Audoreview.com and Dagogo.com have been working together to promote the high-end audio hobby starting this year, and I recently accepted Constantine’s invitation to write reviews for Dagogo in my spare time. (Mr. LaBarge is the sole content developer at Audioreview.com, equivalent in capacity to an editor for online journals such as Dagogo. –Ed.)
I suppose like most audiophiles and audio hobbyists, my passion for great music and audio was passed down from my father to me. From conception to two years old, I’m positive I have heard more classic rock than most people will in a lifetime. As I grew up and eventually moved out west, my educationally progressive parents exposed me to Pink Floyd’s The Wall and took me to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show well before my 10th birthday. By the time I was in my late teens, I was an early adopter of computers and music, with Gigs of MP3s well before "Gig" was a common term. I played bass guitar and regular guitar in a Bay Area punk band for a while, but quickly moved on with influence from Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy. I used my Mac to create my own computer-based music for several years using software and live recorded sound. I learned about recording, mixing, mastering, and sound creation on my own as well as from a couple of classes in college.
Now I am in my early 30s, and my music taste has expanded to include everything from classical to early country, big band jazz, indie rock, techno, rock, hardcore and more. I pretty much like at least something from every style of music. My ears and taste have greatly changed throughout the years but I still have my 120+ Gigs of MP3s, even though I now listen to my turntable most often.
My wife and I live in Oakland, CA and I mainly focus on listening to and reviewing products in my price range, with a particular interest in components well suited to the urban apartment life style. Thousand-dollar interconnects are nice, 7-foot-tall speakers can be awesome, but these either aren't in my price range or wouldn’t fit into my apartment. I do however still get a good amount of exposure to exceptional hi-fi systems from friends, events, and Bay Area system hops.
My listening room is roughly 10 feet wide, 15 feet long, and 7 feet high. The speakers are along the short wall, spaced roughly 6ft apart and 2ft from the front wall. In the left hand wall is a 8ft long multi-plain, almost floor to ceiling window with drapes, and on the other side is a 6ft french door entrance to a large walk-in closet. Sounds nice right? Actually in the afternoon the light is warm and ethereal. The floor is completely carpeted and there is light high frequency dampening material on the walls. The room is not perfect, which makes it perfect, for my goal here at Dagogo.
My personal theory on reviews is that they should be read as a guide and not as a definitive report. System and room conditions vary, ears age and taste change. Components might sound different, not always better or worse.
I’m not sure I fully agree that the goal of an audio system is to reproduce with complete transparency, nor do I believe that the best two-channel audio system will ever be able to reproduce with 100% accuracy the sound of a live instrument. I’ve just spent too much time at bands practice, at shows, and in recording studios to fall for that one.
I’m interested in how something sounds and not what it should like. I want help guide readers in audio purchases based on what I like and they like, not what I think they should have, or what some mystical, theoretical, perfect sound should be. You want live, hire a band to play in your living room. You want good sound, listen to a lot of systems and learn what you like and what works in your room.
My goal in reviewing audio is two-fold. Find, listen, focus on, and clearly describe components affordable to those who want hi-fi but have a limited budget. Secondly, I will continue to reach out to as many in the Gen Y crowd as I can. They must be cured of their low-fi affliction.
