almost all the owners say it’s so amazing too. 😂🤣
hushpuppykl RP 600M?
Nathan Jones ... naaaaah ... I did get the RP600M, not to my taste but the reviews did state it had that slight shouty tone etc. I think it’s still a good product for its price and it holds its own. Great for a HT set up due to its price and it will do well in HT.
For music it really depends on the person’s taste.
hushpuppykl please share. I’m curious what speaker you are taking about.
I almost used the Klipsch speaker mentioned here as an example. It’s well liked and often referred to as neutral sounding. It actually has an elevated treble with some hash in the Hugh frequencies caused by waveguide reflections. The problem was we didn’t officially review it so it wasn’t as good an example.
The measurements we take are free space and this accurate regardless of end user situation. However in room subjective listening tests are always going to be a matter of both room and personal taste. The more reflective a room is, the brighter a speaker will tend to sound. Sometimes people don’t like certain speakers simply because it’s a bad fit for their room.
Of course it’s also possible the reviewers were just phoning it in with the review.
Matthew Poes ... it’s a nice square box, one circular driver in the front only. Ssssshhhh ...
You are really spot on about speaker and room. I used the Sony SS CS5, it was ok but I was dissatisfied with it in my living room and bedroom.
Handed it to my gf. Her living room has a lot more stuff and it sounded so much better. Frankly, that speaker with a decent amp (Yamaha RN803) and the right room is a nice system to own for a mere $750 thereabouts.
@@hushpuppykl - LS50?
One of the biggest scam in the 80s was CD players , new electronic Reciever's and several bookshelf speakers. CD players was the worst in terms of change of paint on the chassis, change the color on the display. But the spec's were the exact same as the original mfg. Pioneer , Marantz , Sony all had the own engineers and R&D to make there own products. And there the licensing of that product. (At one time in the mid 80s ,Panasonic's parent Brand Mas, was mfg 18 different brands that all were the same machine. This is were the countries started to tell these mfg that they had to tell the truth. Mitsubishi was the only one that did not licence there product for consumer use. This is were it really started . Now CD,DVD, AV Reciever, ,tuners. All are being looked at very closely to make sure be is not being put on the net.
Yes it is true what you were saying about the fake reviews. I like some of Amazon prices, but hate the review because most of the reviews on a product will include a variety of items not pertaining to the original product that you were looking for. I have also noticed some reviews get deleted or not posted at all. I would know because I have placed my own review and if I hate the product they will not shoe my post. For this reason I look for audioholics most of the time before deciding on a purchase. Thank you Gene.
I ran into the same thing bro..amazon lists high numbers of reviews to sell a product but when u check those reviews, there are but a handful actually listed and alot of those arent even for the listed item!
Reviewers have in the past, written a positive review of gear from a company they had stake in. Peter Aczel .
In the mid 2000's, a reviewer was given a set of VMPS RM40 speakers to review. He got explicit instructions on setup, which he failed to follow. He asked to send the speakers back vs writing a bad review. The manufacturer (Brian Cheney) had to show him in person. The RM40 went on to win show awards and wide praise. The moral of the story? Doesn't matter if you have a PHD in composition, if you are clueless about audio equipment, you should not be allowed to write reviews. Writing a bad review based on improper setup is just stupid.
Magazines (Stereophile) praised incompetent speakers (Alon) because of high price and fear of losing ad revenue. This was initially a lower grade, and then got raised. Transparently fake.
FWIW: Oppo dealers would not allow the 105 and 103 (for example) to be in the same demo room. The 103 cost 1/2 as much and sounded as good.
RGPC power gear was measured to have more noise on the output than on the input, but got positive reviews. Imagine this. "This vacuum cleaner leaves more dirt than it picks up, but I love it!"
A British reviewer claimed his sponsor's cable product was somehow superior to blue jeans cables, he went so far as to make a claim that they were shoddily made. BJC confirmed that the guy was lying and never had their product.
Amazon, Google and other sites are rife with fake reviews both + and -.
We want THE truth and nothing but THE truth. That includes 9/11.
