Because I care (and I know you do too…) Suggestions for the HC powers that be...

[sventvkg]

This thread has taken a total {censored}. I REFUSE to believe Craig would change a review based on whether or not he got gear for free or a reduced price. Basically you're calling his morals onto the carpet and I have a problem with that. Lighten up Frances(s)....Yes this site has been killed and we're all pissed about it but don't take it out on Craig.

[UstadKhanAli]

That anyone for one second could think that Pro Reviews would be anything but a very unbiased, deep, informative review is madness to me. But anyway, I really give up. I'm just going to keep saying the same thing over and over. I give up.

[RockViolin]

I think that Goobers, bless his heart, is attempting at least in part to stand with someone who has been rather careless. And to blunt the blows from Craig's fearsome blade somewhat.

 

Ernest, we've agreed on quite a few things. I know this sucks to read, but, I have an absolutely sparkling memory and this isn't the first time you've just plain stepped in it. I don't think that there's anyone who hasn't done it from time to time. You could recover. I also don't think you need advice on how to go about it.

 

Your RV redux, for what it's worth.

[UstadKhanAli]

Well, I guess I have this sort of faith that if you tell someone the truth and back it up with facts and your personal experience, you can get people to see your point of view. Maybe it's the teacher in me since I've had good success there.

 

But as you can imagine, this often fails miserably in areas outside academia.

[Ernest Buckley]

Ernest, we've agreed on quite a few things. I know this sucks to read, but, I have an absolutely sparkling memory and this isn't the first time you've just plain stepped in it. I don't think that there's anyone who hasn't done it from time to time. You could recover. I also don't think you need advice on how to go about it.

 

Lets agree to disagree. Product reviews are unnecessary in the current landscape, in my opinion.

 

Manufacturers provide videos now that explain features, users make videos as well explaining features and how they use gear. I stand by my words: many professional reviewers are biased towards the products they are reviewing because they have relationships with those companies. There is no way to eliminate this "relationship", so I choose not to read professional reviews. I`m not saying reviewers are biased across the board but there is no way to prove or disprove any of it…. sort of like the who's on steroids argument in baseball…. I say put `em all in the Hall and let the fans make up their own minds… in this case, let the users do their own reviews.

 

If I`m interested in hardware gear, I purchase it. If I don`t like it, I return it. Simple.

 

As for software, we can all download and play with it before we buy it. No need for a "professional" review there either.

 

I`d like to think after all these years conversing with the same people, we sort of know each other. I never meant to offend anyone with my honesty. ymmv

[MikeRivers]

 

Lets agree to disagree. Product reviews are unnecessary in the current landscape, in my opinion.

 

Although I get a lot out of some reviews that I read, and I hope that some people get a lot out of the reviews that I write, for a certain portion of the population, I can see that you have a valid point. There isn't a lot of really bad gear out there, and someone who's just getting started can't really go wrong no matter what he buys. He probably doesn't have the knowledge to understand operting levels, headroom, balanced or unbalanced connections, sample rates, and so on. As long as he can plug in a microphone and a set of headphones, and as long as he understands that he can and can't do with what he's looking at he can do all right. Hopefully he'll learn, as he's working (as I'm sure you did) what questions to ask and what to look for when he finds that he needs something other than what he has - which may never occur.

 

Manufacturers provide videos now that explain features, users make videos as well explaining features and how they use gear.

 

I can't agree with you that those, in general, are useful. Most, even from the manufacturers, assume that you already know what the product does and that you understand the meaning and value of the features that they point out in those videos. A good review will explain to the reader why a certain feature is important - or why one isn't important. It takes only a couple of sentences to explain the differnce between a line level 1/4" jack on an interface and a jack that looks the same but is designed to connect an instrument. Or to point out that if you plan on using condenser mics, you'll need phantom power for your mic inputs.

 

You (yourself) may be able to figure that out, but many people won't. You've been at this for a long time. You know what to ask, but others don't.

 

And, besides, you seem to be concerned with bias toward the product. Can there be anyone more biased in favor of a prduct than the manufacturer? He'll show you all the great features in the video, but he won't tell you about the limitations or quirks.

 

I stand by my words: many professional reviewers are biased towards the products they are reviewing because they have relationships with those companies.

 

Care to name some names? Sure, certain "relationships" develop. Focusrite will send me a product for a review if I request it from them because they know me and they know that I write reviews that are helpful to their potential customers. But that "relationship" doesn't extend to keeping gear that I review. If I want to keep it, I have to pay for it. They'll give me a discount, but it's the same discount that they'd give to an artist endorser. Companies have programs for things like that.

