Audio Reviewers & The Music They Use In Their Reviews


At 65, I Have been into high end audio since my very early 20’s. I have probably read many hundreds if not over a thousand reviews on audio equipment and I keep coming back to the same question. Why do these audio reviewers all use music I have. Not heard or do not care for? For example, I am reading a review on a new tube integrated, and the music mostly used was either Choral, Chamber, or Classical. I listen to none of that. My choice is 90% Rock and 10% Jazz. So, after reading a review, I have to read way between the lines to see if the piece of equipment might need a second look by me.

I realize that many of the reviewers are either my age or above and that they were perhaps brought up on Classical, so naturally they would use it in their review. My greatest concern is that the millennials and even the people younger than that will never embrace the high end because they have no reference to the type of music being played, just as I do. Why can’t a reviewer use something by mainstream Rock bands to evaluate equipment?  To anyone that will tell me it’s because Classical, Choral, and Chamber are more well recorded and that if one listens to Rock, they may as well get a cheap mill outlet stereo, I say no way!

What do others think or feel about this?
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Showing 2 responses by stereo5

@phomchick...……………………………….

I have 70K of equipment in 2 systems.  You can look it up here, they are both posted.

@craigl59...………………………………

I have about a hundred or so Classical cd's, mostly the Mercury Living Presence CD's, and many of the RCA reissues plus a bunch of Telarcs.  My point is, many people get turned off on a  piece of gear because they aren't familiar with the music and have nothing to compare it to.   I don't listen to the Classical cd's very often as it tends to put me to sleep but I keep them as some kind of point of reference.

Not all Rock is compressed and there are many excellent Rock recordings from the late 60's through most of the 70's.  Any of the Steely Dan CD's come to mind as well as some of the live concerts at the Fillmore East and many others.  I have almost the entire MFSL Rock recordings on cd and many of them are excellent so I kind of call BS on the reason for Classical.