Guest : <font color='#000000'>Decided to come on over and speak up here:
While this thread may not be the place to point out other objectionable articles, reviews and/or comments Audioholics has published, it's worth mentioning there have been other controversies. This particular TGIII controversy, if it is indeed one, is not the first.
First, I would like to address your statement that you have never claimed to be experts. No, maybe you never have explicitly said you were experts. But your articles and reviews say plenty that make your audience believe you know a heck of a lot more about audio than the average reader. Your site serves a purpose of getting information out - unbiased information. And to get that information out responsibly. Yes, people should evaluate any product for themselves, but a site such as yours can put on or remove an item from a person's evaluation list. An irresponsible or unprofessional review of a product that is deserving of more can easily dissuade potential buyers from even demoing it at all. So your very public, and in most cases, respected opinions can be extremely influential to many people. Not unlike an experts opinion. Would you not agree to this? Having said this, read on.
To the subject at hand - the review of the TGIII: I don't have an overly huge problem with it in it's current state. But your explanation of how the original review escaped your normal checks and balances is less than reasonable. How is it that time and resources were limited? What constraints did you have that wouldn't have allowed the review to go through all of the normal checks and balances and delay the review until it had? Are you saying you had a deadline? If you say yes, I would love to hear the explanation for that one. My bet is that you won't respond to this because you don't have an explanation. And if that's true, then what you did explain is either not true, or you were just plain unprofessional in allowing that initial review to see the light of day. And if you can't tell the truth to your own forum members, or be consistently professional, then why would anyone have reason to trust your review of the TGIII or any other? This is what makes you controversial, not because you decide to publish a negative review.
That original review used the words "muddy", "tinny" and "piss yellow". Those words indicate you more than disliked the product - not that it was only "somewhat" deficient for the price as the review now states at the end. It also makes the reader wonder if there is an agenda against Sunfire. Those words were not appropriate, and to let them appear at all, even for a day, was irresponsible. A non-suspecting reader may have crossed the TGIII off his list simply because he trusted those remarks. And that was unfair to Sunfire, it's retailers, and to any potential buyer. You will respond with something like "well, other sites say "just buy them", what do you think about that?". We're not talking about other sites and their lack of professionalism. We're talking about yours and how it relates to this specific review and your credibility on the whole.
If you really felt the TGIII exhibited qualities of muddiness and tinnyness compared to anything, why remove those terms from the review? Those terms are not offensive (like piss yellow is). You can't answer this because you know I am correct in the above paragraph where I say those words were not appropriate. And by not appropriate, I mean not a true representation of what you really thought. So it is clear you published thoughts which were not true. Bravo once again for removing those misrepresentations. It is telling however that you would or could allow any misrepresentation to be printed.
Like you hope, I do appreciate your efforts in revising the review to read more diplomatically. I have to wonder though, what was the motivation in doing that? It was obvious to me that the revision came only after a big flare-up at the AVS forum regarding you and your review. Without that "bad press", I really wonder if the original review would still be intact. And if it would be, I think you would have a MUCH more difficult time defending it.
In the reviews current state, I think you are still overly harsh of some things. You are correct in pointing out many deficiencies that you believe to be critical at that price point. But you failed to give credit and even mention some of the features that were most likely put into the TGIII that were trade-offs to many (some nitpicky) things they didn't implement. You mention the extensive audio and video jacks, but you don't mention there are a whopping 3 component video inputs AND 2 outputs. What other piece has 2 outputs? A very nice included feature for some folks with two display devices! You don't even mention the front side effects channel availability. And your biggest mistake is the exclusion of anything regarding the staple of Bob Carver's feature set: Holographic Imaging. The exclusion of these features is again irresponsible and is a sign of objective reporting not being totally present.
You are adamant that the inclusion of only one IEEE port is a terrible thing, and maybe it is. But what good is two or three in today's world? Any more than one? This technology hasn't taken off, and when and if it does, there exists the possibility that one port could be useful. You can't know that it won't (for certain). I certainly do not, but I can foresee the possibility that an external IEEE hub or dual-headed cable would be able to accommodate a unit with only one port - not making it useless. Maybe, maybe not. Beating on this one point seems premature and unnecessary. The TGIII or any other unit that employs a single port may or may not be useless. You don't know, and you should have left it alone as every other review of it has. Not because they left it alone, but because that is the proper thing to do.
Your emphasis on SNR may well be valid. I have got to wonder though, if you were to take part in a blind test of preamps, would you be able to identify the TGIII every time (all other pieces being equal)? If your answer is that you could do it 10 out of 10 times because the noise level is so darn poor, then you are being overly arrogant and/or lying. And if you can't do it 10 out of 10 times, then maybe the measurements you so highly tout are every bit as suggestive to what you think you hear as someone else's flippant comments can be. I don't discount the importance of measurements and their impact on sound quality. I do however believe ones own ears and the emotional impact of what those ears actually hear in the end is a product of much more than SNR measurements alone. You can't simply state that good SNR measurements will ALWAYS equate to good sound reproduction. The inverse is also true. Are SNR measurements important? Definitely. To harp on it like you have suggests you have made up your mind about the product, once armed with measurements, before sitting down and actually listening to it though. Or that if you liked a product, but afterward found out it had poor SNR measurements, you would change your mind about liking it. And that would be unfair.
Is the TGIII review definitively unfair? I don't know for sure. I've addressed some questions - maybe some reasonable answers by the staff would clear it up???
Regards to all,
Mike
mpkistler@beckman.com</font>