Good information. I can't buy anything without checking reviews on youtube first.
The sennheiser momentum true wireless has been rated high and all good reviews , so can it be over hyped by paid you tubers ? Can anybody let me know.
I use fakespot.com. Very helpful analysis.
I love those cheap polks. Sound great to my ear, even better then high end in some cases, but I wont actually buy em myself just because I know. I hate that i wish i could just buy what i think sounds good instead of digging into the tech for several weeks.
This is an extremely useful video.
With teh RPA Audioholics scammers - maybe worth talking to Amazon to cut them off funding?
thank you both very much guys very helpful & informative
I bought a pair of polk audio t50 for $80 each. They sound good to me.
As for me it is really easy to spot fake audio reviews. But if you are not a specialist in the certain items or products ,it is easy to get fooled.
Great topic to talk to!
Only measuring can be objective. I have few cheap audio equipments what burn my mind. I dont have professional equipment to do "pro" measurements but for all my measurements I`m use ARTA with good sound card which is properly calibrated, osciloscope and REW. 90% of all superb reviews from magazines are fake good payed advertisement.
One thing on fake reviews ,on the Polk t15 6.5 in 2way. It looks like this speaker was made to compete with the parts express (Dayton audio b652 6.5 in 2 way) these were praised by everyone as a fantastic speaker. But it had its problems. It is made for a dorm room ,computer , small office. For voice as well as music. But a 60 pair of speakers. Ok . I bought several pairs (4) and broken in 2 and was pleased with the speakers. But it was no we're close to my Marantz HD 440 8in 3way, or my Mistubishi ds616 150 wat done tweeter ,full cross over,not just a cap for cross over. Probable the biggest difference was the Athena B1 125 watt 2way with the teteron tweeter,and that very well designed 6.5 in woofer. A heavy 5/8 inch wall a sofistacated crossover. The Athena was 229.00 back in 2004 ,them Klipsch bought then. But compared to the Dayton b652. Night and day difference. .
Polk T15 is 51/4", not 6.5", it has full 6dB/octave crossover, the B652 has only x-over for tweeter
Yep I saw this stuff recently with the vizio p quantum 2019 tvs. There were 20 five star reviews on vizio website before the tv even came out. Since walmart pull reviews from manufacturers websites sometimes. Those reviews were on walmart and Sam's club websites almost a month before the tv released.
Amozon is a joke in the review area. I have seen so much lying and bullshit talking about certain products that middle and high schools kids were making comments.
Love the wide variety of topics love the work you guys do👍
Hi Gene and Matt. I have purchased a few Klipsch RP line speakers. I'm glad I did. In my opinion they sound great. Maybe not the best but there's no such thing as a PERFECT speaker. I had seen one of your reviews about the stats on multiple tower brands, I can't remember the exact title but I'm glad that I did purchase the Klipsch RP series and I had boughten them before that review had come out and seen that I made a good choice. Keep up the great work Gene, Matt and James.
Just wanted to add in that I'm consdering adding another pair of RP-8000f's to my existing pair of RP-8000f's for a 4 speaker stereo set up. I'm just having a little difficulty figuring out what preamp and amp to drive all 4 of the Rp-8000f speakers. I was considering the Parasound line. If you could.give me your thoughts and opinion, that would be great.
Wish I knew who the corrupted reviewers are. Wouldn't be surprised if "letter 26" reviews was corrupted. But who knows? Maybe he's honest with unfortunately ears.
Fakespot.com 1st place to go to when buying anything off of Amazon. Review quality and content is graded.
A lot of snake oil out here... Especially in audio.
Yep. I’ve found this out guys. Time to start calling them out.m
One of the weirdest things is media reviews on Amazon. Customers are reviewing the movie, not the product. The review is for talking about the product, the physical item you got. How strong is it? Did the discs come loose in shipping. Did Amazon ship it in a bubble mailer again and naturally damaged the corners. It's not meant to be a movie review section like rotten tomatoes. Same for books, music etc.
Good stuff Gene , I do believe that someone tells little white lies about these power ratings indeed .
