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Re: Be careful what you wish for...

<< none of the three examples you site has anything to do with reviewing a product or the reviewing process. >>

No, but it does prove that corrupt reporting can occur without the influence of gifts. And Consumers Reports proves how *useless* reporting can be that is also without the influence of gifts.

Art Dudley has admitted that he accepted an inexpensive gift from Musical Fidelity. Do you think his reviews are skewed because of this? I don't, but if you do, it's easy enough to stop reading his reviews.

<< if the reviewer doesn't know how to work one of your products or doesn't take the time to read the manual I say he shouldn't be attempting to review your or anyone else's products >>

In the real world, most reviewers have day jobs. They do reviews in their spare time on the evenings and weekends. They try to do one or two reviews a month, and get paid a few hundred dollars for doing so. They don't have time to read every detail in every manual of every piece of equipment they review.

Let me give you a concrete example -- our DX-7e DVD player. If you are in the "Setup" menu, should you select the "Picture Quality" setting to "Standard", "Cinema", or "Animation"? Sure, it's in the manual (downloadable from our website). But I spent weeks making that manual as concise and clear as possible and it's still over 80 pages long. Or how about our C-5xe multi-format player. If you are playing a DVD-Audio disc, how do you change to a different "Group". Or within a "Group", how do you select a specific "Soundtrack". Again, the answer is in the manual. Since it doesn't have to deal with all of the video bits and pieces, it is only half as long as the DVD player manual.

But still, I don't want to have the reviewer spending his time reading the obscure points in the manual. I'd rather have him *listening* to the unit, and comparing it to other competing components. That's going to do you, the reader, far more good in the end.

And again, what is the alternative? Would you have us provide the reviewer with *far worse* service than the normal customer gets by just shipping a box out with no explanations?

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