You know herb hasn't got an obvious wife there tidying up all the mess and uh ... maybe Steve looks the better preserved for having his missus?

@@keplermission I don’t know about that, but his wardrobe is certainly “enhanced” as a result of Mrs. Audiophile.

I wish there was more Herb!

100% 👍🎶😊

That’s a serious understatement !! Herb is a blessing from above! 👍 Thanks for this video, Steve.👨🏻 This channel can Rock!🥳

I agree. The biggest negative I see in the audio world is generally dealing with over priced equipment. By this I mean an amp or other piece of gear that sounds excellent but is costing twice as much or more then another piece of equipment that sounds equally as well. One example I had personally when I used to service audio equipment had to do with cables.. I had a customer that broke the connectors on the ends of a pair of 2 meter interconnect cables. I repaired the cables and was astonished to learn from the customer that they cost something like $1600. In my test system I had an excellent sounding, inexpensive pair of 2 meter DH Labs BL1 interconnects. I did an AB test and to my amazement, the BL-1 cables sounded better, especially in the upper midrange and high frequencies. The kicker is that the BL-1 cables cost only $200.00. Now, for me that is quite a difference in price and there was no way I could justify my customer's $1,600 interconnects when in two test systems I used to try both pairs of cables, the $200 cables actually sounded better. So I have found that just because a piece of audio gear is expensive does not mean it is going to sound any better or even as good as stuff costing less. So, I do tend to look at reviews but also know that the true judge of how good any audio gear is are your own ears..

@@archangele1 You know if you really did service audio equipment then uh ... you'd know why things have a higher price. Radio Shack started the low priced, high end stereo system and you know comparing their stuff, you know, there was a flagship launch, followed by a cheapened version vastly inferior in build quality but as you say, sounded just as good. But you know, there were fewer cycles on the power switch and it would fail sooner. The flagship had Omron brand and the mass-market version had no brand. So you know, low priced cables sounded better with a test system that you had than the ones at a higher price but the buyer never chose cheap, he chose dear and still managed to break them! I mean who breaks such things? We see this, incredible holes in the veneer of Tannoy Edinburgh, what are these owners doing? How do they gouge out a veneer a quarter inch in thickness? It's not just about judging by ear, SONY V-FET used to sound wonderful for just one year, that was the warranty and they dropped like flies thereafter as if designed to. 😁

@@keplermission I have seen garbage designs and build quality and yes, that is why some stuff is very inexpensive. But I have also seen some very expensive equipment that was built no better then other audio equipment that was maybe 1/3rd the cost.

@@archangele1 Yeah ... late 1990s Luxman were a case in point, and many others like the Electrocompaniet, are made of low quality parts but still deliver a sound that competes on their high price and the Carver stuff was a classic example of cheap components with record profits. They had very nice front panels but nobody ever saw inside. The Carver from 1987 had a front panel looked titanium but when you got underneath it, it had changed to light blue. But Bob Carver patented the audio signature replication know-how, he claimed to be able to recreate any hi-end sound at a fraction of the price.

"So, what if every restaurant reviewer and every movie reviewer published positive reviews about every restaurant and every movie? " - one is much more likely to come across a bad meal than one is to come across an objectively bad piece of (main equipment) hifi gear. Name a high-end speaker that is bad (as in: does not work or sounds off-putting to a group of humans), can you?

He'd rather have all his viewers waste money on garbage than have a small company selling garbage go out of business

So what was the amp you bought??

@@JingoLoBa57 Yorx

"putting his/her hard-earned money down " - except for the money that is ill-gotten.

Instead of preventing his reviewers from buying bad products, he'd rather not review the products so companies can stay in business so they can keep selling the bad products

You love that people stand? Huh 🤔

It's a hifi thing... All their seats is covered in tubes, records and cables. My visitors get the option of moving stuff to sit down. They usually dont bother and just stand around. Makes em leave real quick.

Some say, Herb's brain is more focused than a pair of Quad ESLs. Tbh I too focus better with Herb brain.

"We need you guys to get off your high horses " - who are you to demand what other people do?

I don't really trust most reviews nowadays

I am with Herb and Steve here. If you’re reviewing something from Apple or some other megacompany, well it’s ok to be clear. But there are many small audio companies, all of which I would venture are passionate about what they are trying to do, and who in my opinion deserve the benefit of the doubt. A bad review would immediately put the nail in the coffin.

​@@miguelbarrio so we let them sell underperforming stuff to people, in hoping they get better at it?

@@yantrussart6584 Maybe it was not underperforming just not their taste. There's plenty of pieces that are not underperforming but I just simply don't care for.

@@miguelbarrio if a piece of gear is not to their taste, they can simply say so and we'll understand. I'm not asking for hit pieces, just the truth, good or bad.

