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June 10, 2012 - 6:14pm
#1
Seriously wondering about Art Dudley
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if any item with a big price tag got an actual negative review...
I'm not sure that's entirely true. Actually I don't think it's true at all and the price has nothing to do with it. M. Fremer has definitely given some very pricey TTs and pre-amps negative reviews. Granted that it's been stated that most products that get a full review when the reviewer or staff already has heard it at a show or the staff has heard good things about them before. No, not all are pre-screened, but many clearly are, which makes sense.
But any number of reveiws, both long and short have often been either luke warm, critical or at least a mix of negative/positives. And those strengths and weaknesses almost always show in in JA measurements (if it's a long-form review with measurements). His testing is like the verifiable rationale for what the reviewer states via experience, again usually. It's just that with Art they rarely match up at least in the past few years. Given that most of the time the measurements do match up with other reviewers it seems fair to say there is a serious disconnect happening.
I
I need to add something to my post...In a perfect world vastly expensive would always buy vastly better performance BUT, we live in the real world and some of the higher priced spread, just like cars or MacMansions, do turn out to be dross.
We all put different values on the things we hear, Arts values are different than most. Personal preference plays such a big role that we can't always say what sounds best, just what we like. Art tells us what he likes, measurements be damned. I would prefer that to him saying he liked everything that he felt would test well.
I stopped wondering what Art meant by the terms he uses to describe what he hears and values.