The “friendliest audio forum”?

mep said:
I guess I'm not "most reviewers." I don't have much gear laying around. Some reviewers do have gear on long term loan, but I don't. I own everything in my system and that's the way I like it.

I have an SP-10 MKII table and an SME 312S tonearm in my room that I have owned for many years that is currently in my room, but not part of my system. I also have a PS Audio DSJ DAC I purchased new from PS Audio that I replaced with the HiFi Rose 150B that is now parked next to my SP-10 MKII table. That's it for gear I have laying around.

At the time I had the JC1+ monoblock amps in for review, I did have the JC5 stereo amp that I owned. I did talk about the differences I heard between the JC1+ amps and the JC5 in the review. After I purchased the JC1+ amps, I sold my JC5.
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take a look a t JV, RH , DR for example and you can see what he is talking about.
Many guys buy there stuff, many borrow for short term and the there are some serious exceptions.
 
W9TR said:
I’ve got an example of another reviewer who has made a significant investment in measurement tools. I’m building a new theater, 9.4.6 Dolby Atmos, etc. 6 height speakers and 6 surround speakers. Cost becomes an issue with so many channels. The main L,C,R speakers and amps I already have. Where to find objective and subjective info?

Erin’s Audio Corner. Erin uses the $100k Klippel near field scanner which is a state of the art speaker measurement tool. Being near field it is not affected by the room acoustics. He couples this with even-handed subjective reviews.

So I put him to the test. I arranged a morning at our local B&M store and auditioned half a dozen bookshelf speakers that were suitable for surround use in the new theater. The price range was less than $3000 a pair. Of the six speakers I listened to, there were two models that I thought sounded excellent and matched the timbre of my mains. I did not look at any of Erin’s reviews prior to my listening test. The winners: KEF Q1 Meta for the height speakers and KEF Q Concerta Meta for the surrounds. I bought 3 pairs of each model.

Then I looked at Erin’s reviews for the speakers I auditioned. Both KEF models came out on top in his objective and subjective reviews.

Now I have two reviewers I can use to narrow my speaker choices. In person listening follows, and that’s a fraught experience for discussion in another thread. :)
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I definitely keep audio system and video system separate. In my music room I listen to music and sometimes play around with my guitars. I prefer 2-channel setup and occasionally listen to my headphones. There are times I prefer the headphones and also times that I am not in the mood to have my little girl (cat) laying in the recliner with me when listening :).

I do have a Yamaha surround receiver out with our TV, but neither my wife nor I enjoyed listening to surround sound. It has never sounded natural to me for movie watching at home. At this point I leave the Yamaha disk player with the TV for occasional Blu-Ray watching... but have packed up the Yamaha receiver to regain the space for more books storage :). I have never had the desire to do a full-on surround video setup over the recent years. It simply is not important to myself or my bride.
 
BendingWave said:
take a look a t JV, RH , DR for example and you can see what he is talking about.
Many guys buy there stuff, many borrow for short term and the there are some serious exceptions.
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I know what he's talking about. I've already explained that I own everything in my system and that's is the way I want it. I have no desire to purchase a bunch of gear so it can lay on my floor in hopes it will come in handy for a future comparative review.

The "serious exceptions" you mentioned above I assume are the reviewers that have systems filled with long-term loan gear, and if it all got called back, they would no longer have a functional reference system. I never wanted to be that guy.
 
Randy Myers said:
I definitely keep audio system and video system separate. In my music room I listen to music and sometimes play around with my guitars. I prefer 2-channel setup and occasionally listen to my headphones. There are times I prefer the headphones and also times that I am not in the mood to have my little girl (cat) laying in the recliner with me when listening :).

I do have a Yamaha surround receiver out with our TV, but neither my wife nor I enjoyed listening to surround sound. It has never sounded natural to me for movie watching at home. At this point I leave the Yamaha disk player with the TV for occasional Blu-Ray watching... but have packed up the Yamaha receiver to regain the space for more books storage :). I have never had the desire to do a full-on surround video setup over the recent years. It simply is not important to myself or my bride.
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Surround Sound can be good with the right movie and effects, but recently I find most movies have too much sound on top of the dialog. I find myself watching thru my stereo instead of the HT system a lot.
 
