What would make HiFi Reviews (more) useful?

[Ajani]

Here's another item that's not often well covered: build quality as it relates to sound. Lots of articles will give a quick overview of good build quality, but very few go into why that might matter (this is especially important for analog gear). That is one of the things that draws me to Audioholics because they do take the cover off and talk about the insides. Most reviewers in magazines (Stereophile is notorious for this) will take the manufacturer's word for what's inside and then move onto how their own esoteric music (that no one else owns) sounds on said piece of gear.

Yep, it would be nice to see more exploration of build quality and reliability in reviews...

Speaking of music choices, there should be a number of well known top-quality recordings that are used in this industry as standard baselines. Everyone owns at least one Diana Krall or Norah Jones album, likewise everyone probably has a copy of Carmina Burana, or Beethoven's 5th. Can't this industry settle on a few well recorded ones and use those for auditioning? I have my own favorites, but I wouldn't mind switching to someone else's if it will mean I can go to the point 2:45 minutes into their favorite auditioning track where they said they heard such and such.

Have to disagree there... I don't own any of the above... I'd rather see reviewers try out all different types of music on gear.... How it performs on one or two specific genres, is only relevant to persons who primarily listen to those exact genres...

[paulspencer]

Even if they talk about a track you know and often listen to, you might not have the same listening impression if you heard the system they are reviewing. I remember listening to some large panel speakers that many considered the best of a number of speakers demonstrated. I thought they had no special features, were generally average and in terms of their distortion at moderate levels, awful. Female vocals were heavily distorted, yet somehow a number of others appeared not to notice. For me that was the beginning of my suspicion that I shouldn't trust other's subjective impressions too much. Not that I automatically assume I'd disagree - just that I take these things with a pinch of salt. More recently I had a short listening session with a female friend. On a reference track I played my system with different active crossover settings. Each time I asked her what she thought, comparing one to the others. I avoided biasing her comments by saying anything first, and each time her comments matched my impressions precisely. I was intrigued, as it showed me that a person who isn't an enthusiast can easily pick up on relatively subtle changes and notice the same things we do. I'm a little suspicious that many enthusiasts learn to hear things with their minds as much as their ears, and in so doing don't quite have the fresh honesty of a person with no real expectations.