Have you ever made a change in your music system after reading a Hi Fi review?

No I never did that. But it is also logical I came to Naim when I needed a new hifi system, and kept on upgrading based on my needs.

On the mobile front reviews have played a role in determining the shortlist and my buy of a Sony ....

Haim,

Reading the title of your post I suspected there'd be a blind buy based on a hi-fi review. In fact you read a review, got the speakers in question home for demo, and made a decision. Job well done.

Most everyone contemplating a hi-fi purchase searches the net for reviews. Some may buy blind based on the press and those would be the juicy factor here for me; blind buys based strictly on a hi-fi review. Which ones worked, which didn't, and why. Speakers foremost in the canon.

Difficult to say what you mean. Literally speaking I have read hi-fi publications and in the course of time made changes. Not sure they are related though. I mean, I have read really bad reviews of things I bought anyway because they wowed me in the dem room.

I've never asked for a demonstration of something based on a review. I have generally discussed my issues with my dealer and let them propose some solutions to try out. But then, I used to work in the trade (retail) a bit and generally only the budget buyers would walk in with WHF under their arm asking "You got this mate?" Beyond that, they, like myself seemed to trust the dealer relationship more than the mags.

As others have posted, almost everything I have bought has been at least put on my "listen" list by looking at reviews but then always with dealer suggestions and demo taking precedence.

Lower-cost items have been bought with no demo using reviews accessed via a google search of "best xxx"; these are things like in-ear headphones, etc. ... life is too short to demo everything

I was very tempted a year or so back by many rave reviews of an electrostatic vinyl cleaning machine at over £2k - something I didn't think I could demo easily - but family members stepped in with a sanity check

I then did work out that I could send some vinyl away for electrostatic cleaning (aka demo) and, while they certainly came back shiny, they didn't really provide the sonic improvements that had been mentioned in the reviews so that has stopped and I'm back to my old faithful Deram carbon brush.

Allan

Haim,

I think I did, and it's not the stupidest thing I did. Who has read a really bad review of a piece of audio gear? Who has read a really bad review of a piece of contemporary music? It seems that none of us believe in Santa Claus, but some believe in audio reviews.

M

Reviews are a great help for providing a demo list for home audition,  that's about as far as it goes.

Ask a dealer which hifi mag is the best for honest, unbiased opinion and he/she will be scratching their heads....

wenger2015 posted:

Reviews are a great help for providing a demo list for home audition,  that's about as far as it goes.

Ask a dealer which hifi mag is the best for honest, unbiased opinion and he/she will be scratching their heads....

Oh I dunno. I think my dealer would say HiFi News because it has articles bit no reviews. On the other hand, you could fall asleep pretty quick reading that too.

oh dear - are we all of a certain age ...

mention of HiFi mags but all the reviews I read are online, some from mags websites but others from (trusted?) audio-related sites.

Allan

[@mention:1566878603971220], I'm not that old. I've not read a HiFi mag since probably 1998 or in fact any mag at all since 2004. I'm fairly sure I would be in the first half of the age distribution curve of forum members.

But I do remember what a magazine is. They were those things you used to weigh desks down so they didn't blow away in a draughty English house from what I recall.

I'd never buy anything just on the strength of reviews (nor forum views) but do enjoy reading the mags just to see what's around. Hi-Fi News and Stereophile are always a good read with good music reviews and interesting articles. 

Hi-Fi Choice and What Hi-Fi are a bit downmarket and very advertiser biased - you'd read them just before heading to Richer Sounds to buy a big telly and surround system...

I bought a Jitterbug on the basis of a review. Risked an entire £39. Thank goodness it turned out to be pretty good, or I'd really have had egg on my face.

Solid Air posted:

I bought a Jitterbug on the basis of a review. Risked an entire £39. Thank goodness it turned out to be pretty good, or I'd really have had egg on my face.

Or buy it from Amazon - zero risk as you can send it back. 

I bought a weird switch thing after it was recommended by some bloke who looks like someone out of Thunderbirds. 

hificritic has no advertiser revenue. I think its pretty unbiased and fair, but then I would say that?

It's a good read. Some interesting articles coming up so i'm tempted to re-subscribe. 

I've been alerted to new products by magazine (& www) reviews but never bought unheard. So fair play to the mags as they do keep me in touch with whats going on.    But I'm quick to get excited & slow to open the wallet & do get into as much research as possible & would always listen first if it is possible;  low cost sub-£50 items are an exception.   Also personal experience of a product plays a part for me,   I did not buy a cuddly toy PSU for my Supernait until I heard one first,  but when I was looking to improve my CDX2  I was confident enough in the product & the www customer reviews to buy unheard - & that for me was the only time.

