Pace
Rhythm
And
Timing
The video was made a few years before he posted it. Roughly around the MQA was starting to get big.
Looking back, I feel like he was probably referring to a group of semi professional reviewers on the various sites like Headfi, super audio best friends, etc
There’s probably a dig at audio science review in there as well.
its kinda interesting that he admits that cables in a weird way make a difference
I think with a lot of things in this hobby there is some basis in truth but sometimes is taken too far. I dont think anyone will disagree low quality, broken, interference prone cables exist for both digital and analog.
I personally feel past a solid mogami, blue jeans etc etc cable then it should be more about tweaking sound than anything else. I feel the real expensive hifi shines best when it chases a specific sound or coloration.
Remember many people think Hendrix’s guitar sound was because he had shitty cables that rolled off highs
2 Likes
I’d agree with this and most people who are into the cable part of this hobby, and aren’t like off the wall about it, admit that the cables really only make a difference once your set up reaches a certain price/level of clarity or revealing…ness (?) (I dont get a lot of audiophile terms lol) and even then it could be said to be really for like… high level tweaking of sound.
2 Likes
Here is what I consider to be the problem. Sound is a technical thing, it’s not something you can see - therefore when using non-technical terms, you must explain them, otherwise you are doing nothing. We all hear differently, so if something is “bright” for you, it may be pleasant for another person.
This brings me onto my next point. For Christ’s sake, use reference tracks. This is the biggest problem with reviewers, the absence of reference tracks. Reviewers nowadays are poets. They talk about sound like romantically describing a woman… they aren’t even trying to explain what the actual f they are saying. Using terms like “fast” and “slow” are particularly annoying. Where is it that you hear something is fast or slow? Explain it, give minute marks to your reference track, this way people know what you are talking about.
Something physical that you can touch and feel, we all perceive it the same. Well… mostly.
When you say red, you know how red looks like. Red is red for everybody, whether your red is different than somebody else’s red, that you cannot know - but you both reference to it as red.
With sound it’s not the same. You cannot start using descriptive words to explain something so technical and varying from person to person. You simply cannot. When saying something like “fast/slow”, sound doesn’t run, it’s about explaining yourself in detail when using such complex terms.
The audiophile media and reviewers have never been in a worse place - almost all of them making crap content and nobody is complaining. That is the primary problem. People have become okay with this poetry era of being an audiophile critic. Saying “the bass goes incredibly deep” is just absurd. Incredibly deep - let’s take a simple example to explain how wrong this is. You have a 2 meter (6.5 foot) deep pool. It will be deep for a kid, but for a tall man it won’t. Same with sound, what is very pleasant bass to you, could very well be too much bass for another. So your job is to take the time to go into a great amount of detail explaining to the reader why it was pleasant, describing the quantity, definition, and “weight” of the bass.
But, oh well… You can’t do much, can you?
I always include reference tracks in my reviews, and do my best to explain the terminology that I use. Never have I made absurd comparisons or using the crazy romantic metaphors. I personally hate it, and cannot see how that style of writing will help anybody to actually judge if they should buy the product or not. It’s cheap marketing and you are selling the product with words, you are not helping the reader/consumer understand how the product performs.
@PABastien you cannot get a lot of audiophile terms when all of them aren’t being used correctly. Transparent, natural, neutral, mid-bass bleed, fast/slow, reference, bright/dark… too many of them, yet there is little to no explanation of them.
It would actually be equivalent to poetry - describing something you see, but the reader doesn’t see it, they use their own imagination to picture what you have written. Now… umm… we are talking about sound and understanding the sound performance of a product - I doubt anybody would actually like to use their imagination to picture wtf the writer is saying. It’s the wrong approach if your aim is to help somebody understand the sound performance, you cannot use your imagination for sound. It’s not right.
It’s okay if you are doing it consciously, and your aim is to sell the product… then that’s a marketing approach, it’s suitable.
Had to get this off my chest. This is the biggest problem in this hobby (IMO). Even the cable believers and burn-in believers - they don’t use a single word explaining where they heard the difference. Was it the same volume, same track, no listening time in between? Yup… too many problems. It’s all like fairy-tales, you cannot believe them.
7 Likes
Clapping to this man’s text. Brilliant.
2 Likes
Like him or hate at least BGGAR gives track and sound time stamps to explain how various IEM’s differ, cymbal splashes, kick drum impact/decay, vocal separation etc…so you have a “real” sound to reference against.
5 Likes
Grainy.
God, I hate this nonsense. Real grain is the distortion you get with vinyl. How can the poor HD58X be grainy?
Ehh, I do, all the time. I’m developing a reviewer allergy and I’ve said this in this forum in several occasions.
1 Like
Oh well… As I already said - it is what is is.
You have to know that the majority of the people write reviews as a hobby, besides it they have a full-time job. This being said, nobody will waste their time giving minute stamps and reference tracks. They just want to express their artistic poetry about the experience with the product. This is fine, but I simply have to speak out that it will not help a person to decide how the product sounds.