Shadowfax said:
Surround Sound can be good with the right movie and effects, but recently I find most movies have too much sound on top of the dialog. I find myself watching thru my stereo instead of the HT system a lot.
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Sounds like something is amiss in your HT rig.
 
Randy Myers said:
I definitely keep audio system and video system separate. In my music room I listen to music and sometimes play around with my guitars. I prefer 2-channel setup and occasionally listen to my headphones. There are times I prefer the headphones and also times that I am not in the mood to have my little girl (cat) laying in the recliner with me when listening :).

I do have a Yamaha surround receiver out with our TV, but neither my wife nor I enjoyed listening to surround sound. It has never sounded natural to me for movie watching at home. At this point I leave the Yamaha disk player with the TV for occasional Blu-Ray watching... but have packed up the Yamaha receiver to regain the space for more books storage :). I have never had the desire to do a full-on surround video setup over the recent years. It simply is not important to myself or my bride.
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I don’t have the luxury of separate spaces for theater and 2 channel, so I have to make compromises. My 2 channel setup is electrically separate from my surround system. I have separate AC power feeds and signal chains for each with the 2 channel system put in pass through mode for theater use.

Good immersive theater sound is extremely difficult to pull off. I am designing for CEA RP-22 level 2. We’ll see if I make it. It will be close. Here is the spec:


 
No one said a great HT is easy and there are definite advantages to them being separate.
Many companies don't make all the parts required to do it right. Although we do less of it now than in the past as many HT have become more media style rooms rather than dedicated theaters it still requires matching items, proper location and installation and great calibrations.
Personally I am not a huge HT fan as I watch almost no movies anymore but my business partner and some of the guys are bigtime movie freaks.
 
I was a Tech Executive and retired from a Fortune 10 corporation. We had a ZERO tolerance policy for favors, gifts, free lunches, trips or events from suppliers. Any action that would give the impression of a conflict of interest would result in an immediate termination. This policy worked very well as both suppliers, consultants and employees knew the protocols which were very seldom broken (for obvious reasons!).

In the case of audio reviewers, I can see a 3 to 6 month loan program to review and compare. A much longer loaner program really opens the door for perceived bias and favoritism; real or not, certainly places review integrity into question.
 
Ritmo said:
I was a Tech Executive and retired from a Fortune 10 corporation. We had a ZERO tolerance policy for favors, gifts, free lunches, trips or events from suppliers. Any action that would give the impression of a conflict of interest would result in an immediate termination. This policy worked very well as both suppliers, consultants and employees knew the protocols which was very seldom broken.

In the case of audio reviewers, I can see a 3 to 6 month loan program to review and compare. A much longer loaner program really opens the door for perceived bias and favoritism; real or not, certainly places review integrity into question.
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thank you its truly amazing that people can't or don't want to see the potential conflicts.
I love the comments on the videos :)
 
PS - Back to OP, I really appreciate Mike and the members of AudioShark. This site is very friendly and I’ve made many friends over the last 10+ years here.
 
Ritmo said:
I was a Tech Executive and retired from a Fortune 10 corporation. We had a ZERO tolerance policy for favors, gifts, free lunches, trips or events from suppliers. Any action that would give the impression of a conflict of interest would result in an immediate termination. This policy worked very well as both suppliers, consultants and employees knew the protocols which were very seldom broken (for obvious reasons!).

In the case of audio reviewers, I can see a 3 to 6 month loan program to review and compare. A much longer loaner program really opens the door for perceived bias and favoritism; real or not, certainly places review integrity into question.
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I always ask to have any component I review for 3 months. At the end of 3 months, the review is published, I have boxed up the gear exactly the way it was packaged when it was sent to me, and then I contact the manufacturer and provide them with the link to the review and ask them to provide me with the return shipping label.

I strive to ship the gear back within 24 hours of receiving the return shipping label.
 
W9TR said:
So I put him to the test. I arranged a morning at our local B&M store and auditioned half a dozen bookshelf speakers that were suitable for surround use in the new theater.
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Tom, please do tell the whereabouts of this shop. Have I been missing a gem in these mountains all these years?
 
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