Opinion
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
How many times have you heard a reviewer state something to this effect: "It should sound better, given the price"? I know I’ve said it, and I know that, at one time or another, I’ve seen something like it from most of our reviewers. And I’ve read it in other magazines, not just those covering audio equipment.
In a perfect world, the more expensive component always would sound better. But here in the real world, we know that too many variables are in play for us to be able to assume that higher price automatically means better sound.
The first of these variables are economies of scale: Large manufacturers have more buying and manufacturing power than smaller companies, a fact that was made abundantly clear to me when I walked through the Paradigm factory. The company makes a gazillion pairs of Atom loudspeakers a month, which means that an Atom’s constituent parts can be produced by Paradigm in huge numbers. This is not a situation in which one skilled worker is being paid a premium to build one box at a time. It’s one huge machine producing box after box for hours, days, weeks on end. Such efficiencies translate into a lower unit price. If a smaller company had to build an Atom of equal quality, it might cost them twice as much to do it, and they’d have to pass on that cost to the customer -- which challenges the assumption that a higher price buys a better component.
Some variables are less obvious.
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
Measurements don’t tell us everything. My ears are more accurate. They don’t measure the right things. They don’t equate with how I hear music. I just don’t care.
Some audiophiles don’t like measurements. I think that many are afraid of them. I’m going to tell you why.
One reason is that most audiophiles, and many reviewers, don’t understand measurements. They haven’t bothered to learn how to interpret them, or what makes them important, or which ones most reliably indicate perceived sound quality. It takes a commitment of time to seek out explanations, ask questions, and learn how to correlate the measurements with what you hear when listening to your favorite music in your room. Gaining that basic understanding can sometimes mean hard work. For the math-averse, it can even be painful.
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
This past week, SoundStage! Network writer Randall Smith moved into a new house with his fiancée, Amy. This was a special event in his life, almost as much because he was finally going to have a dedicated listening room as because he was setting up housekeeping with his bride-to-be. Randall had been pining for a new room for some time, and now, finally, his dream was becoming a reality.
But moving into a new room poses a multitude of problems for a reviewer. First, we had to clear Randall’s reviewing schedule. With the room being the single greatest determinant of an audio system’s sound quality, setting that variable is critical to the accuracy of Randall’s future reviews. Neither he nor I wanted a review product entering this new acoustic environment midstream. What we did want was for Randall’s system to be back up and running as quickly as possible, and with the full measure of its sound-quality properties firmly entrenched in our minds. We began with some very basic steps.
Our first order of business was to set up Randall’s system in the new room. This involved positioning the gear so as to maximize the efficiency of routing cables and ease the swapping-out of components. It was a straightforward task; Randall’s system is anchored by a single-chassis Simaudio Moon Evolution 600i integrated amplifier. His Bel Canto DAC3 D/A converter is extremely compact, and his home-theater functionality is handled by an Integra DTR-80.1 A/V receiver instead of separates. A Sony PlayStation3 is his primary HT source, while an Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer stores and plays his audio files. Randall’s system is tethered together with Analysis Plus cables, and his Pioneer Kuro television was mounted on a bracket almost flat against the front wall.
- Written by: Jeff Fritz
- Category: Opinion
There’s no shortage of opinions in the world -- opinions about everything. And with the Internet literally everywhere, there’s no shortage of platforms through which to disseminate them. Lately, I’ve read online debates on a number of subjects related to high-end audio publishing, and I’d like to put in my own two cents, based on my experience in the biz.
Confirmed: Long-term loans affect reviewer recommendations. How can they not? If a reviewer has a component on long-term loan, then he or she obviously likes the component. You could argue that the fact that the reviewer likes it enough to use it is itself a kind of endorsement. But does the reviewer like it enough to buy it outright, with her or his own money? Is accepting the free use of a product proof that the reviewer would choose that same product if it had to be paid for? Not to me, but we’ll never know. That oft-used argument against living together before marriage applies here: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? I’ve said in the past that long-term loans are advertisements for the manufacturer, not necessarily endorsements by the reviewer.
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