AV Rant #222: Cranky Cohost
No, not Liz. Though that would have been cool too. Instead, Tom means to be misbehaving and, chances are, someone you know and love (and maybe bought products from) is going to get hurt. You’ve been warned. Manufacturer Madness. Stories from the front lines. Hsu goes a little overboard and it all goes to hell. Some cables that will NEVER be reviewed on Audioholics. An Axiom review? Corsair turns out to be the model by which all manufacturers should base themselves. Lots of behind the scenes action here. Juan takes some advice and it works. Tom gets real with his advice to emailers. Now’s the time to ask before he gets a good night’s sleep. Liz and Tom find the only 3D glasses they want and can’t have. Get your updated home theater into the Listener Systems now. Rebroadcasting broadcast TV. Guitar Hero – Zombie Edition. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote for us at Podcast Alley! To see our (mostly) complete collection of show videos, click here. To get our iPhone app, visit the iTunes store. Download Tom’s ebook Bob Moore: No Hero which is pretty much available everywhere.
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The Guitar Hero thing was really weird… primarily because it’s so much better for instruments than Rock Band – but they did such a lousy job marketing it as a “band” game… Dropping it was a true surprise.
Ahh…the subwoofer shootout: what a sh**storm that thing has turned out to be for Audioholics. Given all the freaking out and fallout that I experienced from my short-lived Epik Sentinel review, I can’t say I’m the least bit surprised, sadly 🙁 What is it about making and selling subwoofers that turns a company into a bunch of whining, panicked freak-o-s who can’t take ANY criticism?
I wasn’t surprised by the HSU VTF-15H results. I have their older VTF-3 MK2 and my ONE wish with that subwoofer is that it would extend just a little bit deeper with more output in the really low sub-25Hz area. Other than that, I think it’s excellent!
That was pretty much the exact same thing that was said about the VTF-15H…so what’s the big deal? Ridiculous on Pete’s part to go around trying to deny it all over the place.
The funniest part of it all is that if Audioholics (or anyone else) were to do a truly doulbe-blind listening comparison of subwoofers, we’d wind up with an article telling us what science already knows: as humans, we suck at hearing bass!
We can’t tell where it’s coming from, our ability to hear it at all varies WILDLY depending on the SPL, we are barely able to tell distortion from the original signal – when it comes to bass “quality” about the only things that matter are total output, extension down to the limits of human perception and transient (stops and starts) response. Almost everything else is stuff that we might be able to measure, but as far as actually being able to HEAR it, our crappy human hearing can’t tell one, low-rumbling source from another!
It’s all very silly. If I were a subwoofer manufacturer, I’d be more like that ridiculous “Blessed Cables” guy. Who cares what the review says! Just try and get a mention on a big website with lots of readers! Because the benefits of getting a lot of people to so much as hear of your brand’s name matters WAY more than catching some flack in the review itself!
Clint – Not sure I agree with that. I always preferred the RB instruments – guitars especially. With the cymbals on both games destined to fail, including them with GH seemed doomed from the start.
Rob – That’s been my point with Bob. The sure way never to sell a book, even a free one, is if people never hear about it. Give me a bad review, just talk about the book damn it. I’ve said it over and over, no matter how much I slam a product, there is always someone out there that reads the review, finds the one thing they care about, and still buys the product.
That Hsu review was a good one. It takes a dillhole like Peter to turn it into a negative.
For those that didn’t catch it, here’s that Corsair link – http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/lifestyle-desktop-and-portable/corsair-sp2500-2-1-speakers