Post by zeus August 3, 2012 (1 of 88)
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I wanted to create a separate thread to address this, which seems to be something that just won't go away.
My original idea for this site was to use simple thumbs up/down ratings. The orthodoxy though seems to be stars so I went with this, then I was prevailed upon to go to half stars. Audiophiles seems to think in such quantitative terms. I then thought about qualifying what each level of stars meant, but decided to leave this up to each individual. It isn't an objective science and everybody will have their own idea of what sounds good or not. Also a change of player, speaker positioning, new cables etc can cause a reassessment of the relative worth of recordings. I know this from my own personal experience.
According to My Library here, I have 826 SA-CDs. Most purchased, but augmented by generous contributions by Morten Lindberg, Ray Kimber etc. It matters not because I don't do reviews here. And if you look at the site reviews where the disc may or may not be a freebie, there's a LOT of work in these for which a freebie is poor recompense. I'm satisfied of editorial integrity and you should be as well.
Anyway, of my SA-CD collection, I would rate about a dozen as exceptional, most as excellent (5 stars), many good (4 stars), less average (3 stars) and a few duds. This is far better than my experience with CD where average seems to predominate. But, as I said, things move about and my current player (SA-11s2) has made a lot of recordings on CD more accessible. My assessment isn't at odds with the ratings spread here. But criticism of this seems to suggest that some more focussed on audiophile aspects use more particular criteria. It's a subjective hobby and there's room for different values.
All I can suggest is that if you're bothered by the ratings to simply ignore them. Nobody is going to buy something or not based solely on the number of stars. It's what's said in the review that's the real meat and even then you don't have to agree with the thrust of a particular review to glean some worthwhile information from it. Which is why I allow (and encourage) multiple reviews for each title so we do get a range of views.
Until such time as someone comes up with a machine to read a disc and spit out a rating number it's the best we can hope for.
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zeus said:
I wanted to create a separate thread to address this, which seems to be something that just won't go away.
Until such time as someone comes up with a machine to read a disc and spit out a rating number it (the existing rating system) is the best we can hope for.
Actually I think the machine would be much less satisfactory than the reviewer's assessment.
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I do look at the stars but I do read each and every post and get an average rating for the disc I'm interested in.
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This is the place I go to to find out about a particular recording that I am interested in, and I have to say that I have been well served by the reviews I have read here.
Thank you to all those that take the time to put into words what you hear and feel about the recordings you have listened to.
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Post by jazz1 August 3, 2012 (5 of 88)
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I think that the problems lies with the 5 stars.
5 stars being the maximum how do we rate a stunning performance or a demo sound quality sacd.
Maybe if there is a consensus (5 or more reviews) this particular work or recording could get a "rosette"
Or this "rosette" could only be awarded if a thread was started and at least 3 or 5 of the follow up agreed with it.
They must be a way to be able to do it!! Maybe somebody could come up with a better idea than mine.?
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Post by zeus August 4, 2012 (6 of 88)
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jazz1 said:
I think that the problems lies with the 5 stars.
5 stars being the maximum how do we rate a stunning performance or a demo sound quality sacd.
While outstanding recordings are useful to show off your system or as a recommendation to new listeners to hear what the format is capable of, I hold that most are interested in music they really like with good to excellent sound. /toprecommendations (filtered by music you like) is a good starting point for this.
Also, as an exercise, next time you go to a concert try to rate what your hear in hifi terms. While timbral accuracy is guaranteed, I'd be surprised if it scores even an average rating, at least this has been my experience.
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Post by aoqd22 August 4, 2012 (7 of 88)
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I would vote to scrap the star system and go back to Stephen's original idea of using thumbs up/down ratings. I would also suggest updating the review guidelines so they indicate the reviewer should indicate in each review what layers of the disc they have listened to and if they have listened to the stereo layer via headphones.
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Post by Vaan August 4, 2012 (8 of 88)
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Text only. No ratings, no thumbs.
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Post by Jonty August 4, 2012 (9 of 88)
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I like the idea of thumbs but would suggest we have separate thumbs for performance and recording and extend it to the general recommendations as well as reviews. Quite often I would recommend a disc for the the recording but have reservations over the performance and visa versa but don't want to write a review.
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Post by windhoek August 4, 2012 (10 of 88)
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On the topic of ratings, what is meant by Performance and Sonics? Is performance about the music and Sonics about the SQ?
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