 

On the other hand, getting a piece of RME or Prism or Antelope gear for a review is like pulling teeth. Even though I have a relationship with their marketing folks in that we know each other and chat at trade shows, and they respect my views and knowledge, their priorities when it goes to passing out the limited amount of gear that they've designated for reviewers goes to the glossy magazines, because that's what gets the most eyeballs.

 

If I`m interested in hardware gear, I purchase it. If I don`t like it, I return it. Simple.

 

As for software, we can all download and play with it before we buy it. No need for a "professional" review there either.

 

That works for me, too, but how many times have you read something on a forum along the lines of "I'm selling it because it doesn't meet my needs and the return period has passed."? I'm amazed at how many people buy something and let it fester without trying it, or hang on to it in hopes that it'll get upgraded to work the way they had hoped. It would be nice if everyone was as astute as you, but they're not. The most comprehensive review isn't going to keep some doofuses from buying what the wrong thing, but it may help some.

 

As for software, I read reviews to find out how people are using it. If I have no interest in doing what they're doing, it doesn't matter to me how well it does it, I don't need it. I can look at a DAW and decide in five minutes whether I like the user interface and how complicated it is to change setups, but I can't tell from looking at it or reading the manufacturer's description, what, for example, Ozone, will help me. If I don't have a clue as to what it can be used for, I may never discover that I can use it (or can't).

 

I think that you can in essesnce do your own reviews, but most pepole can't. It's OK if you want to bury your head in the sand, but it's not a good idea for those with less experience than you to do that.

 

[RockViolin]

 

Lets agree to disagree.

 

It's too much work for me to argue with a suspicious nature. Mike is doing quite well though.

 

I agree to join the I Give Up chorus. We're gonna record it We Are The World style next week, and it goes a little something like this-

 

 

We all give up

We all are finished

We won't do no more Pro Review

And we're not diminished

 

Well, it's a start....

 

 

[Ernest Buckley]

I love this user review… its honest. I appreciate it very much.

 

I`m going to look for a "professional review" for this as well… should be interesting...

 

The Professional Review

[UstadKhanAli]

Is a review more honest if it's a glowing review? Or is it more honest if it says the item sucks?

 

There is a human tendency to think that more critical words offered in a review or assessment means that is it more "honest". Since I realize some of you might not believe me, I offer this article from Wired as food for thought.

 

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/be-mean-online/

 

"I'M GENERALLY UPBEAT on Twitter. Many of my posts are enthusiastic blurts about science or research in which I use way too many exclamation points!! But I've noticed something: When I post an acerbic or cranky tweet, it gets recirculated far more widely than do my cheerier notes. People like it fine when I'm genial, but when I make a caustic joke or cutting comment? Social media gold. This is pure anecdata, of course. Still, it made me wonder if there was any psychological machinery at work here. Is there a reason that purse-lipped opinions would outcompete generous ones?

 

Indeed, there is. It's called hypercriticism. When we hear negative statements, we think they're inherently more intelligent than positive ones. Teresa Amabile, director of research for Harvard Business School, began exploring this back in the 1980s. She took a group of 55 students, roughly half men, half women, and showed them excerpts from two book reviews printed in an issue of The New York Times. The same reviewer wrote both, but Amabile anonymized them and tweaked the language to produce two versions of each—one positive, one negative. Then she asked the students to evaluate the reviewer's intelligence.

 

The verdict was clear: The students thought the negative author was smarter than the positive one—“by a lot,” Amabile tells me. Most said the nastier critic was “more competent.” Granted, being negative wasn't all upside—they also rated the harsh reviewer as “less warm and more cruel, not as nice,” she says. “But definitely smarter.” Like my mordant tweets, presumably.

 

This so-called negativity bias works both ways, it seems. Other studies show that when we seek to impress someone with our massive gray matter, we spout sour and negative opinions. In a follow-up experiment, Bryan Gibson, a psychologist at Central Michigan University, took a group of 117 students (about two-thirds female) and had them watch a short movie and write a review that they would then show to a partner. Gibson's team told some of the reviewers to try to make their partner feel warmly toward them; others were told to try to appear smart. You guessed it: Those who were trying to seem brainy went significantly more negative than those trying to be endearing."

 

To me, a review is more honest when it describes the item fairly, with as little bias as possible, good, bad, and otherwise, and describe how the item might be most useful.

