Snake Oil Salesmen

[Davecv41]

Selling it? No, those reviewers are actually handing out free bottles of it when they put out anything besides specs and price.

 

Disclaimer: I know someone who works for Monster Cable. I politely declined when he offered to get me some of their product at a discount.

[slovell]

I am so tired of audio reviews. When I read a car review, I can understand what they are saying. When I read a hotel review, I understand what the reviewer is saying is good or bad about the particular site. When I read a resturaunt review, I either get hungrier or decide to start a diet. But when I read an audio review,it reminds me of the children's story about the Emperor who had no clothes.

 

Here are lines from the last review I read.

 

More dynamic at the macro level and about the same as you scale down to the micro level.

Imaging is similar in density and edge definition (i.e. very good) but with a little less layering.

A nice sense of natural flesh and blood solidity comes through.

The acoustic around the images is less charged by the music.

The texture (grain size of noise) is a bit larger and more noticeable and in the plane of the music but only rarely intrusive.

There is a nice sense of air and space

Gives less of a 'they are here' perspective and more of a 'you are there' sense to the music

A little less continuous -- a little larger grained -- but still very liquid and flowing and still making the music come across as connected from moment to moment to be musically compelling.

 

WTF?

What a load of crap! Does it sound good or not?

[hugot]

If I want an honest review,I will come here.

[Deang]

Just because someone says "it sounds good", doesn't mean that you will agree with them. I've been chased out of several rooms that had supposedly great sounding systems - and I thought they were awful. This forum has seemingly come full circle - many simply consider good sound anything that gets loud enough to crack plaster.

Edited June 1, 2016 by Deang

[Fjd]

Selling it? No, those reviewers are actually handing out free bottles of it when they put out anything besides specs and price.

 

Disclaimer: I know someone who works for Monster Cable. I politely declined when he offered to get me some of their product at a discount.

 

Just because someone says "it sounds good", doesn't mean that you will agree with them. I've been chased out of several rooms that had supposedly great sounding systems - and I thought they were awful. This forum has seemingly come full circle - many simply consider good sound anything that gets loud enough to crack plaster.

 

 

So true Dean, and I also know several people that consider good sound to be anything that gets loud enough to crack plaster, one of my cousins among that group, although, I believe that her frame of reference and tastes are evolving.  I have also tried to get people to better understand their own personal frame of reference and what they consider "good sound," along with better identification of their own personal listening goals with mixed success.

 

Let's think about the term "snake oil" from a slightly different perspective.  Is a review an instance of "snake oil" or just good old fashioned advertising, now updated for this world we live in where one comment can go viral and bring down a product in a matter of days?  In many respects it seems that a significant portion of the population will call something they don't understand or something that challenges a historical belief that could cause a shift in thinking, "snake oil."  In certain respects, maybe somewhat like the Salem witch trials in the late 1600s.

 

Does anyone remember the bike forum post and the subsequent Wired Magazine article in 2004 where a Kryptonite lock was picked with a ball point pen?  Think about it for a moment, a 50-year-old lock design was rendered useless when a brief post to an internet forum revealed the lock can be popped open with a cheap plastic pen.  Given the tremendous impact of that one post, some say there is a paradigm shift upon us in how to think about marketing and advertising.

 

http://www.wired.com/2004/09/twist-a-pen-open-a-lock/

 

Many that are working in the marketing/advertising industry tend to believe that the advertising which succeeds best at seeding relevant and useful impressions, is likely to be the most effective.  In the past, I have touched upon how Red Bull embraces “content marketing” in addition to a television ad or magazine ad; and how the Red Bull product has practically universal name recognition whether a person likes the product or thoroughly despises the product.

 

Now let’s think about marketing a product through “reviews” whether written by a “paid writer” or a “consumer.”  Either way, product reviews written by real people may actually, from a historical perspective, be the most underappreciated aspect of a marketing campaign, especially in the consumer-content media universe.  While there have been a few companies that recognized the opportunity early, content media has only recently seemed to captivate the advertising and media worlds.  Audio companies and audio magazines / audio websites just seem to have a “jump” on others and have been ahead of the game in this regard.

 

In general, I believe that an aspect that many people fail to realize is that a “review,” whether a review in a magazine or online; and whether the review was written by a “paid writer” or a review based on “customer feedback” is now becoming somewhat of a type of significant “marketing” channel in its own right for many industries.  Just look at all of the online review sites dedicated to collecting “reviews” such as Angie's List, Epinions, Yelp, ConsumerAffairs.com, Zagat, TripAdvisor, Niche, Glassdoor, RateMyProfessors, RateMyTeachers.com, Computing Reviews, among others.

 

Of course, following close behind are unique competition wars and various types of unethical behavior; such as the positive reviews that are sometimes written by the businesses or individuals being reviewed; while negative reviews are sometimes written by competitors, disgruntled employees, or anyone with a grudge against the business or product being reviewed.  

 

Shoot, this type of activity has even spawned new revenue generating work flows for the PR industry with businesses called "reputation management" firms that can be hired to submit false positive reviews on behalf of businesses. 

