Magazine Ethics - TAS

Gentlemen:

We are going to do a follow up video about this article published by the Absolute Sound which was written by Robert Harley. 

We will dissect his words LIVE tomorrow - Thursday March 4th at 830pm Eastern Time on the HiFi Five Youtube channel. This is going to be one of those videos you DO NOT WANT TO MISS. 

https://www.youtube.com/live/uNbc8_REGQw

@kerrybh 

@hilde45 

Gentlemen, maybe I am naive but to me a journalist states facts, not opinion. A reviewer on the other hand gives us his opinion about a piece of equipment. It is understood in our hobby that people tastes, physiology and finances all contribute to how they feel about a piece of gear. The truth in our hobby is not necessary black and white but rather greyish. What one guy calls resolution, another guy calls harshness. I am a firm believer that people should choose systems that are pleasing to their senses even if these systems are not necessarily the most accurate. I read between the lines because I am more likely to trust a reviewer that has a taste similar to mine than one who hears things differently. At the end of the day there is no right or wrong but what pleases ME. We need to take responsibility and choose our own gear based on what we hear and not what someone else thinks. Reading about gear should only be the first step.

@bigtwin 

Sorry I am hijacking your thread. I am getting long in the tooth and seem to take longer to express myself than I used to 

Robert Harley was entitled to respond to serious accusations leveled against TAS and other print magazines, in recent posts by the YouTuber concerned.

I would absolutely want to miss any BS pushed by Jay. While I understand he is the best. 

@spenav 

Really interesting reply -- thank you.

Here's how I see it. I'd push back on the clean split between journalists stating facts and reviewers giving opinions. A good review does both — and the relationship between them is what makes it trustworthy or not. What's really at stake is *judgment* — not raw opinion (with no evidence or basis), not bare measurement (facts without context), but the disciplined act of weighing evidence, applying spelled-out aesthetic standards, and combining those to reach a considered conclusion. And not a foregone conclusion.

The deeper problem is that many reviewers aren't building toward a conclusion through careful listening. They already know (maybe unconsciously) they're going to like the gear — because access depends on staying friendly with manufacturers, and the business model runs on good relationships with advertisers. The "review" is written backward from a favorable verdict, and the impressionistic language — "incredible soundstage," "musical authority" — dresses up a foregone conclusion. We're asked to trust enthusiasm that was never at risk of turning out any other way. That's not judgment. It's performance.

A genuinely journalistic review makes an argument about aesthetics and tries to explain how this will translate for readers. It builds its impressions on a scaffolding of facts — comparison points, source material, system chain. When a reviewer says "the upper midrange added presence to vocals but made massed strings a little glassy on this recording through these speakers" — that's opinion *disciplined by facts*. You can work with it. You can ask whether your setup would interact the same way, whether your priorities would weight that tradeoff differently. That's judgment you can engage with.

You're right that we should choose gear based on what we hear. But reading about gear is only useful if you can tell the difference between fact-grounded evaluation and ad copy. The facts aren't opposed to the opinion. They're the difference between informed-opinon and baseless-opinion. That's what I'd call, instead, "judgement."