@Ohmboy he is pleasant to watch. I personally don’t have too much time, so I very rarely watch any reviewers. I am more focused on written reviews, that’s what I based my message above about. Some video reviewers are entertaining, and that’s
Wow, I can’t believe no one has mentioned this yet: “musical”. The single most uninformative word in audio reviews. All it really means is “I personally liked it / it fits MY taste for how things should sound”. Makes the statement perfectly useless to me unless I know that reviewer’s sonic preferences like the back of my hand. And I don’t know any reviewer’s preferences like the back of my hand. 
Therefore I really wish everyone would stahp saying “it sounds musical” when reviewing gear.
1 Like
Audiophile terms don’t piss me off. It’s people that use them incorrectly that is irritating. If you dont know the meaning of a word, for God’s sake don’t use it.
2 Likes
Yes. I mentioned the controversy behind “musical” on other forums. I am not a fan of it.
@Hazi59 exactly. It’s the people that are the problem hahahaha. But we can’t get rid of them 
Unless somebody finds a way/solution 
I read reviews / previews and opinions with a single goal. to find out what they have in common and see what they take exception too. once that’s all compiled, you can get a general idea of what their pros / cons are and can decide if you want to give them a shot.
there’s nobody that is an ultimate authority…but you, for yourself and nobody else. well, except me. you must all bow before ZoD…err, Marzipan!
2 Likes
Can we like, mail this on an air-dropped metal block to audio reviewers?
1 Like
Can we? I bet it wouldn’t be enough…
Hm. Maybe they will help us by comparing their poetry to physical things… as though they aren’t already doing that -
This was probably a pure humor intended review, but it’s not far from others:
“She is deep and fluid like air , clear and transparent and pure . She can hit you by force like a tornado, deadly and visceral impact and clean and fast. She can also be gentle in an instant like touching you gentle with the warmth of a motherly love.”
So, do you want to buy a product with the bass with the warmth of a motherly love?
“She touches you soft with light textures that can tickle your follicle.”
Do you want treble that tickles your follicle? Well, you probably didn’t know that you do until now.
- I have to clarify that I have nothing personal against this reviewer, he is a nice guy and clearly wrote the review for the fun of it, the real problem are the people who take their review writing seriously and write like this
I think most of these reviewers are wasting their true talent- they should pursue poetry & writing books! No joke.
1 Like
I can’t stop laughing. That is brilliant. You know what, for cars it’s even more useless, but it’s quality humor. LMAO. I didn’t know about the channel before.
You know, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It’s simply inconvenient to be professional and good in what you are doing - apparently there is no good in being serious about what you do. Not in the reviewer business.
Take a look at Unboxing Therapy, LinusTechTips, or Marques Brownlee - focusing on their audio-based reviews. They all get the most views… even though not a single one of them truly explains the sound with backing up with the help of reference tracks. It’s entertainment business, and that’s what both the companies and the consumers love. Who wants to read or watch a guy explaining in detail (with some actualy sense) the sound performance of a product, why when they can watch a guy rambling in a pleasant & entertaining way about their experience. If you base a review on personal experience, it’s a personal review - we all hear differently, don’t forget that. So, when you go on to base the whole review purely on your experience (without backing it up so the reader can follow it and compare if his personal preference matches to the writer’s), what you get is a personal review that is useless to the reader. What that review becomes to the reader is a piece of entertainment or poetry. But in no way will they accurately be able to get a real idea of how the product sounds - again, for the same reason - everybody’s hearing is different. But sound isn’t, it’s a technical thing that doesn’t change. It’s only the listener and his perception that makes it seem that it’s different, when in fact it’s just his perception. Interesting, isn’t it? But it shouldn’t be too complex to understand.
It’s mostly to do with marketing efficiency, business, and entertainment. Being technical and a good reviewer is not only very time consuming, but also very exhausting. Entertainment approach will also attract more attention, and is softer on newcomers, people who don’t know much about audio. This can clearly be seen with the above mentioned youtubers, even Zeos is quite entertaining, that’s why we all love him. At some point you just wear out in this hobby, and all you want is a bit of humor, a bit of entertainment… because imagine if everything was good and actually useful. It wouldn’t actually be interesting. I still haven’t worn out, so I will keep going until I eventually wear out and don’t have energy for it anymore.
At the end of the day, it’s for the love of music and sound - it should’ve never been about the equipment (unless you are enthusiastic about it, technology is fascinating).
I just think that for those of us who actually care about the “best” product, that we like to hear actual descriptions and explanations of terminology that help us better understand why that product sounds like that (to the listener/author of the review). We don’t get much out of poetry, we cannot connect empty terminology (without any explanations) to our personal preference, we cannot play a track and go - hm… this isn’t bright at all to me, I actually love this part of the song. Or, damn, this bass is way too much, I definitely don’t consider it “exceptional amount of bass”.
How about audiophile supplements?
May help provide nutritional support for the auditory nerve; helps promote and strengthen the hair follicles of the inner ear; improves tautness of the tympanic membrane*
Contains no soy, milk, corn or GMOs.
*These statements have not been evaluated or approved by the FDA
(Gotta be some money in this)
3 Likes