 

"Company Settles Case of Reviews it Faked"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/technology/internet/15lift.html?_r=0

 

"Medical Justice caught impersonating happy patients on Yelp, RateMDs"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/medical-justice-caught-impersonating-happy-patients-on-yelp-ratemds/

 

 

In general, I believe that you can find that Jupiter Research, Forrester Research, The Kelsey Group, comScore, among others, all have studies that show that ratings and reviews influence consumer shopping behavior.  Several years ago there was a report issued by Jupiter Research citing research that 48% of online shoppers find it critical that retailers post reviews. That report also found that the number of online shoppers who found reviews the most important feature in a site doubled from 2005 to 2006.  Think about that for a minute, more people than ever before consider a review to be the most important feature for consumer shopping; and one of two people are going to leave a business/product website and not buy the products of the company primarily because there were no ratings and reviews.

 

A study from 2011 asked, “Which type of advertising has the most impact on the buying decision?” The percentages in relation to various advertising categories from the respondents are listed below:

• Television - 83%
• Magazines - 50%
• Online - 47%
• Newspapers - 44%
• Radio - 32%
• Billboards/outdoor advertising - 13%

Magazine reading and online reading are very “active” processes that involve focused reading and screening of the material on each page.  Essentially, the reader makes an active choice when turning pages whether or not to look at it more closely.  While it may only take a few seconds to evaluate a specific page, the reader does have to look at a page in order to decide not to read it any further.  On the “flip” side, every time something is found interesting or appealing or annoying, the reader can take as long over it as he or she desires, regardless of whether the section is editorial, a review, or traditional advertising (or even a forum thread where a person continues to linger on, although annoyed, and read and post even when they cannot stand the topic or the forum members' posting to the thread); all leading to a level of increased "awareness."

 

Given that magazine advertising and online advertising have such a significant impact on buying decisions and considering the active involvement aspect of the reader with magazines and online reading (vs. the passive nature of television advertising), I’m not surprised that most audio-related magazines include reviews of audio products and advertisements for those same products, as they are designed to both work in unison during a marketing / advertising campaign.

 

I look at reviews primarily to help my sense of awareness of what types of product are out there in the market place; and look to other sources of information to determine if something will fit my established criteria.  Who knows, I may not buy new, but at some point, with a certain level of previous awareness, this stuff may eventually hit my "audit bucket" list when looking at the secondary markets for used equipment.

 

 

.

Edited June 2, 2016 by Fjd

[ratcobob]

'writing about music is, as Martin Mull put it, like dancing about architecture'

 

That's why we're music/movie listeners and we're Good at it.

[Deang]

The ridiculous language usually accompanies the equally ridiculous pricing.

Sound has many nuances, and I really don't mind someone taking a stab at it as long as it's concise and comprehensible.

As Mark Deneen used to point out, describing sound is like trying to describe the taste of food - it's not easy.

Too few words conveys nothing, and too many words conveys nothing as well.

Edited June 2, 2016 by Deang

[Paducah Home Theater]

The ridiculous language usually accompanies the equally ridiculous pricing.

 

There have been multiple studies done on wine, in one of which several people were given some cheap wine, but some of them were told that it was in fact cheap, while other people were told that it was expensive.  The people who thought they were getting the good stuff whipped out all the big words to describe it's intricate textures and whatnot even though it was like a $5-$10 bottle.  I imagine this mindset would hold true with most anything.  Here's an example of one:

 

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/baba-shiv-how-wines-price-tag-affect-its-taste

Edited June 1, 2016 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[JJkizak]

Geez, and I thought "Sounds good" meant something.

JJK

[Paducah Home Theater]

 

Heritage Members 20,835 posts Offline Posted 06 May 2016 - 09:58 PM If I were to say that the taste of water is "refreshing" - would everyone be okay with that? Does "refreshing" help us understand anything about the taste of water?

 

If you are talking bottled water I can taste the differences in some because of the minerals they put in or exclude. 

 

Funny thing, out in my neck of the woods there was a bottled water company that advertised as if it was fresh mountain spring water or something.  The factory was located in an area where the underlying water table and a nearby entire lake bearing my forum name was contaminated with PCB's, mercury, and/or copious amounts of industrial engine degreaser that was used in a nearby coal fired plant that fed the nearby nuclear plant, and most likely got water piped in from the Ohio River where the Calvert City chemical plants dumped large amounts of waste upstream.  I've been told that Paducah gets its water upstream from the plants but cannot confirm, and I'm sure the water was perfectly fine, but the image and thought of people paying a premium for water that seemingly came from this immediate area and thinking it was premium water from a mountain spring always seemed pretty ironic to me.  

Edited June 1, 2016 by MetropolisLakeOutfitters

[wvu80]

Too few words conveys nothing, and too many words coneys nothing as well.

 

Nice turn of phrase.   

 

I try to say something worthwhile but I am definitely guilty of the latter rather than the former.