[MikeRivers]

Yes, I think that most people want to read a review to find out what's wrong with a product than what it will do for them. They think they already know what it'll do and don't want to read any more about it - or they already saw the manufacturer's video.

 

I sometimes read reviews of products that I don't expect I'll ever use because they do things that I don't need to do. But by reading the review, if it's a well written one, sometimes I'll learn something about a process or function that I've never used but, after reading about how someone else has used it, think it might be worth a try. But the review has to tell me what it really does, rather than just telling me that it's great on drums and castinets, but not so useful on bird calls or acoustic guitars.

[Ernest Buckley]

Is a review more honest if it's a glowing review? Or is it more honest if it says the item sucks?

 

There is a human tendency to think that more critical words offered in a review or assessment means that is it more "honest". Since I realize some of you might not believe me, I offer this article from Wired as food for thought.

 

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/be-mean-online/

 

"I'M GENERALLY UPBEAT on Twitter. Many of my posts are enthusiastic blurts about science or research in which I use way too many exclamation points!! But I've noticed something: When I post an acerbic or cranky tweet, it gets recirculated far more widely than do my cheerier notes. People like it fine when I'm genial, but when I make a caustic joke or cutting comment? Social media gold. This is pure anecdata, of course. Still, it made me wonder if there was any psychological machinery at work here. Is there a reason that purse-lipped opinions would outcompete generous ones?

 

Indeed, there is. It's called hypercriticism. When we hear negative statements, we think they're inherently more intelligent than positive ones. Teresa Amabile, director of research for Harvard Business School, began exploring this back in the 1980s. She took a group of 55 students, roughly half men, half women, and showed them excerpts from two book reviews printed in an issue of The New York Times. The same reviewer wrote both, but Amabile anonymized them and tweaked the language to produce two versions of each—one positive, one negative. Then she asked the students to evaluate the reviewer's intelligence.

 

The verdict was clear: The students thought the negative author was smarter than the positive one—“by a lot,” Amabile tells me. Most said the nastier critic was “more competent.” Granted, being negative wasn't all upside—they also rated the harsh reviewer as “less warm and more cruel, not as nice,” she says. “But definitely smarter.” Like my mordant tweets, presumably.

 

This so-called negativity bias works both ways, it seems. Other studies show that when we seek to impress someone with our massive gray matter, we spout sour and negative opinions. In a follow-up experiment, Bryan Gibson, a psychologist at Central Michigan University, took a group of 117 students (about two-thirds female) and had them watch a short movie and write a review that they would then show to a partner. Gibson's team told some of the reviewers to try to make their partner feel warmly toward them; others were told to try to appear smart. You guessed it: Those who were trying to seem brainy went significantly more negative than those trying to be endearing."

 

To me, a review is more honest when it describes the item fairly, with as little bias as possible, good, bad, and otherwise, and describe how the item might be most useful.

 

The point of my last post was to show how different a user review and a professional review can be on the same product. Here`s another professional review of the same gear which is pretty honest… Its not about being negative, its about being honest. If a piece of gear sucks, just say it. Instead what we have is a community of "professional" reviewers who want to polish a turd with politically correct jargon and always find a way to talk around the fact that some gear does suck. Thats the point of all of my posts concerning reviews in this thread.

 

I have observed the same thing as you Ken when it comes to negative posts… they definitely get more shares. Just like people slow down to stare at car crashes… its human nature. I`m not saying reviews need to be mean or negative but they do need to be honest and at times that may mean, "Save your money, this piece of gear sucks" as the video review states plain and clear.

 

EB

 

[UstadKhanAli]

Its not about being negative, its about being honest. If a piece of gear sucks, just say it. Instead what we have is a community of "professional" reviewers who want to polish a turd with politically correct jargon and always find a way to talk around the fact that some gear does suck. Thats the point of all of my posts concerning reviews in this thread.

 

I understand your point. I think you're wrong. And between Craig and I, we have offered quite a lot of facts, experience, people, and facts to the contrary, but you're entitled to your opinion.

 

I can tell you that if I had ever done a review of the Alesis 3630 or that horrid compressor I had before it, whatever that was, I would not have given it a good review.

 

I have observed the same thing as you Ken when it comes to negative posts… they definitely get more shares. Just like people slow down to stare at car crashes… its human nature. I`m not saying reviews need to be mean or negative but they do need to be honest and at times that may mean, "Save your money, this piece of gear sucks" as the video review states plain and clear.

 

It's not just more hits, but psychologically, people think that more negative reviews are written by those that are smarter, more insightful, and therefore, more honest. It's a trap that we need to be mindful of, in my opinion.