@@yantrussart6584 We all have to choose what to spend time with. I would rather know about good stuff!

That's what we do!

If I'm not providing useful information, the solution is obvious, go somewhere else.

That's great.

Interesting you feel that way. So you're saying the subscribers no longer are the main source of revenue, and therefore get what they deserve! In any case, if you don't believe the reviews stop reading or watching them. Please.

You know Single-Ended gear needs totally different speakers from push/pull? That name Gist is Welsh and I'm thinking maybe Walter is living in the United Kingdom. If you have push/pull there are different you know, Damping Factor suited speakers. Single-Ended usually has the stiff, accordion type cone suspension and if it's DF under 1, usually it's just one pleat. ELAC of England have very good Single-Ended speakers, very loud for the input. These are worth trying. Then Push/pull has other speakers, it's very complicated to get the best match and maybe you need to do less building and more reviewing.

We did!

Thanks for sharing and watching my video. And yes this is about entertainment. Definitely not a science report.

Why not both informative and entertaining? While your point re. not being 100% positive in reviews is merited, there needs to be some entertainment value in these articles for the reviewer business model to survive- and new gear won't just be shipped to hobbyists for forum and youtube posts. The business model really requires the public to read a lot more reviews than just the gear they may realistically buy. If people only read the audiophile gear articles that practically pertain to their potential choices, then the fairly small circulation and revenue of the audio sites out there would go close to zero. Plus- the audiophile domain is a hobby. Do you really want to strip the entertainment value out of hobby-related reading? Every other hobby has entertaining professional writing around it, as least all the ones of which I know; the reviewing establishment doesn't exist in the void you may wish it does.

@@maxhirsch7035 well the problem is, it is no longer entertaining when you already know what a review is going to read like (spoiler: all positive), before you even read it. It has seriously become so utterly predictable these days. Is this entertaining? A well-rounded review explaining the negatives of a product, or even an outright negative review, would actually be much more entertaining imo. It actually further extends the discourse. An example would be Jay's review of Mofi Sourcepoint, that got many people agreeing/disagreeing and sharing different viewpoints.

@@meesmo4 A paying job ins't suppose to be all fun and games. and it's bad that they care more about a company that sells junk over customers that end up buying junk that was never reviewed.

@@rockmusicvideoreviewer896 exactly, they choose to care about not hurting small businesses that sell junk, instead of protecting their readers who actually subscribed to their magazine. How ridiculous is this?

As Herb pointed out he's done a number of negative reviews, and I assure you the line of manufactures who would love to get a Herb review is very very long.

@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac Send me one of his negative reviews - I have never read one.

With respect, you made the wrong choice for those people who may now spend 6k on a sub par product and could have been warned. If you are not prepared to do negative reviews you are only doing half a reviewers job. The term moral cowardice applies. I appreciate and understand that you may be trying to grow a channel or make a living, but if you are only going to review things you like you should make that clear on your channel description.

@@jimfarrell4635 I've done three negative reviews in the past, one of which bothers me to this day even though I reviewed the headphone honestly. In the case of this DAC, in conversations with three other people who have this DAC, my experiences do not match up with theirs, leading to the speculation that my review unit was somehow defective. Rather than doing a negative review of DAC that may or may not be working as intended, I had simply declined to do the review, then this video dropped and Herb and Steve's comments really applied to how I've been feeling. I get your point and I have heard your opinion echoed by others, but in this case I felt that not reviewing it was the best way to proceed.

@@headkarma Thanks for explaining. I know this is a contentious issue and appreciate the difficulties reviewers face. I just find it frustrating that there are so few out there willing to be completely honest with their viewers or readers.

I think people gravitate to reviewers they find helpful and trustworthy. That's it, and the good thing is there's a lot of reviewers to choose from.

@@SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac Spot on Steve, they do; and part of that is knowing that a reviewer is not afraid to say when something doesn't meet expectations in some way or other. Honest feedback to the manufacturer is a gift, not something to be avoided. It's also a gift to your audience as they will avoid those products. Your explanation of why your reviews are always positive comes down to that you only review products that you like, That makes sense as it saves you time reviewing stuff you don't like and keeps you from biting the hand that feeds you, but it doesn't make for a well-rounded reviewer in my view. I do find your reviews helpful nonetheless, as at least I know you like the stuff you are reviewing and I watch for the music recommendations mostly, but I'm not sure why you put out a video on this topic, and invite comments, when it is clear from your responses to those who hold a differing view that you unhappy that they disagree and are essentially telling them to watch another channel - very odd!

And he doesn't rely on KZfaq reviews for his income so he can be objective. Unlike some people...

I understand, you need to find reviewers that you can trust. Plenty of them out there.

He's either an idiot or a shuckster, or both.

So you know the amplifier company?