advice for cd player

[kittykat]

I'm sure that was meant light-heartedly, but I'll point out that Alan Shaw makes his living from selling people Harbeth speakers, and I think we would all give his words a fair bit of weight.

The fact that you have a personal interest in something doesn't necessarily make what you say untrue.

...Or unbias?

harbeth related ones excepted :-)

[EricW]

Kittykat: "untrue" and "unbiased" are two completely different things. I expect that Alan Shaw (for example) has a degree of bias in favour of Harbeths. To be expected. The ultimate question, of course, is whether he's right to hold that bias.

Bias, if it exists, exists prior to judgment and hence can influence judgment, but doesn't inevitably do so. Particularly in a competitive market, a degree of bias has to co-exist with a degree of objectivity, because if you're out of touch with reality, your competitors will eat you up.

[kittykat]

Hi EricW. Totally agree with you and I didn’t say they are similar.

Having vested interests does make certain predispositions in opinion more likely, not necessarily to the extent of telling fibs. It could be just a simple blurring of distinction between fact and fiction. The former could be “I am impartial and I did listen reasonably extensively across different candidates and am comfortable to make this recommendation” to a latter extreme of “I think this is a good cd player and as such ill recommend it” or even more extreme case of “im a distributor for this brand and as such ill recommend it on this forum”.

And you are right, if a bias is out of line it will result in eventual annihilation but it would have caused damage to a lot of people’s pockets in the interim.

[EricW]

Hi kittykat: you'll get no argument from me, because I entirely agree with you as well.

I must admit, I initially thought that perhaps macraddy had taken a bit more of a shot at garmtz than warranted, hence my first response.

But perhaps to repeatedly recommend a product that you have a personal (business) interest in promoting (though pretty indirect in garmtz's case, I would have thought), without disclosing that interest, is not the right thing to do. It may be done innocently, but if so, why not disclose. It would avoid misunderstanding.

[macraddy]

I'm sure that was meant light-heartedly, but I'll point out that Alan Shaw makes his living from selling people Harbeth speakers, and I think we would all give his words a fair bit of weight.

The fact that you have a personal interest in something doesn't necessarily make what you say untrue.

Absolutely true - but Alan Shaw wouldn't make unscientific statements that cannot be substantiated by using absolutes such ‘better’, especially when being concerned with the subjective nature of music reproduction...
(And my tongue is firmly in my cheek! I personally know hi-fi dealers who operate this way and some customers do respond to it.)

[garmtz]

My recommendations really are not intended to be commercial, as I live in The Netherlands and have no way of selling you Linn equipment. It is just out of me having tried a lot of equipment on Harbeth speakers and sharing this with the community. Admittedly, I have not tried EVERYTHING on the market, but I think neither have most consumers.

I will refrain from making recommendations then from now on.

[DrewTurner]

Hi Garmtz, I've enjoyed reading your recommendations.Please continue.I'm sure your intentions were honorable.

[EricW]

garmtz, I would echo Drew. I think recommendations from people who have personal experience with various equipment are always valuable and helpful. Unfortunately, we live in a cynical world. Maybe, to counter that, just add a brief sentence noting that you are a Linn (or whatever) dealer. Then everyone can decide for him- or herself how many grains of salt to add, but we don't all lose the benefit of your insight.

After all, even if someone is only the purchaser/owner of a piece of equipment, he/she could be said to be "biased" in favour of it by that fact alone, because who wants to admit they made a bad choice? So where are we going to find a panel of neutral, objective, well-informed judges who have absolutely no bias, and no personal interest in what they're writing about? Seems like an unrealistic plan to me.

And macraddy, actually, if you were to parse Alan's language strictly, you might find some of his language to be "unscientific" as well. Words such as "warm", "full", "rich", "uncoloured" etc. are not scientific in and of themselves. I don't think you can describe human experiences - which is ultimately what we're concerned with - in purely scientific terms (whatever those might be), even if you can maybe find scientific correlates for those experiences.

[garmtz]

Fair enough EricW, thanks! DrewTuner, Cheers!