Kind of makes you wonder about so many youtube channels where a guy reviews all of these different audio pieces at his home. I'm sure you know a few of them. One of the guys doesn't even show the stuff he is reviewing! WhatHiFi looks suspect, though at least they will make comparisons and say they like one product more than another.
DIRAC?
Somehow I missed this video, you know your an industry leader when the scammers and scum bags start stealing your content to attempt to add to their non-existent credibility. Really when you think about it in the audio community you guys are so well known for un-biased reviews and analysis that typically if someone sees your logo they immediately know it’s not purchased fluff. It’s unfortunate the leeches of the world have found a way to exploit that.
This has been part of our technology sadly I get emails from the vendor or the manufacture of everything i buy from amazon i never did this until i bought Mother board for a AMD CPU, there socket is not the best wont go into details i also saw the same comments i made on new-egg , Sadly most don't like to take the time to make a commit on something unless they are unhappy with it.
Most site are very aware of buyer looking at reviews. it is sad but most electronic products are not the quality they use to be IE an air conditioner use to last for many years, new central air system don't last near as long, Years ago the cars use to be poor quality they have changed and last much longer the other things that wear manufactured seem to last forever.
When I read reviews I pay the most attention to the middle of the road reviews the over zelous ones may be intentional and the horrible ones are probably idiots that did something wrong the average ones are usally more reliable unless there all good or all bad... You know the truth is somewhere in the middle thing.
Here is my opinion on the following interconnects.
1. XLO: very spacious but kinda agressive and therefore fatiguing
2. Consonance: clear souding cable but constricted soundstage
3. Van den Hul: strange cable. Constricted soundstage warm sounding in the mids and bass but thin in the treble
4. Audioquest: very warm and soft sounding.
5. Tara Labs: they use Monster like turbine connectors. Will destroy the connectors on your equipment, so I did not even try this cable.
The search for the neutral and balanced sounding interconnect goes on.
Thanks you guy excellent
Love seeing more of poes
And now AI is making reviews so... only believe in video reviews?... for now until AI does video reviews also 😅
You guys are the sh!t! Keep it up!
I will never ever lie about a review on any audiogear or speakers i review! I have a full time job that pays my bills i will never ask my subscribers for money or I will never take money from an audio company I have a huge passion for Music playback and Audio gear thats enough payment for me but my channel has some kickass subscribers ! POP the HOOD !!!😆
Tee-Jay The Stereo-Bargin-File that’s great and i think we always need people who review like you do. I have a full time job that pays my bills but Gene and I still need something to make this feasible. The equipment I use to take measurements is valued at thousands of dollars and what Gene has is even more expensive in the form of his AP. My camera rig and lights is also well over a thousand dollars. All this work puts wear and tear. Going to shows costs time and money. Running a website costs a lot of money. All of this necessitates a model that also allows profit on reviewing gear. But it must be done with integrity.
@@PoesAcoustics you all do an amazing job ! I know its llike a second job for you all thank you i have learned alot from you both
Tee-Jay The Stereo-Bargin-File, what does “Bargin” mean?
Do you mean “Bargain”?
@@_Chev_Chelios its a southern way of saying or spelling Bargain
I soooo wish I knew who tried to get 30k for a "review" I wonder if it's one I watch, hell expose them so we know not to watch them, it deffinately points out there not honest and on the take and there moral compass is off so I don't wanna listen to them... channel Name abbreviations maby...
I can’t and won’t say. First because it’s hearsay. I heard it from a vendor’s PR guy. It was told to me in confidence but I wasn’t provided with a copy of the email or given permission to share. I would guess this person would sue us if we even hinted. It would obviously be a big hit to their channel.
Another manufacturer told me a story about a character from a few decades ago who used to request expensive products and money in exchange for positive reviews. He was an original influencer (this was like the 60’s or 70’s) and many major manufacturers played along.
@@PoesAcoustics oh I hear ya I could cause a whirlwind of trouble for you
NRD mebe? Lol
good info
Over an hour... ugh... i typically love and trust Gene but this video is just too long for me to watch.