Given the universal nature of HiFi reviews, the review will be positive. The reviews are always positive. For everything. Always 
Not to belabor the Guttenberg/PSA thing (I get the feeling heâs not a big PSA fan), in his
current review of the LEAK Stereo 130 integrated amp, which he really liked, I asked him how if compared to the Sprout. His answer was simply âBetter in every wayâ. Yet the parameters of that int amp are very similar to Sprout, even though the LEAK has less power. He even stated he preferred using his expensive OPPO DAC with the LEAK (just as he did the Sprout). I like his videos and will still watch, but his take on PSA seems odd to me.
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I spoke with several reviewers and the only criteria to know that they explicitly didnât find something overwhelming or even bad is when they donât review it, so you probably wonât know. One concretely told me he loved the BHK300 (also gave it a great review) but wasnât overwhelmed by the BHK Pre, so he didnât review it. But thatâs even more practiced by music magazines and reviewers. They give reviews of unfavorable albums to colleagues who like itâŚso weâll never read a bad review if weâre not extremely reading between the lines or know some internals.
The other thing is that different to Europe and even more to Asia, where reviewing magazines often even buy the stuff before reviewing, in the US the reviewers of the serious mags are partly as corrupt as politics and it seems to be no exception that manufacturers or distributors charge off equipment the want to have tested because the reviewers tend to keep it and sell the stuff afterwards to fund their private hobby. Thereâs a trustful story that one very senior editor of a famous US magazine kept an extremely expensive long cable, which he subsequently cut into pieces and sold those. After this was detected, parties reached an agreement to have cost free advertising in this mag for years. As far as I heard thatâs mainly in the US with exceptions e.g. like obviously Michael Fremer whoâs very transparent with what he bought, loaned, got donated.
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I find the Polish audio magazine Mono and Stereo has no issue whatsoever stating they donât care for whatâs under review. They are definitely not guilty of âalways positive for everything.â
Polish? Arenât they an Asia magazine?
No, theyâre not published in Asia. I checked the publisherâs info and I was wrong, theyâre actually Slovenian.
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Specifics? Who? What magazine? What manufacturer?
I would only PM this if at allâŚshouldnât be public Iâd say. I still know the brand and the magazine but have to reread a few names there to be sure about the person. If youâre really interested personally I get back to you tomorrow. The source is someone very familiar with and part of the scene.
I prefer to read the reviews after Iâve bought something to make me feel I made a sensible decision.
Three of the main elements of my system are Harbeth speakers, Devialet electronics and Shunyata power cables/conditioner. I didnât read any reviews before I bought them, indeed I donât think the Harbeth or Devialet had been reviewed as they were new versions. Iâd never even heard of Shunyata before a home demo. I donât think my EAR phono amp has been reviewed either.
I met the manufacturer of my turntable at a show. I then read a review and went to see the reviewer, who I know, is completely honest and doesnât work in the audio industry.
If the M1200 amplifier is out for 8 reviews, it shows how much a company like PS Audio relies on reviews.
Is it bad for a manufacturer to be comfortable with its equipment being reviewed and to cooperate in the process?
What? You lost me with this. I really do not see any point to this statement.
FWIW.
Having gear reviewed is definitely part of the normal game and helpful for most customers imo.
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The problem is the review culture is highly corrupt. That doesnât mean a review is devoid of truth. Only that the underlying system of compensation creates a climate where nearly all reviews, Slovenia aside, will be positive.
Consumer Reports exists with the intention to clean up this sort of corruption. Unfortunately they donât care about high end audio.
I expect reviews to be mostly positive; reviewers are not going to request exemplar units they expect/know to be underwhelming or poor. Why waste their time on such pieces?
Thus I look for the more subtle comments within the review. Does the reviewer note the amplifier will not do well with speakers requiring high current? Does he comment on the transparency of the high end or note it feels a bit closed in? How does he compare the product under review to other pieces of kit? Etc.
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My understanding (which may be seriously outdated) is that reviewers were/are routinely offered the same âdealâ that brick and mortar sales reps get through distributors and manufacturers.
There is (or at least there used to be) the ability to buy gear at cost or at a very significant discount to retail if your were an industry insider. Back in the day, I sometimes purchased gently used equipment from hi-fi store sales staff who were rolling gear through their personal systems. The proviso was that they were limited in how many purchases they could make in a given time period.
Iâll let the gentle readers decide for themselves if this is shady when it comes to reviewers, but whenever I see a reviewer stating that they were so impressed that they âbought the review sample,â I always assume that they got a significant discount from MSRP.
The same game can still be played to some extent at retail to end-run manufacturerâs efforts to enforce price minimums by opening boxes and then selling the equipment as âdemo.â
Over time, I zero in on reviewers who seem to share my listening preferences. Once I calibrate their reviews of equipment by having the opportunity to hear the same stuff myself, I can pretty much tell if I will share their opinion on something Iâm not familiar with.
The drawback to this approach is that it takes a long period of time (more than a few years) to get âcalibrated.â My go-to reviewer is Tony Cordesman (Absolute Sound). I can pretty much buy stuff based on his descriptions and not be surprised with the results I get.
YMMV, of course.
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And they typically need to keep the equipment for a minimum of a year (or more) before passing it on through a sale.
Manufacturers sells to each other at accommodation prices, at a significant discount - but far from free. But this remains at the discretion of each manufacturer.
Keep in mind high end audio is a small world and they know each other from shows, etc. and enjoy trying each otherâs products, etc.
Who looks for 8 reviews of what is a fairly basic budget product? When I say budget, in the UK it is twice the price of comparable products, the Stella Phono is better value, so I wonder if a magazine here will review a ÂŁ6,000 pair of ICE Class D mono blocks.
On top of which, the ICE unit has been around for many years and most magazines and review sites seem to be more interested in new things. There is a very popular European website call The Ear, engages various reputed reviewers from around Europe, I searched it for Class D and Jason Kennedy (probably the best known writer in the UK) reviewed a Nord unit because it is one of the first ones with the new Purifi Class D amplifier unit.
227w/8 ohms and under ÂŁ2,000.
Some brands donât rely on reviews at all, often the ones that make great products that sell well for years and then they do an improved version. My EAR Phonobox was an upgrade of the 834P that took almost 50 years to be released. I didnât wait for a review.
None of which troubles me personally. Every industry has its insider perks.
Back when flying was actually fun, airline employees would get ânon-revenueâ passes on a space available basis. For my buddy that worked for Delta, this usually meant first class travel anywhere in the system for free. The only stipulation was that you had to dress in âbusiness attireâ and not identify yourself as an employee.
Of course, this was long ago before the airlines became the equivalent of NYC subway cars⌠
Keep in mind reviewers request products to review in which they are interested.
PS Audio has a well deserved reputation for offering products much better than their price would indicate. There is a great deal of interest in their offerings.
And again, is it bad for a manufacturer to be comfortable with its equipment being reviewed and to cooperate with the process? Does it reflect poorly on a manufacturer to have its products reviewed?