Thoughts about the "Cheapaudioman" on YouTube


This gentleman has stirred up some controversy in the audio world over on YouTube. I personally, find him very interesting.  What are your thoughts?

mr_m

FWIW, I just checked out his Cheap Watch Guy channel. LOL. JC, and I thought some of the stuff he reviewed on his audio channel was junk. Just...wow.

More power to you, Randy, but again, not for me. 

 

Although it's kinda silly that he is not allowed to pronounce the name 'Schitt' as it should be. 
 

He is allowed to…but he is worried that the video will be de-monetized. He did the weird mispronunciation in front of Jason Stoddard on a live stream and Jason looked at him like he was crazy. He said, “you can say it it’s our name.”

Anyway, Randy has become a panhandler of sorts. Always asking people to donate money to him. I think technically he is not a reviewer, but an affiliate marketer. Anyway, I enjoyed him as a hobbyist before he sold out. 

I like his reviews...like others, my equipment is not in his review price range, but he provides useful device, particuarly for secondary systems...just not my main system.  

His review of the sony ss-cs5 speakers was spot on.  I find that he is more often right than wrong.

I watch a lot of these YouTube "reviewers" and I've been watching his channel for probably over 2 years now. I enjoy his content and he's come a long way. I would say before you completely dismiss him as garbage you should see what he's about and where he's coming from.

I think his attraction to most people is his regular guy approach and good humor. I don't think he ever really set out to be some huge YouTube guy but came up with this Cheapman channel after he bought his first high dollar piece of gear. I believe it was a well reviewed $5k integrated by SimAudio/Moon Audio. It turned out(to his ears) to sound no better or even worse than some cheaper components he had owned. He was pissed, and came up with the idea to find and talk about pieces of gear under that 1k mark or so that provided good performance and value. 

I personally don't feel he pushes any equipment, just gives his opinion on stuff. Once you figure out what type of sound he likes people should take that into account if they are interested in something he likes. For example, I think he likes a lot of treble, some of those speakers he likes are too hot for my taste. He's not a fan of measurements, so all of his opinions are off of his ears and what he likes, you can tell he's really not concerned about how others have rated or reviewed something. He definitely caters to people on a very low budget. Although there is only so much low budget gear that is even half decent so he's ventured out into more expensive products here and there. Since he's become more well know a lot of company's have sent him higher quality gear, although I don't think Buchardt were very happy with his assessment of them. He didn't drool all over them like some other reviewers lol.

I think he has a place in the audiophile landscape. As others in this chat have alluded to is that there are some great sounding pieces of gear for what I consider cheap prices. It has not always been like this. Its a good time to get into hifi if someone is young or doesn't have the big funds due to whatever in life. In the cheaper priced market is where one can really get ripped off and come across a lot of junk..and if you are new to this hobby or a first time buyer you don't even know what you are looking for. For this fact I think someone like Cheap Audio Man can really help. Just my opinion anyway.