This is essentially a follow on from the WHF awards topic, but i didn't want to derail that with my thoughts.
The question as I see it is, should a specialist publication do its utmost to get products under review to perform at their best and how far should one go to achieve this?
At Audio Video we have a specially designed studio where many reviews are undertaken. The studio can be light and temperature controlled and is acoustically good.
However when the studio was being designed and built a decision was made to not go to to the absolute extreme as far as build and acoustics go. The reason for this was that if built as a "purist" listening environment, it would be too far removed from normal domestic rooms to be of any great value for readers. Make no mistake it is still the best review studio I know of in SA and it is better than 95% of domestic rooms.
Let's say that the room lets audio systems sound good.
Some reviews are done in reviewers homes and here rooms are typically treated to be better than average users rooms.
Architecturally/acoustically then as a publication, our review rooms are good enough to let us hear the differences between products, but not so removed that our results cant be replicated.
A good room is a starting point, but when it comes to speakers we still take time to experiment and listen to the results before reviewing speakers. This includes positioning and using foam bungs to block ports.
If speakers are wall mount speakers we either mount these on or as close as walls as possible.
naturally for home theatre speaker reviews we run auto calibrations and check all settings.
Audio wise this I believe is what a specialist publication should do.
On the video front it seems that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.
My belief is that video displays must be calibrated to an internationally recognised standard.
If we don't have a base line for comparison how could I possibly say that a TV or projector delivers natural colour.
How do I know that the colours I'm seeing are the ones the director wanted me to see. (films are shot using the same International standards, and theoretically the entire editing chain does as well).
We may be talking about subtleties but is it not the job of a specialised publication to inform and educate.
Once you're used to calibrated video everything else looks artificial.
An audio Analogy would be to compare a high end system to an old Bose one.
Many people (in fact probably most) initially prefer the Bose sound, but educate them on what audio can sound like, then the initially exciting sound quickly become tiring and lacks detail.
While the above may seem negative to some, it's meant to be positive.
Comments please.
The question as I see it is, should a specialist publication do its utmost to get products under review to perform at their best and how far should one go to achieve this?
At Audio Video we have a specially designed studio where many reviews are undertaken. The studio can be light and temperature controlled and is acoustically good.
However when the studio was being designed and built a decision was made to not go to to the absolute extreme as far as build and acoustics go. The reason for this was that if built as a "purist" listening environment, it would be too far removed from normal domestic rooms to be of any great value for readers. Make no mistake it is still the best review studio I know of in SA and it is better than 95% of domestic rooms.
Let's say that the room lets audio systems sound good.
Some reviews are done in reviewers homes and here rooms are typically treated to be better than average users rooms.
Architecturally/acoustically then as a publication, our review rooms are good enough to let us hear the differences between products, but not so removed that our results cant be replicated.
A good room is a starting point, but when it comes to speakers we still take time to experiment and listen to the results before reviewing speakers. This includes positioning and using foam bungs to block ports.
If speakers are wall mount speakers we either mount these on or as close as walls as possible.
naturally for home theatre speaker reviews we run auto calibrations and check all settings.
Audio wise this I believe is what a specialist publication should do.
On the video front it seems that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't.
My belief is that video displays must be calibrated to an internationally recognised standard.
If we don't have a base line for comparison how could I possibly say that a TV or projector delivers natural colour.
How do I know that the colours I'm seeing are the ones the director wanted me to see. (films are shot using the same International standards, and theoretically the entire editing chain does as well).
We may be talking about subtleties but is it not the job of a specialised publication to inform and educate.
Once you're used to calibrated video everything else looks artificial.
An audio Analogy would be to compare a high end system to an old Bose one.
Many people (in fact probably most) initially prefer the Bose sound, but educate them on what audio can sound like, then the initially exciting sound quickly become tiring and lacks detail.
While the above may seem negative to some, it's meant to be positive.
Comments please.