As for buying stuff unheard based on forum recommendations from Thunderbird blokes,  very dodgy if I might say so,  but I was amazed by the peeps who took my word for the iFi iPower wall wart.   But then again I did buy my NAS & all the network set up based on this forums suggestions & the dodgy thunderbird bloke was one of those.    

Talking switches;  I need to replace my office network switch; its an old 5 port FS (10/100) that has loose port connections  & intend to use my existing GS105 hifi switch & to get a new switch for the hifi;  problem is I really (honestly) don't have the room for the latest fav-rave Cisco Kid model,  so what to do??   I'm tempted to get one of the Cisco babies,   but which one,  with no mag or www reviews to work from its slightly un-nerving,  so the mag reviews do have a place in the world (after all).               

no.

Yes, looking for a streamer all in one thing I bought a Naim Unitiqute 2 which lead to three years of constant upgrade and a chronic shortage of money!   The music is wonderful though

I bought my ND5XS, and thus my introduction to streaming, blind on the strength of reviews. (No accessible Naim dealer, and as my CD player had died I was without music, and did not want to wait the month or more before I could fit in a trip.) Very happy with it in that its sound, to the best of a comparison by memory, was quite similar to the CD player it replaced. Just less happy when later I learnt that I could have got better sound for the same cost.

That brings me to Hugo, which I bought on the strength of everything I read on these forums when I joined after my purchase - if that counts as hifi review as per the thread title - though I did have a short money back facility if I didn't like it.

And my Bryston amp was unheard before buying, when I stumbled across one at an exceptionally favourable secondhand cost, my awareness of it being from numerous references over decades in the context of IMF and other transmission line speakers, then searching a few hifi reviews before commitment.

With one exception my early hifi components before purchase of my first IMFs were solely on the basis of reviews, with extensive reading/study for all: Garard SP25 then Thorens TD150,  Shure M3D then Shure M75E, Eagle FR8 speaker driver for homemade speakers, then  adding KEF B139 and T15 for an upgrade design. The one exception was my original amp, Sinclair Project 60, which was based on manufacturers info and my own prior experience of something alse of theirs.

In 1975 I had a mammoth session auditioning a dozen or so speakers in the same price bracket - and was astounded how completely different from one another they sounded, all the more so considering that the majority were the top their manufacturers' ranges, with a cost equivalent to about £2.5-3k today, and all had received good hifi reviews.  Following that experience I ensured that I did audition subsequent speakers (all two of them!).  But whilst I auditioned both of the CD players I have had and recently Audirvana and Dave, and my first Musical Fidelity pre & power amps, I did buy some further things over the years soley on the basis of reviews (Radford amp, RB300 arm, Coral777Ex and subsequent AT MC cartridges, Tag McLaren preamp)

I have never been disappointed with the sound I achieved, and I have always been content that I have had value for money, of course aided by most amps and speakers having been bought secondhand. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I bought a weird switch thing after it was recommended by some bloke who looks like someone out of Thunderbirds. 

I bought a 250DR to go with my 272 without listening to one because some fishy fella reckoned it was the bees knees, so I thought just crack on with it......

best

David

Yes...... Lingo 1 as soon as it came out. Couldn't listen to it because the shop hadn't got one (Audio T West Hampstead). Really wanted to be able to play 45's without the faff. Sonic improvement was a bonus

A Philips CD160. One of the first of the 16X4 players, which got rave reviews far and wide in the comics. 

One of the worst CD players I have ever heard, before or since. And the last piece of equipment I bought based on anybody else's recommendation and/or without an audition of some kind.

At the time, the outlay represented a huge chunk of my income. Not reckless but significant. Like the value of a good holiday or a three piece suite. I felt like such a fool. And I learned something important.

I've never bought anything that was reviewed in a mag without having a listen first. Many years ago I bought a pair of Royd Eden speakers (demo at Griffin in Birmingham) after reading a review by one Adam Meredith. The speakers are still delivering the goods driven by an old Nait 3 in my youngest daughter's system. 

BN

Nait 5, bought on reviews and reputation, I didn't get on with this one. It was my first Naim, I'd had a Sansui AU217 for 30 years and just swapped the Nait into the existing system with the required cables but it didn't gel and I upgraded to Rega separates after a month (I had to buy a dearer system to get the full value back from the Nait). I could probably get the best out of it now but in the system and setup I had then it was more hifi but less engaging than the Sansui. It took a CD5x, which I did demo, against a Saturn to get me to take on another Naim so source first you could say.

Yes, I demoed the Nait 5i-2 based on a review in a hi-fi buyer's guide. It had so many accolades that I had to add it to my shortlist. I had been considering tubes at the time but that demo convinced me to go with the Nait.