AV_specialist, thank you for taking the time to explain your viewpoint, and also for making clear the reason why you happened to come into the two threads and comment in response to me. I hope you continue to contribute to more forum discussions. (But I did not criticize you for not writing a "better review" - you have not written a review to criticize, just posted in response to one. Maybe you are not familiar with what constitutes a 'formal' review in the review section as opposed to other kinds of posts.)
About your points above:
I stand by my criticism of Tupperz' "review". You obviously disagree, but I find it almost useless to consider a "review" that is nearly written in the form of a haiku. I frankly have a hard time believing that anyone, including yourself, could actually get as much out of such a review as a more in-depth one, yet there are ways in which I respect your position. I basically agree that it can be at least as frustrating, if not more so, to try and digest any relevent info from a review that makes you wade through too many flowery but vague adjectives and specific musical passage references. But I am puzzled by your acknowledgement on the one hand of the lack of any absolute reference standard to which we can attribute the performance of a review subject, when it must be merely one part of a chain which includes the whole recording and record-making process as well as an entire reproduction system, and yet on the other hand defend a "review" style that provides little-to-no context in which to judge a writer's impressions of that subject. There are good reasons why Audiogon has suggested review parameters (although they may have shot themselves in the foot somewhat in this regard when they kicked off the review section with the contest).
Although I ultimately disagree about your apparent conclusions having to do with subjective evaluation's worth in assessing the sonic veracity of any component, I do agree with the philosophy which in effect states that audiophile writing oftentimes becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog, in which the terms of the descriptive language we have developed for communicating sonic performance attributes can sometimes seemingly lead our perceptions rather than follow from them. I also agree that many of these terms leave a good deal to be desired when it comes to describing any easily or universally recognized sonic property a system may display. The ironic thing (for me) about that - as it pertains to your comments - is that I believe the whole "PRAT" paradigm is among the worst, if not indeed *the* worst, of the offenders. (I am going to refrain, however, from going into here why I feel this is so.)
P.S. - If you want to read my review, click on "Reviews" next to my username (it's the review of the tonearm damper; the preamp test thread was placed there by mistake, presumably due to a glitch in the A'gon 'puter system - it is most definitely not a review).
About your points above:
I stand by my criticism of Tupperz' "review". You obviously disagree, but I find it almost useless to consider a "review" that is nearly written in the form of a haiku. I frankly have a hard time believing that anyone, including yourself, could actually get as much out of such a review as a more in-depth one, yet there are ways in which I respect your position. I basically agree that it can be at least as frustrating, if not more so, to try and digest any relevent info from a review that makes you wade through too many flowery but vague adjectives and specific musical passage references. But I am puzzled by your acknowledgement on the one hand of the lack of any absolute reference standard to which we can attribute the performance of a review subject, when it must be merely one part of a chain which includes the whole recording and record-making process as well as an entire reproduction system, and yet on the other hand defend a "review" style that provides little-to-no context in which to judge a writer's impressions of that subject. There are good reasons why Audiogon has suggested review parameters (although they may have shot themselves in the foot somewhat in this regard when they kicked off the review section with the contest).
Although I ultimately disagree about your apparent conclusions having to do with subjective evaluation's worth in assessing the sonic veracity of any component, I do agree with the philosophy which in effect states that audiophile writing oftentimes becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog, in which the terms of the descriptive language we have developed for communicating sonic performance attributes can sometimes seemingly lead our perceptions rather than follow from them. I also agree that many of these terms leave a good deal to be desired when it comes to describing any easily or universally recognized sonic property a system may display. The ironic thing (for me) about that - as it pertains to your comments - is that I believe the whole "PRAT" paradigm is among the worst, if not indeed *the* worst, of the offenders. (I am going to refrain, however, from going into here why I feel this is so.)
P.S. - If you want to read my review, click on "Reviews" next to my username (it's the review of the tonearm damper; the preamp test thread was placed there by mistake, presumably due to a glitch in the A'gon 'puter system - it is most definitely not a review).